Anglophone Cultures Year 8

Why do so many people around the world speak English? This course takes a look at the many areas of the world where the English language plays a big part, and how it has come to do so. We will also study the process of language creation, from a biological as well as a linguistic point of view.

CONTENT

We will learn about the English language influences in the world.

We will read and listen to text and talk from a variety of Englishes.

We will look at how words and grammars are built, and have a go at deciphering other kinds of English than the written standards.

We will study the genre of travel writing, and you will create your own travel blogs and vlogs, learning to use online tools for this.

We will delve into the world of advertising, and consider the power of words in general, as well as learn new subject terminology.

TARGET

At the end of the course, you should ...

... be able to describe and compare different styles of blog/vlog.

... be able to create an online blog, using both text and video.

... have developed your thinking concerning the connections between images and text when it comes to conveying atmosphere and balancing content.

... have a working knowledge of the genre of travel writing and its different forms

... have expanded your knowledge of the English-speaking world.

... have developed some strategies for communication when the level of English fluency is not sufficient either with you, the person you are speaking with, or both. 

... have developed your understanding of why and how English has spread around the world, and be able to explain and exemplify different ways other language cultures use English.

... be able to analyse and express an opinion on an advertisement, using subject terminology.

... have given a prepared oral presentation.

RESOURCES

WIX

ASSESSMENT

Throughout the course, there will be a number of assignments, tasks and quizzes which serve as learning material in preparation for the final assessment (an individual presentation, a group discussion and a written task), but which can also serve as proof of skills and knowledge. The more active you are in class, the greater your chance is of learning and showing that learning. Only tasks submitted on time will be given feedback. 

Uppgifter

TEST: Travelog

You will be asked to write a blog entry about your trip, based on some or all of the given photos.

Your job is to show your destination to the reader/viewer, so that they get a sense of

• what the place is like
• what typical things you can experience there

You will be assessed on your ability to:

• Present your content using both facts and anecdotes.
• Use a personal writing style and consider your tone (serious, formal, informal, humorous etc.) so that the reader/viewer get to know you a little through your texts.
• Use varied and correct language.

Here is a set of photos for you to practise on. (Voluntary homework.)

Promoting New Heroes

It's time to set about promoting the individual or group (working hard for change in an area you think is important) you have chosen as deserving of more attention and public awareness. YOU CANNOT CHOOSE SOMEONE WHO ALREADY IS BIG IN THE PUBLIC EYE.

This time, you are not restricted to printed ads. You can also work with a friend or in a group, using the same promotion plan, but still one "hero" each.

Step 1: Pick your Hero (you did this already)

Step 2: Devise a cunning strategy for world domination (or just how you will get your hero noticed). This could include media (including social media) exposure, billboards, events and live campaigns.

Step 3: Submit your Strategy Document (Friday 8/5, no late than 9:30). It should include:

• a mission statement (quick presentation of who you have chosen and why they are heroes)
• a campaign strategy (What exactly (be specific) would you do to increase their publicity and make people see them as heroes? How would you attempt to promote this kind of celebrity over other types (e.g. reality show celebrities?)
• details on the poster you plan to make (for promotion here at school) - think about what subject skills you can show off here. One poster per student. The poster is due Friday 15/5 (before class).

Blog Review

You will have 2 lessons to finish this.

If you are done early, serch for other travel blogs to check out. You will be making your own soon.

Check out Carmela's and Paul's blogs, and read parts of them; enough to be able to: review their blogs by comparing and contrasting their style and content using PEE. We will do this in DigiExam later (around 400 words).

Link to their blogs:

https://claireatrodaberg.wixsite.com/english/anglophone-cultures

Use this guide to prepare and look most carefully at the templates, as the pink boxes show examples of review text.

https://prezi.com/52jf0mcp2imx/support-blog-review-travelogue-pre/

Blog review Paul Mela yr 8.pdf

Blog review Paul Mela yr 8.pdf

You can make a document with tables and write in them, or write here in flowing text. Your choice.

BEGINNERS:

Just read as much of the blogs as you can

Blog post 1 - draft and peer-editing

1. Open your text in Word and make sure any pictures are also there.
2. Give your computer to one of your team and take one of theirs (Teams below).
3. Read their text. Look for the items on the checklist. Highlight them with the colours used in the example box. Take a screenshot of the text with highlights and paste it here. Also write who you (the editor) are.
4. Think about what can be improved and how.
5. When you are done, go through the texts, explaining thoughts, suggesting ideas for improvement, and trying to figure out solutions to problems.
6. When you are happy with this post, continue with scripting your vlog.

