Monday, 21 September 2015

Topical Language Issues

Hi,
It's Yasmin here and on this blog post I will be explaining what I had to do for my Enrolment Task for English Language 2015! Also what I did in my first lesson on Topical Language Issues with detail. It wasn't a long task but it was something I really enjoyed doing; I found it easy to get into the topic and explain my views but I did find it difficult to make my information precise and fit it all into what I wanted to say in a number of paragraphs.


The task:
Firstly, we got the interesting starter of watching a variety of 'comedy' videos. Some I found rather amusing yet the Sherlock Holmes one I was not much of a fan of as I didn't really find it funny if I'm honest! Although the videos were interesting to watch! The videos were titled as follows:
  • That Mitchell and Webb Look Series 4 - Episode 1 (Grammar Nazi)
  • Sherlock Holmes gives a murderer a grammar lesson
  • Dear America... | David Mitchell's Soapbox
These videos were given to us to get us thinking about the whole topic of English language and generate ideas and questions around the subject.




After that, we were then asked "Now do a piece of writing outlining your arguments and opinions both for and against the following controversial statement:


You should always use English correctly"

This, I thought, would be very interesting and I would be able to put my opinions and ideas into my writing. Also I especially liked it because it was a "for" and "against" task which I enjoy as I am often good at seeing both sides of view and other perspectives. The task seemed alright if that it will take a bit of time! Added to that was "Aim to write about three paragraphs for and three against, but don't write more than 2 sides of A4." Now this was more difficult as I enjoy explaining myself in much detail so that I get all of what I want to say across to the audience.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kge9ZzjsfW8


The lesson:
In my beginning lesson on the English language course we watched the video that I linked in above. I tried to 'compose' it. But unfortunately, I was unable to understand how to. In our lesson we got into groups of around 4 and worked together to get ideas of why and why not you should always use English correctly, with compelling and interesting answers for both sides there was obviously no clear choice. However, as homework we were obliged to decide what side to go to, no more sitting on the fence for me!
I took the decision to opt on the "You should not use English correctly" side due to the fact that the statement includes the word "always" and I don't think anyone should have to "always" talk a certain way, or do anything constantly the same! A bit of originality can go far in my opinion. Although the homework was something that was difficult. Writing a 500 word blog-post on the decision using the same quote "You should always use English correctly" was a task and a half!
Firstly, I had to decide which were the best and most interesting parts of the topic, but having a 500 word limit was more tricky. My first blog-post I wrote was 627 words. As like I said earlier, I like to put detail into my work. Finally, after half an hour of getting rid of words and sentences and swapping them for abbreviations I got to the conclusion of 500 words. It included a short introduction, middle paragraphs and a conclusion. I was pretty proud of it. I thought it was a really interesting and fun activity to do.

Bye for now, but bye is not forever!



1 comment:

  1. So delighted with your personal voice here. Don't forget to enliven your posts by embedding the videos and images - then your commentary makes even more sense as we see them side by side. :)

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