English Language
Sandringham School Sixth Form
English Language AS and A Level Summer Tasks 2015 Pre-Course Preparations 1. Purchase the course text book: AQA English Language A Level and AS – Dan Clayton, Angela Goddard, Beth Kemp, Felicity Titjen – Oxford University Press. (PTO for full details). 2. Purchase subject folders to cover the different Units of the course. Your folders are needed in every lesson. 3. Be clear about the following principal word classes before you return in September: nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, conjunctions, pre-positions. Produce your own, detailed glossary, including other sub-forms of each term. For example nouns can be abstract or concrete; verbs can be regular/irregular, or imperative, modal etc. HAND IN: word processed to Mrs Meager 4. Research interesting articles or opinions about English Language. Use the Recommended Tasks’ list as a starting point. Start a scrap book / separate documents’ folder to collect your resources. Be prepared to present your findings during the first few lessons of the course. HAND IN: present to Mrs Meager 5. Language Diary Presentation: Objective: Outcome:
To observe the language experiences you have during one day. A written diary to present specific details of your language experiences on one day.
Task: Over the summer, observe the language experiences you have during one day. Make a note of all the types of language you come in to contact with in this one day. This includes anything you read, watch/listen to on TV/radio, any conversations you have or may listen to or any other language issues you come across. Note:
How many different contexts (backgrounds) was there to each experience? Whether the language is spoken or written and who is speaking or writing. What happened in terms of language – vocabulary, technical/special words. Any particular features of the language that you noticed – e.g. accent, formality. What the purpose of the language was. Who the audience of the language was.
Presentation: Your diary should be word processed and around 500 - 750 words. Subheadings and bullet points can be used. You will need to be in a position to present your diary during your first week of lessons back in September. HAND IN: present to Miss Summers
6. Write 500 words in response to the poem on page 3. Write in a style of your own choice, for example: formal essay, review, commentary, your own poetic ideas about English, or, imaginary interview responses from the poet himself. Your writing must consider how the poem highlights the complexities and beauty of the English language. HAND IN: hand written to Mrs Meager
Sandringham School Sixth Form
Have a good holiday!
THIS IS THE BOOK THAT YOU WILL NEED FROM DAY 1:
Sandringham School Sixth Form
English I take it you already know Of tough and bough and cough and dough? Others may stumble, but not you On hiccough, thorough, slough and through? Well done! And now you wish, perhaps To learn of less familiar traps? Beware of heard, a dreadful word That looks like beard and sounds like bird. And DEAD; it is said like bed, not bead; For goodness sake, don’t call it deed! Watch out for meat and great and threat (They rhyme with suite and straight and debt). A moth is not a moth in mother, Nor both in bother, broth in brother. And here is not a match for there, Nor dear and fear for bear and pear, And then there’s dose and rose and lose – Just look them up – and goose and choose, And cork and work and card and ward And font and front and word and sword. And do and go, then thwart and cart, Come, come, I have hardly made a start. A dreadful language? Why, man alive, I’d learned to talk it when I was five, And yet to write it, the more I tried, I hadn’t learned it at fifty-five.
Richard N. Krogh
Sandringham School Sixth Form
English Language: Recommended Tasks YOU DO NOT NEED TO BUY THE BOOKS LISTED – MOST OF THEM ARE IN THE SCHOOL LIBRARY OR WILL BE READILY AVAILABLE THROUGH YOUR LOCAL LIBRARY. SUMMARISE THE MOST INTERESTING ASPECTS THAT YOU FOUND OUT ABOUT. USE THE LIST AS A STARTING POINT FOR YOUR WIDER READING ABOUT THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE: General study guides/website:
Bill Bryson – Mother Tongue Susie Dent – Countdown’s lexicographer – research some of her articles David Crystal – Rediscover Grammar, David Crystal – The Cambridge Encylopedia of the English Language or anything by David Crystal that you found interesting (he writes online too). N. M. Gwynne – Gwynne’s Grammar: The ultimate introduction to grammar and the writing of good English Lynne Truss – Eats, shoots and leaves Deborah Cameron – The Myth of Mars and Venus: Do men and women really speak different languages? Or, research the gender debates and issues surrounding language online. English Media Centre’s English Blog.