How to mark

Example

Groups

HW: Review: Travelog

1. Look at your blog and score yourself on the rubric. use your friends as help if you are unsure.
2. Then look at your text from the test in DigiExam. Change the score to fit the best of your test texts. EVEN if you did worse than in the original blog.
3. What should you have done differently? Write here.

You will be writing one more blog post later on, about PRAO.

I will score you when you are done.

Prao Poetry

Poem - create two haiku poems, at least three verses long, one about the postives of your job and one about the negatives. You can also do one longer haiku if you prefer, incorporating positives and negatives.

https://kellyrfineman.livejournal.com/875143.html

(Voluntary) re-submission: ELH

If your result on the English Language History exam did not match your current grade or the grade you aspire to, you may do this task to make up for it. If you have not passed this previously, you must do this task. If you passed (more than 20 points on English Language History 8ab or more than 15 points on ELH yr8 (regular)), but wish to improve, this is an extra chance, but it is not obligatory.

FINAL CHANCE ASSESSMENT IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE HISTORY

1. Open the presentation on ELH

2. Open your laptop camera to record video. Check that your sound is working.

3. Go through slides 2-5 of the presentation and explain in your own words what it is about.

4. Submit here. Check that I have been given access, as I will not ask again this time.

When you have done this, you should have given answers to the following questions:

• What is the historical reason why English is spoken in so many places in the world?

• How/why is English spoken by so many people today?

• What kinds of influence has English had, and continues to have on other languages?

• What are pidgins and creoles?

Travelog from an English-speaking area

You will create your own travel blog.

• Use a minimum of three blog posts, one of which should be a vlog (video) and two should be written text. (Beginners: 1 written, 1 vlog)
• You should also include photos (your own or borrowed) with captions and sources.
• Present your content using both facts and anecdotes.
• Use a personal writing style and consider your tone (serious, formal, informal, humorous etc.) so that the reader/viewer get to know you a little through your texts.
• Make your layout match the topic (blog background should probably not be a tropical beach if your destination is the Alps).

You will get help to use wix.com, but you may use whatever blogging tool you like. Another popular one is nouw.com

Your job is to show your destination to the reader/viewer, so that they get a sense of

• what the place is like,
• what typical things you can experience there,
• what stereotypes exist concerning the place and the people and whether or not they are true.

Examples for inspiration:

https://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/tips-tricks/examples-of-travel-blogs-created-with-wordpress-for-your-inspiration

https://firstsiteguide.com/best-travel-blogs/

HW: Ad presentation

Analysing Advertising.pdf

1. Homework: pick an advert and enter it here.

Also add it to this presentation and add your name.

https://elevstockholm-my.sharepoint.com/:p:/g/personal/claire_mackrory-wrangsjo_edu_stockholm_se/ERQebYLZ_vFKpqpMVclzlVEBvGq273d1MbEWchHEUDGeoQ?e=2m3v5w

2. Classwork:

• Analyse your chosen advert using the guidelines you were given in the intro lecture (pdf:s below).
• You will present live in class, and receive assessment in line with the scoring rubric (matris) - check it as you prepare!

components_of_printed_ad.pdf

From_presentation.pdf

3. Homework (you will work on it in class one lesson).

• Practise presenting your advert using only the given bullet-points. You MAY NOT use any personal notes for this task.
• Film yourself presenting and watch the video. Fill out the Forms questionnaire: https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=6SZn45RNd0q-YdRZf0rNAkTZSjr1sCFAjARYx8NdrzpUOVdFSEozMUJFOFJQWlQ1M1UwUzdNSVdDSi4u
• Score yourself on the rubric (matris) Analysing Advertising - oral presentation skills

Preparing_for_your_ad_presentation.pdf

HW: Book Club

You will take part in a Book Club presentation, where you will discuss:

• the Bill Bryson books/texts/videos
• other examples of descriptive and/or travel writing from certain areas (i.e. the book/text you chose from your travelog area and any other you wish to include as examples of texts describing anglophone cultures).

Preparation:

Look through and take notes on the texts you are using, specifically:

• How do the authors convey the atmospheres of the places they are describing?
• What kinds of things do you get to read about? 
• Do you come across stereotypes? Which ones? Is there truth in them?

SUBMIT: The titles of the texts you have read.

TEST: English Language History

Test/re-test Wednesday 22/2

Beginners! Scroll to the bottom of this text.

