Martin Walker
Designing Tasks – Language Issues
So you think you can write questions, eh?
And mark schemes?
Make you very crossword
Think about setting task for aquatic insect (4,6)
Pond skater
Araucaria
Araucaria araucana
The monkey puzzle tree
Differentiate Carrier and Technical and/or
subject-specific Language
• Carrier Language can be defined as the language
used by the teacher to set a task or test, rather than
that involved in teaching new concepts
• It is important to make Carrier Language as accessible
as possible, whilst acknowledging the need for
awareness of appropriate technical terms or linguistic
structures
Show how the same word can be both Carrier Language
and Technical Language in different contexts
• “Locate” can in most instances be changed to “find” but
in Geography it is a subject-specific term that cannot
be modified
• “Hard” and “soft” are everyday words, but in Science,
“hard water” and “soft water” are subject-specific terms
• In History, a candidate should be aware of the term
“primary evidence” but might be confused if this were
changed to “first hand information”
Understand the purpose of source materials. Be
careful when modifying original sources
Source B The creation of India in August 1947 was followed by the
granting of independence to Burma in January 1948. In May 1948
Britain left Palestine. In all these areas Britain was no longer able to
maintain order and the advantages gained from empire were far
outweighed by the costs. Strategic arguments for holding these parts
of the Empire seemed irrelevant. As Hugh Dalton, the Chancellor of
the Exchequer, commented on Palestine, ‘you cannot have a secure
base on top of a wasps’ nest’.
Adapted from D REYNOLDS, Britannia Overruled, 2000
Reading Age (in years)
Financial Times
TES
‘A Tale of Two Cities’ (Dickens)
‘To Kill a Mocking Bird’ (Lee)
‘Lord of the Flies’ (Golding)
‘Kes: A Kestrel for a Knave’ (Hines)
Reading Age (in years)
Financial Times
TES
‘A Tale of Two Cities’ (Dickens)
‘To Kill a Mocking Bird’ (Lee)
‘Lord of the Flies’ (Golding)
‘Kes: A Kestrel for a Knave’ (Hines)
17½
17
13
11½
11
10½
SIR Paul McCartney wept openly as he serenaded his bride after their
wedding yesterday.
The Beatle, 69, plugged in his guitar at the reception to sing a ballad he had
written to seal his love for US heiress Nancy Shevell, 51.
After the wedding at a London register office, he said: "I feel absolutely
wonderful."
Ecstatic Sir Paul, – married for the third time — then told as he clutched new
bride Nancy Shevell's hand how she made him feel "terrific".
Macca paid tribute to his American heiress "soulmate" after the newlyweds
emerged from their register office ceremony and were showered with
confetti.
Crowds of fans cheered as the Beatles legend raised his bride's hand in
triumph before the couple headed to a star-studded reception at his nearby
mansion.
Hundreds of wellwishers had gathered there at the gates. Asked how he felt,
Macca declared: "Terrific, thank you — I feel married."
Revealed: how lobbyists were paid to facilitate meeting with Liam
Fox
Political lobbyists were paid thousands of pounds to help a Dubai-based
businessman arrange a secretive meeting with, which the defence secretary claims
came about only after a chance meeting in a restaurant.
Invoices seen by the Guardian show that Harvey Boulter, the private equity boss at
the heart of the growing controversy engulfing Fox, was paying £10,000 a month to
lobbyists for help that included brokering the meeting with Fox through Adam
Werritty, who claimed to be an "adviser to the Rt Hon Dr Fox MP".
This latest revelation comes as Fox finally admitted on Sunday that it had been
"wrong" for him to meet Boulter, a commercial partner of the Ministry of Defence, in
Dubai's five-star Shangri-la hotel without any officials present.
"I accept that it was a mistake to allow distinctions to be blurred between my
professional responsibilities and my personal loyalties to a friend," he said. "I am
sorry for this."
Fox's apology to the prime minister came two months after the Guardian first asked
him to explain his relationship with Werritty, who appears to have been operating in
Fox's shadow for a decade.
Which is which?
Any surprises?
Flesch Ease measure
Score Notes
90.0–100.0
easily understandable by an average 11-year-old student
60.0–70.0
easily understandable by 13- to 15-year-old students
0.0–30.0
best understood by university graduates
Rudolf Flesch & Peter Kincaid US Navy 1975
Complex Language
This plainer version removes empty phrases such as
“given that” and is more elegant and easier to grasp.
Passive Voice
The passive voice of a verb tells us that:
Something is being done
rather than
Someone is doing something
Example of Passive Voice
Active Voice Used
subject - verb - object
The house was sold by an estate agent
An estate agent sold the house
The show was watched by a large
audience
A large audience watched the show
The invisible man can’t be seen
You can’t see the invisible man
Dinner is taken at 7 o’clock
We eat dinner at 7 o’clock
The passive voice can be a difficult structure for some readers to grasp.
The passive voice is one of the last syntactic structures to develop and is therefore
often not acquired in children with language difficulties.
The solution is to change the passive to the active form wherever possible.
This can mean that the person carrying out the action becomes more of a focus than
the examiner might have wanted, nevertheless it will help weak readers.
Identify two faults that have been made in the design of
the experiment shown, describing in each case how the
fault can be corrected.
This is much easier for learners to understand if the
Active Voice is used
Identify two faults in the design of this experiment.
Describe how to correct each fault.
