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11 tweets,
4 min read
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I've done 8 tweets on what (to my mind) would be a very rough blueprint for some ways to look at language at KS2 and KS3. They follow this tweet. I'll try to do them as a thread.
1/I would always start with the formula 'language in use'. I would work from examples in speech (recordings and transcripts) as much as written language. I would use varieties of written language including poetry, ads, instructions etc. I would always ask who, where, when, why?
2/ I would explain that for hundreds of years people have tried to describe and explain language just as we try to describe and explain how cats behave and that people disagree which means that the words to describe the 'what' of language and the 'why' are not perfect,right/wrong
3/ I would collect questions that children have about language. I would get them to make 'language-maps' of their own language(s)-use...where from? from whom? mum/dad/nanna/grandad/playground/school...
4/I would immerse them in the idea of language(s) and codes variations to see that language is about *choice. We choose how to speak and write. I would of course explain in this context that there is one code and one kind of language called 'standard English'
5/ We would go on a standard English Hunt. Where is it? Why is it one place rather than another? What's it for? How is it different from other codes and languages we know or can find? I would get the children to look closely at 'features' of this SE.
6/ How is it possible imitate SE? Is it like 'doing impressions'? Or copying writers? Copying writers doing what? What are the different kinds of writing where SE is used? 'Genres'. Are there variations within SE? If so which, how, why?
7/ Are there non-SE ways of writing e.g. poetry, ads, instructions? Can we collect types of writing and speaking that we like? Where shall we put these? In 'anthologies' ? On the wall?
8/ What methods of description and explanation are there for all this stuff (1-7)...sentences, 'whole texts', how and why people use language in talk ('pragmatics'). What is 'rhetoric'? What is 'intertextuality'? What is 'narratology'? There are very simple ways of explaining.
