Aylesford school 16

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English Language is the study of language and its importance in today’s society. Focusing on literacy skills and the ability to communicate confidently and fluently in reading, writing and speaking activities. Creativity and critical thinking encourage independent thinking and debate skills.

English Learning Journey ed July 2024

(continued from year 7-11 learning journey on secondary subjects English page)

 

Year 12 Language Term 1 Term 2 Term 3
Key Topic Paper 1: Textual variations and Language levels Paper 1: Language Levels and  Meanings and Representations Paper 1: original writing NEA
New Knowledge
  • Learn to identify and interrogate contextual factors of a text: audience, purpose, genre, mode, formality etc.
  • Learn the language levels used to analyse texts in detail: phonology, prosody, phonetics, lexis and semantics, grammar and syntax, pragmatics, discourse, graphology
  • Learn the social and historical contextual factors that impact production of texts
  • Explore relationships between writers, speakers and audiences or between participants within a text
  • Learn about the features of gendered language and approaches: diversity, difference, dominance and deficit
  • Explore the way language differs according to class and regional area
  • Explore the language of different occupations
  • Understand the concept of the phonetic alphabet
  • Learn about attitudes to descriptivism and prescriptivism
  • Understand meanings as subjective, fluid and negotiated between text producer and text receiver
  • Explore the creation of representation through language, considering how this impacts public perception and discourse on given subjects
  • Apply theoretical frameworks to analysing discourse
  • Build an enriched understanding of language change across multiple texts and eras
  • Comparison of different writers’ attitudes to language variation
  • Analyse articles that display arguments about language use
  • Explore aspects of genre in relation to conventions and strategies deployed when planning own writing
  • Consider workflows and roadmaps to producing successful content in a variety of genres
  • Read, interpret and analyse a number of examples of genre archetypes, and examples that subvert or challenge genre expectations.
  • Interpret and apply mark scheme to own creations, editing in order to maximise success
Previous Knowledge Required
  • Learn how to reflect critically and evaluatively on text, recognising the possibility of different responses to a text
  • Learn how to evaluate a writer’s choice of language and genre features: explaining and illustrating how these choices contribute to meaning, using linguistic terminology accurately to do so and paying attention to detail; analysing and evaluating how form and structure contribute to the meaning of a text
  • Learn about the features and use of Standard English and slang
  • Learn the language levels used to analyse texts in detail: phonology/prosody/phonetics, lexis and semantics, grammar and syntax, pragmatics, discourse, graphology
  • Learn social and historical contextual factors that impact production of texts
  • Learn about the relationships between writers, speakers and audiences or between participants within a text
  • Understand the features of a successful argument
  • Be able to infer how a writer presents their perspective of a topic in a non-fiction text
  • Learn how to select vocabulary, grammar, form, and structural and organisational features judiciously to reflect audience, purpose and context
  • Learn how to write convincingly for different forms
  • Learn how to maintain a consistent point of view; maintaining coherence and consistency across a text
  • Learn how to analyse a speaker’s choice of linguistic features, interpreting different reasons for their use
  • Evaluating a writer’s perspective, considering its validity and ways that it can be challenged
  • Understanding different research methods’ validity and purpose
  • Collection of corpora and research data e.g. recordings, transcripts, secondary data
  • Knowledge of how to effectively structure their NEA’s organisation-e.g. hypothesis, aims and research intent
New Skills
  • Understanding and applying phonemic alphabet and the place of articulation chart
  • Listen to and read utterances that utilize accent, tonality, pronunciation etc.
  • Explore meanings of words using etymology, denotations and connotations
  • Development of knowledge and application of accurate word classes, clause names, and other key grammatical terms
  • Identify and analyse the features of genderlect
  • Evaluate and critique linguists’ theories of language use
  • Understand why convergence and divergence take place
  • Understand the role of the social class system and attitudes to accents i.e. the Yougov study of attitudes to accents in the British Isles
  • Learn and apply concepts of critical discourse analysis
  • Create comparative commentaries between modern and older texts
  • Learn to synthesise aspects of context of production, language choice, and representation of subject matter into a concise and exploratory manner
  • Applying theoretical perspectives to support an argument
  • Evaluate linguistic studies related to class and dialect e.g. Trudgill, Giles, Eckert
  • Using a variety of specific project-management strategies to take original writing for concept to completion.
  • Develop the skill of drafting, editing, and critically appraising own original writing
  • Using style models as inspirations for original work, and commenting on decision made by both writers related to aspects of genre, audience and purpose
  • Apply relevant linguistic theories to data in order to draw conclusions about speakers’ language choices
  • Evaluate exemplar student NEAs to secure understanding of its conventions and requirements
  • Creation of a hypothetical statement regarding the language use of social groups and individuals
Links to the School Curriculum

