British Culture and Language Lessons and Homework
British Culture and Language Lessons and Homework
Thursday 5th December
We met to discuss your topics for the Group Paper or Presentation you are going to do for the End-of-Semester verifica. I also gave you back your Unvieristy Homework and collected in your Virtual Heritage sites Homework. Anybody who hasn’t yet handed this in can leave it in my pigeon hole in VSR.
I reminded you again that the topic should relate to something we have done during the course and include an analytical element which relates the information presented to aspects of Englishness (or not!). It should be written/prepared using reputable academic material which you can find on the sites ResearchGate and Academia. For many of the topics a first look at the relevant sections in Kate Fox’s Watching the English would be a useful starting point. You are welcome to come to talk to me about any doubts or problems you are experiencing with your work. The deadline fo the Papers is January 15th and I want to have the Presentations during that same week. I have fixed a date and posted it here on the Moodle page.
A look at the notes on Papers and Presentations in our section of the page might be useful to remind you of the conventions and requirements for writing an academic paper and for preparing and delivering a Presentation.
..Lesson 9 Thursday 28th November
Today was the last formal lesson, but I shall be in Aula 14 VC next Thursday (5th December) from 3 to 5 pm for you to come to talk to me about your proposed topic for the Presentation and have your topic approved or receive suggestions for modifications, alternatives, etc. Not all members of the Group need come (although they are welcome to do so), but at least 2, if not 3 should come for the appointment.
I gave back the 10 things about tea Homework and I collected in your Homework on the University courses and Entry Requirements. I'll give these back to you next week or you can collect from me during office hours.
We went through this week's material which was History and Heritage. History has a very important role in British culture and the concept of 'heritage', cultural possessions belonging to the whole Nation which are to be preserved and handed down to future generations, is particularly interesting. The strong link which is perceived between the past of history and the present of life today is also important as is the idea of experiencing and re-living history rather than merely observing or describing it. We made a brief investigation of the two national bodies which 'manage' heritage, English Heritage and the National Trust. We also looked at the re-living and direct experience of history, where the link between the past and the present is emphasied again. We looked at two museums in York, the Castle Museum (Kirkgate and Rowntree Snicket) and the Jorvik Centre which offer recreations of life in York in previous periods (late-19th Century; 10th Century) for visitors to experience directly. This re-living history theme is present in the language used for tourist material about historical places which also goes against the British reflex of Moderation and value of Modesty (Kate Fox), since it is characterised by superlatives and direct address.
I added some last points with respect to language and history, considering English past tenses and lack of future tenses, which seems to reflect the interest in history (the past) - especially through the present perfect which is used to talk about the past with respect to the present - and the uncertainty about the future, since there is no future tense in English, it has to be constructed with various modals which originally expressed intention.
We talked about your Papers and Presentations. I reminded you again that the topic must be approved by me and should relate to something we have done during the course and include an analytical element which relates the information presented to aspects of Englishness (or not!). It would be useful to have a second choice of topic already agreed upon in the group in case your first choice is not approved by me. I warned you that both Papers and Presentations should be all your own work and not simply cut and paste from Wikipedia or other sources. I warned you sternly about plagiarism and said I would put up links to sites which explain exactly what plagiarism is in our Section of the page. We went rather quickly over acknowledging sources within the text and in the References section for papers and in the References section for presentations. Papers should consist of two pages written by each member of the group on their particular topic and then approx. 1 page as Introduction to the whole paper and approx. I page as Conclusion to the whole paper and then the References section, so approx. 12-14 pages in total, with also a Cover page on which. For Presentations, each individual section should last approx. 4 minutes and one member of the group should also act a Coordinator and introduce the whole presentation and the other member of the group and make transitions between each section and an overall conclusion to the whole Presentation, including asking if there are any questions and thanking the audience for their attention. All this information is available on a page in our Section of the Moodle page.
Homework
for next week (05.12.19)
Visit the National Trust Website or the English Heritage Website and make a virtual visit of one of the places on it. Write up a description of your visit, including comments on the kind of language used and any details of living-history events or activities which are listed on the site about the place in question, to hand in next week.
..Lesson 8 Thursday 21st November
I gave back your scones homework and told you that the powder used to combine with flour to make cakes, etc, rise in called Baking Powder (GB) or Baking Soda (US) whereas the organism which is used to make flour rise for bread is called yeast. I collected in your 10 new things you learnt about tea from the websites Homework.
