Enjoy these (according to me) brilliant sketches! =)
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Lauren is not invited
Lauren Copper meets Tony Blair, PM
Here are your answers to the task connected to these clips!
And then, when you have finished the tasks on idiolect & youth sociolect I expect you to reflect with a comment here on the following: in what ways have your studies in English at upper secondary school taught you to be flexible when it comes to using the language? Try to identify different situations and a development in your usage.
I guess we have learned more ways to use english and a little bit more where to use what kind of english. But i still think that there is a lot to learn, because there is still many situatiotions that we do no know the proper way to speak. For example we do not know very much about the youth sociolect and yes i know that we are learning it now. I think that we only learn the proper english which can be used anywhere but still there are english that is more proper in different situations. But of course tasks like the academic writing has made us more flexible. The project we are working on right now will also make us more flexible. But exept that i can´t come up with anything else. Perhaps how to be informative and open and closed forms and etc but does that make us more flexible? million dollar question.
SvaraRaderaI believe that my studies in English at the upper secondary school have taught me to be pretty flexible, but there are definitely situations in life that would make me very insecure of using the language because I would be worried about using incorrect grammar and phrases.
SvaraRaderaMaybe it would be helpful to actually practise speaking different accents... Because I do find it hard to understand some heavy brittish accents and slang sometimes!
I have definitely developed my usage of English in every day situations by meeting international exchange students at school.
/Vendela
Before this term, I had learned a little about dialects, and how they vary among different parts of the English speaking world, including Irish, Australian, Scottish, and South African dialects. Unfortunately, I have not yet visited any of these countries. Nor have I read any book written in such a dialects. Thus, I have so far not had much use of my knowledge. I think I have improved somewhat when it comes to writing formal and non-formal texts, and should thereby be better prepared for different situations. Still, I am very restricted if and when I need to write something other than the “Queen’s English” or “American English”; I am constantly confronted with formal English through books, TV and films. Even if I have now got some insights into youth sociolectics, I think this is very hard to learn unless you actually live in such an environment and is confronted with it on a daily basis. Nevertheless, I think it’s great fun to go through the differences that exist in the English language, and it will definitely help me a lot to increase the flexibility of my language.
SvaraRaderaBest regards,
Henrik M
English A didn’t focus on how to be flexible with your language usage. However it was in the B course that you needed to expand the usage of different words and synonyms. This have only improved my English when writing since you have the time to think through what word you should use in a certain sentence. My verbal English is therefore more “casual” and adapting to different audiences becomes tricky sometimes. Another reason to why my writing might be better than my oral English is because we focused more on writing in English B, for instance writing in class and argumentative texts.
SvaraRadera/Simon
We have written essays in academic writing which I thought was very worthwhile because you had to use a really formal and proper language. But for example when we work in groups and just talk with each other I normally talk more informal and use words such as “like”, “stuff” and other slang words a lot.
SvaraRadera// Sofia
I feel like I am able to use my english in every situations, that I can think of. For example; discussions, formal situations, not formal situations and so on.
SvaraRaderaFelicia R
I don’t think my studies at the upper school have really taught me how to use the English language in different ways. I have mostly learned slang and youth sociolect from TV-shows and music. In school we have typically worked on different papers connected to books, and these books have been classics. And of course classics are important to read since we get the basics of the language but they don’t really give us a variety in the usage of language. I think the school wants us to become flexible as long as it’s in a well-kept language, which is very understandable.
SvaraRaderaWe are well prepared to talk to principals of Universities, for the reason that we have a proper language. But if we were supposed to chat with a British teenager we would probably just understand a third of what they were saying and that is for the reason that they use a lot of slang. But all languages have slang, but I think it is not that necessary to teach us slang in school because languages around the world are expanding daily and the slang that the teenagers are using today will probably not be used in 10 years. So the proper British that we are taught in school will probably be useful our whole lives for the reason that it is well-kept.
/Annie
To be honest, I'm not sure if school has taught me much on when or where to use "different" kinds of English. In a way, I guess it just comes naturally. It's the same as with Swedish; you automatically, unconsciously even, adapt. When writing a paper in school, I will undoubtedly use a more proper language compared to when I'm just chatting with my peers. Lately, I've even found myself changing my spelling depending on whom I'm writing to - Americans or Australians/Englishmen. But as I said, I don't think any of this has developed because of the English I have studied at school. The lessons have been good for learning how to structure different kinds of academic texts, how to tackle complex books and plainly by helping keeping my proficiency alive. However, you can't be taught everything in school. I think that in order to become flexible in using your language, you have to be faced with different situations that require different skills from you. Studying English in school might give you a head start, but in the end, you will most likely learn a lot more by just talking to a British teenager for an hour or two.
SvaraRadera/Alex
I think my studies in English have taught me a lot, but I am not as flexible as I wish. I think different teachers have different ideas about which English we should learn. For example, when I started learning English in third grade, I was taught to only speak with this really British accent because it was English I was learning and not “American”. I think that is changing more and more today because the English language is influenced by America. We listen to music, watching movies and TV- series and I think that is a very good way to learn how to be flexible on our own.
SvaraRaderaAs a few already mentioned, you learn a lot just by talking to a British or an American teenager for a while, or if you travel to a country where you have to speak English. I think we are pretty flexible, we can understand and read different types of text and watch different movies, but I am very insecure when it comes to academic writing and speaking because I haven’t learned that as much as I would want to in the previous courses.
As for the slang, I don’t think that it something we can learn in school. Slang is always changing and is also very different depending on where you are. Slang is however very interesting but not something we need to learn in school.
/Charlotte