FICTION/NON FICTION EXTENDED READING: Read more challenging fiction/non-fiction books. Think about the style of language / how the stories / opinions are told as well as enjoying the ideas. For example, our current Year 13s enjoyed: Fiction
Non fiction
“The Book Thief” – Zusak “The Kite Runner” – Hosseini “The Great Gatsby” - Fitzgerald “My Sister’s Keeper” – Piccoult “Jamaica Inn” – DuMaurier “Game of Thrones” – Martin “The Color Purple” – Walker “Northern Lights” trilogy - Pullman
“Notes from a Small Island” Bill Bryson Jeremy Clarkson / Charlie Booker opinion pieces Newspaper editorials: The Guardian, Telegraph, The Times “My Name is Mala” -Yousafzai “I know why the caged bird sings” – Angelou “Boy” / “Going Solo” – Dahl “Toast” - Slater
English Language AS and A Level Summer Tasks 2015 Pre-Course Preparations 1. Purchase the course text book: AQA English Language A Level and AS – Dan Clayton, Angela Goddard, Beth Kemp, Felicity Titjen – Oxford University Press. (PTO for full details). 2. Purchase subject folders to cover the different Units of the course. Your folders are needed in every lesson. 3. Be clear about the following principal word classes before you return in September: nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, conjunctions, pre-positions. Produce your own, detailed glossary, including other sub-forms of each term. For example nouns can be abstract or concrete; verbs can be regular/irregular, or imperative, modal etc. HAND IN: word processed to Mrs Meager 4. Research interesting articles or opinions about English Language. Use the Recommended Tasks’ list as a starting point. Start a scrap book / separate documents’ folder to collect your resources. Be prepared to present your findings during the first few lessons of the course. HAND IN: present to Mrs Meager 5. Language Diary Presentation: Objective: Outcome:
To observe the language experiences you have during one day. A written diary to present specific details of your language experiences on one day.
Task: Over the summer, observe the language experiences you have during one day. Make a note of all the types of language you come in to contact with in this one day. This includes anything you read, watch/listen to on TV/radio, any conversations you have or may listen to or any other language issues you come across. Note:
How many different contexts (backgrounds) was there to each experience? Whether the language is spoken or written and who is speaking or writing. What happened in terms of language – vocabulary, technical/special words. Any particular features of the language that you noticed – e.g. accent, formality. What the purpose of the language was. Who the audience of the language was.
Presentation: Your diary should be word processed and around 500 - 750 words. Subheadings and bullet points can be used. You will need to be in a position to present your diary during your first week of lessons back in September. HAND IN: present to Miss Summers
6. Write 500 words in response to the poem on page 3. Write in a style of your own choice, for example: formal essay, review, commentary, your own poetic ideas about English, or, imaginary interview responses from the poet himself. Your writing must consider how the poem highlights the complexities and beauty of the English language. HAND IN: hand written to Mrs Meager
Sandringham School Sixth Form
Have a good holiday!
THIS IS THE BOOK THAT YOU WILL NEED FROM DAY 1:
Sandringham School Sixth Form
English I take it you already know Of tough and bough and cough and dough? Others may stumble, but not you On hiccough, thorough, slough and through? Well done! And now you wish, perhaps To learn of less familiar traps? Beware of heard, a dreadful word That looks like beard and sounds like bird. And DEAD; it is said like bed, not bead; For goodness sake, don’t call it deed! Watch out for meat and great and threat (They rhyme with suite and straight and debt). A moth is not a moth in mother, Nor both in bother, broth in brother. And here is not a match for there, Nor dear and fear for bear and pear, And then there’s dose and rose and lose – Just look them up – and goose and choose, And cork and work and card and ward And font and front and word and sword. And do and go, then thwart and cart, Come, come, I have hardly made a start. A dreadful language? Why, man alive, I’d learned to talk it when I was five, And yet to write it, the more I tried, I hadn’t learned it at fifty-five.
Richard N. Krogh
Sandringham School Sixth Form
English Language: Recommended Tasks YOU DO NOT NEED TO BUY THE BOOKS LISTED – MOST OF THEM ARE IN THE SCHOOL LIBRARY OR WILL BE READILY AVAILABLE THROUGH YOUR LOCAL LIBRARY. SUMMARISE THE MOST INTERESTING ASPECTS THAT YOU FOUND OUT ABOUT. USE THE LIST AS A STARTING POINT FOR YOUR WIDER READING ABOUT THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE: General study guides/website:
Bill Bryson – Mother Tongue Susie Dent – Countdown’s lexicographer – research some of her articles David Crystal – Rediscover Grammar, David Crystal – The Cambridge Encylopedia of the English Language or anything by David Crystal that you found interesting (he writes online too). N. M. Gwynne – Gwynne’s Grammar: The ultimate introduction to grammar and the writing of good English Lynne Truss – Eats, shoots and leaves Deborah Cameron – The Myth of Mars and Venus: Do men and women really speak different languages? Or, research the gender debates and issues surrounding language online. English Media Centre’s English Blog.
FICTION/NON FICTION EXTENDED READING: Read more challenging fiction/non-fiction books. Think about the style of language / how the stories / opinions are told as well as enjoying the ideas. For example, our current Year 13s enjoyed: Fiction
Non fiction
“The Book Thief” – Zusak “The Kite Runner” – Hosseini “The Great Gatsby” - Fitzgerald “My Sister’s Keeper” – Piccoult “Jamaica Inn” – DuMaurier “Game of Thrones” – Martin “The Color Purple” – Walker “Northern Lights” trilogy - Pullman
“Notes from a Small Island” Bill Bryson Jeremy Clarkson / Charlie Booker opinion pieces Newspaper editorials: The Guardian, Telegraph, The Times “My Name is Mala” -Yousafzai “I know why the caged bird sings” – Angelou “Boy” / “Going Solo” – Dahl “Toast” - Slater