I then reminded you that as this is the penultimate lesson, it might be time for you to start thinking and discussing with your group the topic for the paper or presentations you intend to prepare for the End-of-Semester Test. I also reminded you that the topic should relate to something we have done during the course and include an analytical element which relates the information presented to aspects of Englishness (or not!). I reminded you to use only British material and suggested that you look not just a websites but also at academic articles which you could find on ResearchGate or Academia, two very useful on-line sources with reputable academic papers published by academics available to download without any payment (unlike GoogleScholar!).
We did this week’s topic: School and University, looking briefly at the history of compulsory education in England and Wales and the ages it applied to in various periods and then at the contemporary situation focussing on the National Curriculum, the division into Key Stages and Core and Foundation subjects, the time spent at school (hours and weeks), school uniform, teachers' age, gender, ethnicity and pay (all in direct contrast with the Italian situation). We also looked at words and phrases from the world of school which have entered general language use before looking at University. We covered numbers of universities and students, tuition fees, maintenance grants, student loans and application procedure.
Next lesson will be our last formal lesson, but the following week (Thursday 5th December) I shall be available in Aula 14 at the usual lesson time for you to come to talk to me in your groups about proposed topics for your papers and presentations. Remember that you must have your topic approved by me before you can present it as the End-of-Semester test.
Homework for the next lesson (28.11.19)
Imagine you are a young British person in your final year of school who wants to go to university. Find out how to apply for a university course, find out which Universities offer the course you are interested in and what the entry requirements are for that course.
Write up what you find (full sentences! Not cut and paste!) to hand in next week.
Lesson 7 Thursday 14th November
I gave back your celebrity chef Presentation notes. I checked your Scones Making homework by looking at your photographic evidence. I also collected in your written notes on the experience. Everyone seemed to have enjoyed the experience, although there was some variety in the shape of the finished products!.
The material for this week was Drink, concentrating on the two iconic British beverages, Tea and Beer. We covered a brief history of tea in Britain, how and how often it is drunk and pointed out its role as a remedy for all kinds of physical and emotional stress, as well as providing a means of overcoming the social dis-ease felt when visitors come to a British home: "I'll put the kettle on!".
For Beer we again did a brief history on how and where it is drunk talking about the rise of the large commercial breweries and the reaction to these made by enthusiasts for more traditional types of beer (CAMRA) and the recent development of many Artisan or Craft Breweries which stem both from this reaction and from the recent Food Revolution looking for healthier, more natural kinds of food and drink. We talked also about the role of the pub and how recently this role seems to have been abandoned as British people prefer to take advantage of cheap alcohol prices in supermarkets and the availability of electronic forms of home entertainment - meaning that the very important role of social bonding which the pub performed is now being lost.
Homework for next lesson (21.11.19)
Look at the tea websites I have put links to in our section of the Moodle page and list 10 things which you didn't previously know about tea that you have found on them. Write your list on a piece of paper to hand in next week.
Lesson 6 Thursday 7th November
I gave back the films using dialects homework. We then finished looking at the material on Food which we had began last lesson, food from other culinary traditions, especially Chinese and Indian as well as Italian, French and the most recent arrivals, Thai and Mexican. There has been a 'Food Revolution' in Britain in the last twenty years with a new-found interest in food of which these different types of food as well as TV shows on food, celebrity chefs and newspaper supplements all form part. We also went through some idiomatic phrases based on food,
We talked briefly about your groups for the Papers and Presentations and I encouraged you to do the preliminary work of making contact, working out when to meet, etc. now although you should wait to decide the topic until we have done more of the course material. It is important to remember that the topic you choose (and will have to be approved by me) should relate to what we have done in the lessons, and should also make links to the aspects of "Englishness" which the topic illustrates.
We then went through your Celebrity Chef Presentations, dividing the class into groups to present each of the Chefs to each other, and I came and listened to each group.Almost everyone read from their notes instead of presenting their material and only consulting their notes occasionally and in addition talked too fast and not loudly enough! This was a useful experience for everyone as this is something which always happens when you begin to work on Presentations and needs a lot of work on especially for those members of the class who have chosen to do a Group Presentation, but also everyone else as presentations form part of many types of jobs in the world of work, once you leave university. We didn't have then have time for the intended material on Drink, so that has to be put off until next week.
