L3 English Induction

Go back to L3 online home page.
Welcome to your Level 3 English induction workshop. You will need the following for this session:
Your Personal Progress Record (PPR) and your L3 Criteria and Scaling document. The remaining resources you need for this session are below.
Finally, here is your collaborative glossary. You can add to/ comment on each of the terms if you wish.

Instructions
Work with one or two other people and discuss these situations / questions:
1. Imagine you have been waiting at the station to meet someone who is half an hour late. What do you say to them when they arrive if they are:

• your friend
• a colleague
• your boss
• your partner or child?

2. How does the language change, and why? Consider:

• vocabulary, e.g. register (formality of words used), colloquial phrases (used mostly in informal / spoken language) slang (very informal words, not ‘standardised English’), and expressions
• grammar, e.g. sentence structure
• pronunciation, e.g. intonation, stress patterns (what words or parts of words are emphasised?).

3. Now imagine that the train is an hour late and you miss your meeting. To whom do you complain, and how? Which mode of communication (for example, in person, a phone call, a letter, an email, a form) is most effective and why?

Look at the descriptions of spoken language terms in the quiz below and match them to the definitions by choosing a, b, or c. You will be able to check your answers at the end.
If you finish before other people, go and check if the words are in your collaborative glossary. Add them if not.

You are going to watch a video now (via the weblink below). As you watch, consider which of the terms below you could use to comment on the speakers’ use of language (make some notes)?
Term for analysis

• accent
• dialect
• idiolect
• standard English
• non-standard English
• Received Pronunciation

Find, skim read and discuss the following guides from the Plain English Campaign website:

• How to write in Plain English

• The A-Z of alternative words

Consider why plain English is a key consideration when selecting texts to read, and when writing.

You are going to do a ‘language history’ task before the next session. Take a moment to thank about the following questions – we are going to discuss them together:

1. What languages and / or language varieties can you speak (consider accent and dialect)?
2. What views did your parents / teachers hold on speech, language and education?
3. When did you first become aware that people in Britain speak English and / or other languages in different ways?
4. How does your language change when you are speaking to different people (for example, in terms of grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation)?

Follow this link to access a ‘Google Docs’ version of the text A holiday job. You are going to proofread this text and comment on it through different ‘spectacles’ that we allocate to you.
If you are struggling to access the Google Docs version, you can download the text here.