MFL – word classes, etymology, verb tenses and conjugation, morphology

Media-gender representations and gender performativity

English Literature – social/historical context influencing meanings of texts

English Language- writers’ perspectives and opinions

Explore the reasons people use slang in their everyday language

English Literature – structural features, aspects of authorial style, degrees of literariness 

English Language GCSE: identification of a writer’s language features and their effects (A02)

Media A Level: evaluating representations of different social groups e.g. gender, ethnicity and class

Independent Activities

Read Cambridge guide – Textual Analysis and representation by Ian Cushing

Read and work through relevant sections of Cambridge/Oxford A level Student Book by Marco Giavonelli/Dan Clayton 

Read Language and Gender-Cambridge edition, by Felicity Titjen

Subscribe to Lexis podcast

Read “How Language Works” by David Crystal

Read Attitudes to Language, Cambridge edition, by Dan Clayton

Online course on stylistics via Futurelearn:

https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/stylistics-using-linguistics-explore-texts-meaningenglishlangsfx.blogspot.com/2021/04/putting-f-in-nea-making-language.html

Web Links Applied Linguistics course through FuturelearnSteven Pinker on Linguistics Foucault on knowledge and powerFollow Englangblog Commentary overview from Englangblog NEA Language InvestigationAQA subject content

 

Year 13 Language Term 1  Term 2 Term 3
Key Topic Paper 1: Child Language Development Paper 1: Advanced Language Levels, Advanced context, meanings and representations Revision of all exam papers and all topics
New Knowledge
  • A critical approach to the theories of how, why and when language (both spoken and written) develops, from infancy through to adulthood.
  • Identification of functions of spoken language and associated phases of child language development
  • Understand the various cognitive and social influences that affect language development, and the various theorists that propose the importance of these factors. 
  • Understand how adults adapt speech patterns to communicate with language learners
  • Understand rules and conventions of written, spoken and multimodal language and how children develop these.
  • Explore the history of language change in Britain and its different influences
  • Understand the impact that technological change has had on language use
  • Explore word-formation processes
  • Learn about different theories of language change: e.g. Aitchison’s decay models, functional theory, tide theory (Crystal)
  • Further consolidation of grammatical functions of language, such as active vs passive voice, verb aspect, semantic fields, collocations etc.
  • Develop a more sophisticated repertoire of commentary on contextual elements such as genre, and in particular, look at social and contextual influences such as political bias of publication etc.
  • Apply RTAC framework to a variety of texts in order to spot patterns in discourses around contentious subjects.
  • Evaluate the uses, benefits and drawbacks of World Englishes and its variants

This term is focused on consolidation and reflection of previous learning from the beginning of Year 12.

New knowledge will only occur if your child needs to complete any learning tasks due to absence.

Previous Knowledge Required
  • Learn of the language levels used to analyse texts in detail: phonology/prosody/phonetics, lexis and semantics, grammar and syntax, pragmatics, discourse, graphology
  • Learn the social and historical contextual factors that impact production of texts
  • Explore relationships between writers, speakers and audiences or between participants within a text
  • English: explore the reasons why new words are needed
  • Learn to identify and interrogate contextual factors of a text: audience, purpose, genre, mode, formality etc.
  • Learn of the language levels used to analyse texts in detail: phonology, prosody, phonetics, lexis and semantics, grammar and syntax, pragmatics, discourse, graphology
  • Learn the social and historical contextual factors that impact production of texts
  • Explore relationships between writers, speakers and audiences or between participants within a text
All prior modules of course
New Skills
  • Apply theoretical frameworks of CLD to data sets
  • Research key theorists and their theories
  • Identify specific stages of language development from examples
  • Understanding and applying phonemic alphabet
  • Evaluate the benefits of language change over time
  • Critique theoretical perspectives of language change
  • Apply critical discourse theory to a variety of texts
  • Synthesize aspects of cultural difference and language change between texts to create a cohesive response to exam-style questions
  • Evaluate the uses, benefits and drawbacks of World Englishes and its variants
  • create an argument based upon language change/variation
  • Assess the issues raised about politically correct language
  • Be able to identify examples of language change and word-formation processes in a text
  • Identify how technological influences impact language use