Homework for next lesson (14.11.19)
Make scones, following the recipe given in our section of Moodle page: Scones Recipe
Write down on a piece of paper to hand in at next week's lesson:
a) how you got on during this experience
b) any culture specific terms, i.e. ingredients or terminology, which caused you problems (or at least to stop and think)
c) the reactions of the people (family, friends) you invited to sample your scones
d) your own opinions of the taste of this British food.
Take a photograph of you and your scones to show me during the next lesson (as proof that you made them).
Lesson 5 Thursday 24th October
I gave back your Homework, collected this week's Homework, and at the end of the lesson
we went over your viewing of films featuring regional accents and identified the accents used in each of them:
Geordie in 'Billy Elliott' (with RP from the Ballet School audition panel);
South Yorkshire in 'The Full Monty' (specifically Sheffield);
Welsh in 'Pride' for the miners with English southern accents for other characters, except one North Welsh character and one Norther Irish character.
It's a shame that nobody had been able to watch 'Brassed Off' and 'Made in Dagenham' as these are two other interesting examples of British films focussing on the socio-economic situation of Britain in the last decades of the 20th century. Do watch them if you ever get the chance. I would be prepared to lend my DVDs of them to anyone interested (if they swear to treat them gently!).
We then looked at this week's topic: Food. We looked at the parallels between British attitudes to food and sex, the relationship between the landscape, climate and food eaten in Britain, the names of meals (including the associations with social class) and investigated the field of Pudding and puddings, dispelling the Italian
conviction that pudding means budino! We shall continue with Food and do Drink next week.
With respect to the groups for the end-of-semester-Test which is either a Group Paper or a Group Presentation on a topic related to what we do in the lessons, I took the choices of those students present as to Paper of Presentation. Any students who were absent must contact me (via email) before November 31st to let me know if they wish to be included in Paper Group or a Presentation Group. Once I have these last choices I shall divide you into Groups and put the names of students in each Group in our section of the page.
NB Next lesson is Thursday 7th November, we shall not have a lesson on Thursday 31st October.
Homework for next lesson (07.11.19)
(i) Choose two of the figures on the Choice file Homework for Lesson 6 Presentation People and research them in preparation for a brief oral presentation on them at the next lesson. Use English (preferably British) sources for your research, but do not simply cut and paste bits from Wikipedia! Prepare notes to hand in More options now available on People for Presentations Choice file. Nigella Lawson had been inadvertently closed, so I have opened her up an added a little more space on some of the others.
(ii) Check the names of the people in your Group and make contact with them to begin to organise who you will contact each other, etc. It might even be a good idea to arrange a social meeting with the members of your Group so that you can get to know each other before you have to start working on the Paper or Presentation. You don't need to decide on Topic yet, there is plenty of time to do that when we have covered more material in the lessons.
Lesson 4 Thursday 17th October
I gave back the Fair and Fuss homework and we went over what you had found out about 'chavs'. There is now a link to an interview with a British linguist about 'chavs' on our section of the page.
For the Bake Off homework, only two students had managed to catch this week's episode while it was on Youtube very briefly on Wednesday afternoon, before it was taken down because Channel 4 doesn't allow it to be shown! It now seems that it is impossible to find episodes on any of the streaming sites, without paying. This made out discussion of what you had found out about the contestants' and judges' accents difficult. Paul Hollywood, the male judge has a north-western characterised by no differentiation between /ʌ/ and /ʊ/, the short /a/ as opposed to RP /a:/, occasional /h/ dropping and the pronunciation of 'ing' as /ŋg/. Prue Leith, the female judge, has a classic RP accent and the male presenter has an Estuary English accent. Of the remaining contestants, Steph has an accent very similar to Paul Hollywood's (she is also from the North West).
The material in today's lesson was Accents. Accents are an essential part of identity and though everyone thinks their own accent is best, there is a ranking of the different regional accents which sees some as attractive (Edinburgh), some as unattractive (Birmingham) and some as very difficult to understand (Northern Irish and Geordie). We covered the particular British connection of accent with social class and talked about standardisation and the adoption of the South Eastern variant of English as the 'standard' dialect ('standard English') and pronunciation ('Received Pronunciation) due to the power bases of politics, learning and trade being in the South East of the country. We also looked at how attitudes to regional accents and dialects have changed in the last thirty or so years and at the rise of Estuary English as a potential new RP. There is the link to the recordings from the BBC Voices project on accents in our section of the Moodle page.