Subordinate clauses
Sentence
Type
The Sentence Contains
Example
Simple
One subject and one verb
She walked to school
Compound
Two or more simple sentences
joined together with connectives
such as “and”, “but”, “because”
She walked to school but went home
on the bus
Complex
A main clause and one or more
subordinate clauses
Mr. Walker, the man from Durham
who had arrived by taxi and was
out of breath, sat down.
(The subordinate clause is: ‘the man
from Durham who had arrived by
taxi and was out of breath’.)
This could be written as: ‘Mr. Walker sat down’.
You try writing then “unwriting” one
Complex language vs complex sentences - rhetoric
What General Weygand has called the Battle of France is over: the Battle of
Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian
civilisation. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our
institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very
soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island
or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be freed and the life
of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then
the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known
and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister,
and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us
therefore brace ourselves to our duty and so bear ourselves that, if the British
Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say: This
was their finest hour '.
What is difficult here?
Complex language vs complex sentences - rhetoric
I am Sam
I am Sam
Sam I am
That Sam-I-am
That Sam-I-am!
I do not like
that Sam-I-am
Do you like
green eggs and ham
I do not like them,
Sam-I-am.
I do not like
green eggs and ham.
Would you like them
Here or there?
I would not like them
here or there.
I would not like them
anywhere.
I do not like
green eggs and ham.
I do not like them,
Sam-I-am
Would you like them
in a house?
Would you like them
with a mouse?
I do not like them
in a house.
I do not like them
with a mouse.
I do not like them
here or there.
I do not like them
anywhere.
I do not like green eggs and ham.
I do not like them, Sam-I-am.
Ellipsis (leaving words out)
This is much easier for candidates to understand
if it is written in the following way:
The negative
The negative can be a very difficult concept for some
learners. It can almost always be avoided.
Avoid negative (‘not’) or partly negative (‘only’) expressions
wherever possible. If a negative is essential to the
question, try to phrase the question so that it ends in the
word “except”.
Try this
Which option would you not take if you did not want to
confuse the student by failing to not use the negative?
Modify and simplify the language whilst retaining the level
of conceptual difficulty of the question
Q1 If a student were provided with three painted metal rods, one of which
was known to be made from brass, one from magnetised steel and one
from non-magnetised steel, describe how, without scratching the paint,
the student could identify each of the rods.
Q1 A student has three metal rods
• One is made from brass
• One is made from magnetised steel
• One is made from non-magnetised steel
The student is not allowed to scratch the paint on the rods.
Explain how the student could find out what each rod is made of.
Modify Instructional Language
Bloom’s Taxonomy
• There is a hierarchy of instructions from ‘write down’ to ‘evaluate’
• Examiners know that choosing certain words makes increasing
demands on the candidate
• Examiners are careful in choosing the appropriate instruction word to
fit their requirement and the mark scheme
• An American Educational Psychologist called Benjamin Bloom
researched the hierarchy of educational objectives and published
what is now known as ‘Blooms Taxonomy’ in 1956
Modify Instructional Language
Bloom’s Taxonomy
Bloom’s Taxonomy
Knowledge
observation and recall of information
knowledge of dates, events, places
knowledge of major ideas
mastery of subject matter
Question Cues:
list, define, tell, describe, identify, show, label,
collect, examine, tabulate, quote, name, who,
when, where, etc.
Bloom’s Taxonomy
Comprehension
understanding information
grasp meaning
translate knowledge into new context
interpret facts, compare, contrast
order, group, infer causes
predict consequences
Question Cues:
summarise, describe, interpret, contrast, predict, associate,
distinguish, estimate, differentiate, discuss, extend
Bloom’s Taxonomy
Application
use information
use methods, concepts, theories in new situations
solve problems using required skills or knowledge
Questions Cues:
apply, demonstrate, calculate, complete, illustrate, show, solve,
examine, modify, relate, change, classify, experiment, discover
Bloom’s Taxonomy
Analysis
seeing patterns
organisation of parts
recognition of hidden meanings
identification of components
Question Cues:
analyse, separate, order, explain, connect, classify, arrange,
divide, compare, select, explain, infer
Bloom’s Taxonomy
Synthesis
use old ideas to create new ones
generalise from given facts
relate knowledge from several areas
predict, draw conclusions
Question Cues:
combine, integrate, modify, rearrange, substitute, plan, create,
design, invent, what if?, compose, formulate, prepare,
generalise, rewrite
Bloom’s Taxonomy
Evaluation
Evaluation is concerned with the ability to judge the value of
material (statement, novel, poem, research report) for a given
purpose. The judgments are to be based on definite criteria..
Learning outcomes in this area are highest in the cognitive
hierarchy because they contain elements of all the other
categories, plus conscious value judgments based on clearly
defined criteria.
Question Cues:
appraises, compares, concludes, contrasts, criticizes, critiques,
defends, describes, discriminates, evaluates, explains,
interprets, justifies, relates, summarizes, supports.
Show an appreciation of the hierarchy of
instructional verbs
Identify the reasons that Britain went to war in 1939.
is very different from…
Evaluate the causes of the Second World War.
Writing Task - Inform/Explain
Write to explain your choice of ideal holiday
destination.
Write to explain your choice of ideal holiday
destination.
Using the Mirror of Nature,
touching the silence of who we are and
responding to life from that place.
This experience inspires the WildQuest
vision of Retreats and Adventures