Apt and effective revision skills and strategies. These could include:

- Mind maps

- Flash cards

- Quizzing

- Paired / group revision

- Using exam questions and mark schemes

- Re-doing an exam question you were unhappy with

- Planning responses

- Podcasts

- Re-reading any of your literature texts
Links to the School Curriculum

M.F.L. Year 7 – Phonics and phonemic alphabet

History-impact of invasions, colonisation and key British events upon the English Language
ICT- emoticons and abbreviations used in language use EPQ: choosing an investigative focus to explore and then establishing an organised research schedule to research and gather data
Enrichment Activities

Read Cambridge Language Development book by Rachel Rudman

Read Language Change: Progress or Decay, by Jean Aitchison

Letts A Level English Language workbook

Read Language Change, Cambridge topics, by Ian Cushing

Letts A Level English Language revision guide
Web Links MOOC on child language development Follow Englangblog Dan Clayton

 

English Literature

Year 12 Literature Term 1 Term 2 Term 3
Key Topic

“Tess of the D’Urbervilles” by Thomas Hardy

“A Room With A View” by E. M. Forster

“Othello” by William Shakespeare

AQA Anthology of Love Poetry through the ages pre1900

Unseen Poetry

Non Examination Assessment (N.E.A.)
New Knowledge
  • Learn about the social, historical and cultural context  of Victorian England
  • Learn how to examine language choices that reflect themes (including:  gender, class, attitudes towards marriage, mental health, patriarchy, jealousy)
  • Learn about the narrative structure of the novel including use of third person narrative, flashbacks, biased perspectives, authorial intrusion
  • Learn biographical details about Hardy
  • Learn about Literary Readings: Feminism, Psychoanalytical, Marxism

  • Learn how to compare characters’ presentation and development, themes and Forster’s intentions across a text
  • Learn how to make critical and evaluative comparisons with pre 1900 taught poetry
  • Learn about the social, historical and cultural context  of Edwardian England
  • Learn how to examine language choices that reflect themes (including:  gender, class, patriarchy, love, mental health)
  • Learn about the narrative structure of the novel including use cyclical structure, shifts in time and place, whole text organisation 
  • Learn biographical details about Forster
  • Learn about Literary Readings: Psychoanalytical, Feminism, Marxism and how to apply these theories
  • ​Learn how to compare characters’ presentation and development, themes and Shakespeare’s intentions across a text
  • Learn about the social, historical and cultural context  of Renaissance England
  • Learn how to examine language choices that reflect themes (including:  gender, power, patriarchy, class, deception, jealousy, race)
  • Learn about the structure of a Shakespearian play
  • Learn about the genre of a Shakespearian tragedy  
  • Learn biographical details about Shakespeare

 

  • Learn dates and facts surrounding Renaissance England, Metaphysical Era, Cavalier Poets, Restoration Period, Romantic England, Victorian Era, Decadent Era
  • Learn how to make perceptive, critical and evaluative comparisons with either “A Room with a View” or “Rebecca”
  • Learn how to analyse and evaluate poetic structure including: stanza length (couplet, tercet, quatrain, sestet, octave), regularity, line length, end-stopped lines, caesura, enjambment, contrast, motif, shift in mood or tone, linear structure, cyclical structure
  • Learn how to examine language choices that reflect themes (including: power, social inequality, suffering, discrimination, rejection, displacement, gender, patriarchy, class, love/ passion, jealousy, deception, abuse)
  • Learn biographical details for: Wyatt, Shakespeare, Donne, Marvell, Lovelace, Wilmot (Earl of Rochester), Blake, Burns, Byron, Keats, Rossetti, Hardy, Dowson
  • Learn how to reflect critically and evaluatively on poetry, recognising the possibility of different responses to a text
  • Learn how to summarise ideas and information from a single text; synthesising from more than one text
  • Learn how to evaluate a writer’s choice of vocabulary, form, grammatical and structural features: analysing and evaluating how form and structure contribute to the effectiveness and impact of a text
  • Learn how to compare two unseen poems in exam conditions

