SKILLS at SMHS – p.1
Lesson 4
Levels of Linguistic Structure cont. and the History of English
Materials needed:
 PowerPoint slides
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History of English clip
Old vs. Middle English Lord’s Prayer clips,
Shakespeare clip
Lord’s Prayer handout Journals (mentors pass out at the beginning)
Introduction & Continuation of Monday’s Lesson (30 minutes) [until 8:35]
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Collect video consent forms, make sure all UCSB Day permission slips are in
Today we’re going to be continuing our lesson on the levels of linguistic structure and
 discussing the History of English.
Brief review of Phonology and Morphology o o
What is a phoneme? Recall the kill/kiss/kick example.
What is a morpheme? Review distinctions between prefix/suffix/root. What’s an example of a free morpheme? A bound morpheme? Ask them to segment
inflammable, muchachas
 Continuing with the levels, moving from the small (units of sound, of meaning, pieces of words) to the large (words to sentences).
Lexicon:
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Differences in vocabulary.
Ask them to name examples: o o
Bubbler vs water fountain vs drinking fountain
Soda vs pop vs coke o o o o
Fresa vs. frutilla (Argentina)
Sneakers vs tennis shoes vs gym shoes
Libra vs kilo, etc.
Freeway names - THE 101 vs. 101
Syntax
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What is syntax?
The rules for combining words into sentences. Also known as “grammar.”
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These are so natural we don’t even need to learn them - babies learn to speak their native language perfectly without ever taking an English class. o When kids are learning language, we never have to scold them. “Bad boy! Don’t put the adjective after the noun! Don’t say ‘castle sand the’!” or “What did I tell you about saying ‘Katie apple ate an’?”
English is SVO (Subject-Verb-Object) o Katie ate an apple.
Katie ate it. o
Japanese is SOV (Subject-Object-Verb)
Spanish can be both. o SVO when there’s a full noun phrase (Él necesita un abrazo) ...
 o But SOV when it’s a pronoun (Él lo necesita)
Discussion: Can you think of other syntactic differences between English and Spanish, or between other languages? [ex: Spanish adjectives come after the noun]
Intonation/prosody

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Patterns of stress and rhythm; the rise and fall of a voice
Uptalk
Mid-Atlantic accent - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cc7quH-i_0w (beginning-
1:14)
Ask students to say the sentence “I didn’t say we should kill him,” each time stressing a different word o “I didn’t say we should kill him”
“I didn’t say we should kill him” o o o
“I didn’t say we should kill him” and so on
How you say something is as important for the meaning as what you’re saying!
Transition to next unit: which levels of linguistic structure do you think change the quickest over time? How? [lexicon, phonology] Let’s take a look at how English evolved.
History of English (45 minutes) [until 9:20]
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What do you know about the history of English? o What Shakespeare have you all read? What about Chaucer? Beowulf?
Kate Gardoqui video on the evolution of English (5 minute video) o Students should have their journals open and take notes on ideas they find o interesting, confusing, or surprising
Students free-write their ideas - what do you want to know more about? What was surprising? What struck you? (5 minutes)
Introduce them to the concept of sociolinguistics: language change happens
 o based on social patterns (marriage, the French vs English register/prestige divide) [Make sure they understand that prestige = status] o Meats example: cow vs beef (register)
Lord’s Prayer comparative activity o Listen to the two videos of the Lord’s Prayer without telling students what the text is they’re hearing (10 minutes)
 Old English first, then Middle English
After the second video, see if students can recognize what the text is o
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 Once they realize it’s the Lord’s Prayer, either a student or Katie will recite the Modern English version
Play the Middle English clip again, going through line by line and comparing with
Modern English. o o
Hand out the comparative Lord’s Prayer translation sheet. Have students look it over with their neighbor to see what changed between the different time periods
(5 minutes)
Whole-class discussion of the changes they found (5 minutes)
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Spelling and sounds [phonology], pronouns [morphology], entire words
[lexicon], word order [syntax]
Why are there different versions of the prayer in the video and the worksheets? Because written language wasn’t standardized until very
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For fun: Listen to the line-by-line comparison of “ O! for a muse of fire ” (2:20-5:52)
Take-away point: Language change doesn’t happen randomly - it follows patterns!
UCSB Day Briefing (5 minutes)
 Brief UCSB Day agenda/rundown/any questions o Buses arrive at 8:45am--registration, breakfast o o
Meeting with all SKILLS students from SMHS and DPHS
Activities: college panel, dining hall lunch, Psychology course