Introduction to Linguistics (part of Advanced Extension English Course)
Scheme of Work
Students: 17 – A2 English Literature (majority), A2 English Language (3) and
A2 English Language & Literature (2). All students achieved a grade A
at AS, were considered by their teachers to be gifted in English and
thus offered the course (with opportunity to take the Advanced
Extension Award exam in summer).
Nature of Course: Term 1 – Introduction to what is language / what is
literature and literary theory.
Term 2 – Introduction to Linguistics
Term 3 – Preparation for the AEA English exam.
Timings: 2 x 1-hour lessons every week.
Term 2: Introduction to Linguistics (based on Module 2 – Structure in
Language and Module 3 – Variation in Language)
Week
(total 12
weeks)
1–2–3
3–4
Topic
Method(s)
English
Language – its
history. Basic
Language
aspects
-
English and its
relatives /
language
families /
issues in
linguistic
taxonomy
-
-
-
5–6–7
Universal
Grammar
theories
-
-
presentation by students on what they
know in groups
mapping the development on English to
illustrate language change
introduction / re-visiting concepts of syntax,
semantics, lexis, phonology and
morphology.
students explore what languages English
is related to, similarities (number of
students are taking A levels in modern
foreign languages)
class discussion about what makes a
language (as opposed to dialect)
look at case study of actual languages /
dialects (Brabants – Flemish – Dutch)
Indo-European Language family – explore
similarities (vocabulary, syntax,
morphology, phonology).
students explore reasons for similarities
between non-related languages (e.g
brainstorm in groups, look at examples)
deep and surface structures. Students
analyse sample sentences
students discuss advantages /
disadvantages of Universal Grammar
7–8
Written
Language
-
9 – 10
11 – 12
Reading /
Writing
neurolinguistic
implications
-
Comparative
Linguistics
-
-
-
history of writing
students discuss differences between
spoken and written language
phoneme / grapheme relationships
students look at alphabetic writing, syllabic
writing and ideograms (examples from
English, Italian, Hebrew, Aztec, Japanese
Kana and Kanji)
introduction to neurolinguistics
explore what brain does when reading or
writing
differences between reading syllabic and
alphabetic scripts on one hand, and
ideograms on other hands
concepts in language (e.g. time in
Amerindian languages compared to
English, or past tenses in Italian and
English) Semantic issues across
languages
case study – students choose languages
to compare and research
Resources:
 Ethnologue website (catalogue of all world’s languages)
 Native speakers of Dutch/Brabants
 Native speaker of Japanese (colleague)
 Native speaker of Farsi (student)
 Kanji and Devanagari character cards
 See booklist & wesbites on the introduction to the pilot