Homework for next lesson (24.10.19)
(i) Look at the Linguist on 'chavs' via the link in our section of the page;
(ii) Watch one of the following films (in English!):
'Billy Elliott
'The Full Monty'
'Pride'
'Brassed Off'
'Made in Dagenham'
Do try to find 'Pride', 'Brassed Off' and 'Made in Dagenham' to watch. 'Billy Elliot' and 'The Full Monty' are usually very easy to find.
Note the characteristics of the regional accents used, checking with the Dialect blog (http://dialectblog.com/british-accents/ - link in our section of the page) to identify them and the social class of the characters who use regional accents. Write down your observations to hand in at next week's lesson.
NB MOODLE, FOR SOME UNKNOWN AND EXTREMELY UNHELPFUL REASON, DECIDED TO EAT THE LESSON SUMMARIES FOR LESSONS 1, 2 AND 3, SO I HAVE RE-CONSTRUCTED THEM FROM NOTES AND MEMORY, THOUGH I MAY HAVE FORGOTTEN SOME THINGS!Lesson 3 Thursday 11th October
I gave back the Homework handed in last week. I shall try to mark 5 or 6 pieces of Homework each week, so that everyone should have a couple of pieces marked by the end of the course, but you never know
when it will be your turn! Remember that there will be two extra marks to be awarded for attendance and homework (if you come and if you do it!), just to encourage you.
Homework for the next lesson (Thursday 17.10.19)
(i) Investigate the word 'chav' (using only English-language sources -GB -)
(ii) Look at the site on dialects. Link in our section of the page.
(iii) Watch the television! Find and watch a recent episode of 'The Great British Bake Off'. It's usually possible to find one in streaming or on Youtube. Compare and contrast the accents used by the various contestants and the Presenters and Judges and note how they relate to the social class of the speakers.
Lesson 2 Thursday 3rd October
We did sample Presentation for each of the topics you could choose from to prepare as Homework last lesson and then in groups of 4 you all had a go at giving your Presentation to the others and listening to (and learning from) the Presentations of the other members of your group. I collected in your notes on the topics.
We then went over the component parts of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and then went through Kate Fox's Diagram of Englishness, looking at the core (dis-ease), the Reflexes (humour, moderation, hypocrisy), the Outlooks (empiricism, Eeyorishness, class-consciousness) and Values (fair play, courtesy, modesty). We also looked at Queueing and how this relates to aspects of Englishness, so we shall do this next week. (I have put the Diagram in our section of the Moodle page under the title Kate Fox's Diagram of Englishness).
Homework for the next lesson (Thursday 11.10.19)
(i) Investigate the words 'fair' and 'fuss': see how many phrases you can find which use them; see if you can find them in texts you are reading or listening to. How do they relate to Englishness? I expect you to write down notes on these two words, to hand in at next week's lesson.
(ii) Observe queues. See if you can perceive any rules governing queues in Italy. Think about any experience you might have had with queues in other countries.
We went over the structure of the course and the Assessment (Homework to be done and handed in for each lesson and End of Semester test in the form of a cooperative Group Presentation (many more details about this will be given later on in the course).
After some quick questions on elements of British Culture which proved unknown to most of the group as a taste of things to come, we went over the basic concepts underlying the course, coming from Culture Studies and Cultural Anthropology. Although I gave you the titles of the two core books which I am using for the material, I want to stress that these are not books required for the course. Do not buy them (unless you are passionately interested in Culture Studies and Cultural Anthropology and want to, of course!). I shall be providing you with what you need to know from these books in the slides.
We then did a sample Life in the UK test (used since 2007 as part of the procedure for foreign nationals to acquire UK nationality. The Pass score is 75%). You can try another sample test (with the full 45 minutes allowed) via the link I have put on the section.
Homework for the next lesson (Thursday 03.10.19)
Choose one of people or places listed below and prepare a brief Presentation on them/it. Use internet sources found on google.co.uk, not Italian or US sources. Use the material you find to make notes for your Presentation but do not simply copy and paste from them! The notes will be handed in at next week's lesson.
a) The Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, University of Birmingham
b) Stuart Hall
c) Raymond Williams
d) Richard Hoggart
e) Kate Fox