You will need to be able to relate the following:

• How and why English is a world language (history, geography, politics, technology, social structure all come into this).
• Some typical features ("mistakes") of ESL = English as a second language (compared to native English).
• Development of pidgins and creoles.

You will also have a listening comprehension test on accents and dialects.

The test and results will be in DigiExam.

ELH 2022.pdf

The making of words.pdf

https://elevstockholm-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/g/personal/claire_mackrory-wrangsjo_edu_stockholm_se/ER4DW_jP9fxOu11vPJIStfEB1M2s3fvMlfdzg9lnAHxR7Q?e=vq56m1

Beginners

Answer these questions (use the presentation ELH2022 above for information):

• Why do so many people/countries around the world speak English?
• What is a pidgin and what is a creole? How and why did they start?

TEST: Analysing Advertising

You will be asked to answer a number of questions about advertising and analyse a given advert according to the principles we have practised, using the subject terminology.

advertising check.pdf

Study questions:

1. What do adverts want? Do they all want the same thing? How can you best describe the main aim of any advert?
2. What is the most important thing about an advert and why? Think about different parts that are important, then clarify what the order of importance is.
3. If you were to devise, for magazine publication, an ad campaign for a hair-care product or a cleaning product, how would you do it? Explain how and why you would use different advertising strategies. Be sure to name the strategy, give an example of how you would do it, and explain why that would be effective.
4. What steps do you need to cover in the analysis of an advert?

HW: Review English Language History

1579602904599_elh_1617(2).pdf

Review the slides and your notes.

elh_1617 (2).ppsx

CW/HW: Bill Bryson - Style & Tone

Part 2: Homework

Read a few pages of each of these texts, to get a good sense of the writing style.

Excerpt from A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson.pdf

Notes_from_a_Small_Island_ch1-3.pdf

Excerpt from Notes From a Small Island by Bill Bryson.docx

PART 1: Class work

Watch the video, read the text, fill out the boxes.

Bill Bryson explanations.pdf

White Teeth - read and learn the words

Presentation1.pdf

https://www.vocabulary.com/lists/6564348/practice

Also: SAS commercial video

HOME STUDY: Genre: Travel Writing

• Follow the link to find and check out the travel blogs of these two former students of Rödaberg.
• Take notes on what is typical of each blog (language style, layout, content etc). Use bullet points to make it easy to compare the two blogs. Write your notes here & submit.

https://claireatrodaberg.wixsite.com/english/anglophone-cultures

HW: Bill Bryson vocabulary

Learn the words

Excerpt from Notes From a Small Island by Bill Bryson.docx

Evaluation - Travelog

1. Open two windows on your computer - one with your blog, the other with the rubric/matris "Online communication: Blog - Travelog"
2. Switch computers with your deskmate.
3. Score them carefully on each point in the rubric. If you are unsure, go lower - in this case, it's kinder to undervalue, as it helps them think and improve.
4. Switch back to your own computer
5. Take a screenshot or photo of how you were scored and submit it here, naming the person who scored you.
6. Now score yourself. This could mean changing the score your classmate gave you, if you disagree with it.
7. Finally, complete these Forms-questions https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=6SZn45RNd0q-YdRZf0rNAkTZSjr1sCFAjARYx8NdrzpURThaR1FFU1FFWEQ4WTJNWjdVUTQwWUxLUS4u

Ad Analysis Practice

1652200246801_advertisingintro.pdf

Look at the advertisements. For each one, explain ​

how you know the answers to these questions.​

​

1. Who is the advertiser?​
2. Who are the intended audiences?​
3. What is the purpose of the advertisement?​
4. What is the advertisement´s message?​
5. What is its appeal (what makes it interesting)?

Bill Bryson - Stockholm

1. Read the text.
2. Look up the highlighted words and find their Swedish meaning.
3. Answer these questions here.

• (Page 4) What surprised Bryson about the Palme murder?
• (Page 9) If you don't know what sentries are, how can you work it out?
• How does Bryson create humour in this passage?

Bill Bryson - Neither Here Nor There - Chapter 12 - Stockholm.pdf

My trip (beginners)

Where did you go?

What did you see and do?

What did you think?

Tell me about your (fake or real) trip.

You are travelling in the the country of Hadland.

Capital city: Hadley. Smaller town: Hermann

You have friends there. Look at the photos - what did you do during your trip?

Write simple sentences.

HW: Reading 1

https://besttravelwriting.com/category/great-stories/

Select one of the available stories, read it and write down here which one you read.

In class you will:

• re-tell the story in a small group
• answer some questions about the story
• work with identifying devices and techniques used in the story