 

  • Learn how to read widely and independently
  • Learn how to engage critically and creatively with texts
  • Learn how to make subtle, precise and conceptualised connections between texts
  • Learn how to write in academic register
  • Learn how to research into critical readings to inform and challenge their opinions and attitudes, embedding these interpretations in a sophisticated manner
Previous Knowledge Required
  • Study of novels in KS3 and “The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde” at GCSE
  • Understanding of the class system and society during World War I from Year 9 War Poetry and “Exposure” in GCSE study Edwardian England from GCSE “An Inspector Calls”
  • Study of Shakespeare in KS3 and “Macbeth” or “Much Ado About Nothing” at GCSE
  • Understanding of the class system and society during Elizabethan England from Year 8 Villains, Year 9 “Romeo and Juliet” and Year 11
  • Study of poetry  in KS3 and 4
  • Understanding of the class system and society during Elizabethan England , Romantic Era  and Modern Era
  • Study of poetry in KS3 at GCSE
  • Read independently and critically – all English lessons
New Skills
  • Thorough and critical  use of literary concepts and references to support interpretations
  • Thorough understanding and analysis of authorial methods and engagement with how these methods shape meaning
  • Focused and coherent argument, debating ideas in depth
  • Thorough understanding of the significance of relevant contexts
  • Consistent connections and explorations across texts and the historicist literary concept studied 
  • Thorough and critical  use of literary concepts and references to support interpretations
  • Thorough understanding and analysis of authorial methods and engagement with how these methods shape meaning
  • Focused and coherent argument, debating ideas in depth
  • Thorough understanding of the significance of relevant contexts
  • Consistent connections and explorations across texts and the historicist literary concept studied 
  • Thorough and critical  use of literary concepts and references to support interpretations
  • Thorough understanding and analysis of authorial methods and engagement with how these methods shape meaning
  • Focused and coherent argument, debating ideas in depth
  • Thorough understanding of the significance of relevant contexts
  • Consistent connections and explorations across texts and the historicist literary concept studied 
Links to the School Curriculum

History

PSHCE

History

PSHCE

History

PSHCE
Enrichment Activities

Read another novel by Hardy: “The Mayor of Casterbridge”, “Jude the Obscure”, “The Woodlanders”.  

Read another novel by Forster: “Howards End”, “A Passage to India”, “Where angels fear to tread” or a biography: “Concerning Forster” by Frank Kermode.

Read another Shakespearian tragedy: “Anthony and Cleopatra”, “Hamlet”, “Julius Caesar”, “King Lear”.

Read any other poems by: Donne, Marvell, Lovelace, Wilmot (Earl of Rochester), Blake, Burns, Byron, Keats, Rossetti, Hardy, Dowson

Read any other poems by: Jennings, Larkin, Ben Jonson, e. e. cummings, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Edna St Vincent Millay, Louis MacNeice.

Your N.E.A. is an entire independent unit – you need to select two comparable texts and research the texts and the authors.

Web Links Thomas Hardy website
E.M Forster websiteOr see Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

Visit The Royal Shakespeare Company website for more information on “Othello”.

Visit The British Library or individual poets’ websites for further information on pre 1900 poetry.
Read as much poetry as you can – it does not matter the poet or time period, have a look on YouTube for performance poets including: Kate Tempest, George The Poet, Hollie McNish, Sabrina Mahfouz, Jemima Foxtrot, Ross Sutherland
Year 13 Literature Term 1 Term 2 Term 3
Key Topic

“Skirrid Hill” by Owen Shears

“A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams and “The Color Purple” by Alice Walker

Unseen Poetry

Unseen Prose

Revision of: “Tess of the D'Ubervilles”, “A Room With a 

View”, “Othello”, “Skirrid Hill”, “A Streetcar Named Desire”, “The Color Purple”, Unseen Poetry and Unseen Prose
New Knowledge
  • Learn about the social, historical and cultural context of modern Welsh culture
  • Learn about the features and attitudes of Modern Literature including: continuity and change, complex and fragmented relationships between men and women, heritage and tradition, gender inequality, conflict between the past and present, toxic masculinity  
  • Learn how to critically analyse the ways in which meanings shape literary texts including: poetic form, genre, structure and language
  • Learn biographical details about Shears and critique this impact on our understanding of the poems

 

  • Learn about the social, historical and cultural context of 1950s America
  • Learn about the features and attitudes of Modern Literature including: displacement, attitudes towards mental health, gender roles, internal conflict, isolation, cultural conflict
  • Learn how to critically analyse the ways in which meanings shape literary texts including: stage directions, use of 11 scenes, genre, structure and language
  • Learn biographical details about Tennessee Williams and critique this impact on our understanding of the play
  • Learn about the social, historical and cultural context of 1910-1940s America
  • Learn about the features and attitudes of Modern Literature including: displacement, attitudes towards mental health, gender roles, internal conflict, isolation, cultural conflict, racism, sexism
  • Learn how to critically analyse the ways in which meanings shape literary texts including: epistolary novel, dual narrative, dialect, genre, structure and language
  • Learn about womanism
  • Learn biographical details about Alice Walker and critique this impact on our understanding of the novel
  • Learn how to interpret characters’ presentation and development, themes across two unseen poems
  • Learn how to make critical and evaluative interpretations 
  • Learn how to apply the social, historical and cultural context  of the specific Literary Era for two unseen poems
  • Learn how to examine language choices that reflect themes (including:  gender, class, patriarchy, love, mental health) linked to specific Literary Era
  • Learn how to analyse and critique structure and form to compare and critique two unseen poems
  • Learn how to apply Literary Readings to unseen poetry texts and how these can illuminate and extend analysis and interpretative skills

 

  • Learn how to interpret characters’ presentation and development, themes in an unseen text
  • Learn how to make critical and evaluative interpretations 
  • Learn how to apply the social, historical and cultural context  of Modern Literature for an unseen prose extract
  • Learn how to examine language choices that reflect themes (including:  gender, class, patriarchy, love, mental health) linked to Modern Literature
  • Learn how to analyse and critique narrative structure of the unseen prose extract including use cyclical structure, shifts in time and place, whole text organisation 
  • Learn how to apply Literary Readings to unseen prose text and how these can illuminate and extend analysis and interpretative skills

This term is focused on consolidation and reflection of previous learning from the beginning of Year 12.

New knowledge will only occur if your child needs to complete any learning tasks due to absence.

Previous Knowledge Required
  • Study of poetry in KS3, 4 and pre 1900 poetry in Year 12
  • Understanding of society during the Modern Era
  • Study of novels in KS3, 4 and “A Room with a View” and “Rebecca” in Year 12
  • Study of plays in KS3, 4 and “Othello” in Year 12
  • Understanding of attitudes towards culture, identity and discrimination from Key Stage 3 and 4 study
  • Study of poetry in KS3, 4 and pre 1900 poetry in Year 12
  • Study of prose in KS3 and 4
  • Understanding of society during different time periods and across different literary traditions
  • Study of “A Room with a View”, “Rebecca”, “Othello”, pre 1900 love poetry, Unseen Poetry, “Skirrid Hill”, “A Streetcar Named Desire”, “The Color Purple” and  Unseen Prose.
New Skills
  • Articulate informed, personal and critical responses to poems using sophisticated concepts and terminology
  • Sensitive analysis and interpretations of  the overall organisational structure and coherence of the collection and the links and connections across and between individual poems
  • Confidence and conviction engagement with are meanings are shaped by the methods used
  • Sophisticated and perceptive argument, debating ideas in a conceptualised manner
  • Perceptive understanding of the significance of relevant contexts
  • How to make discerning connections and explorations across texts and the historicist literary concept studied 
  • Articulate informed, personal and critical responses to poems using sophisticated concepts and terminology
  • Sensitive analysis and interpretations of  the overall organisational structure and coherence of the collection and the links and connections across and between individual poems
  • Confidence and conviction engagement with are meanings are shaped by the methods used
  • Sophisticated and perceptive argument, debating ideas in a conceptualised manner
  • Perceptive understanding of the significance of relevant contexts
  • How to make discerning connections and explorations across texts and the historicist literary concept studied 

Apt and effective revision skills and strategies. These could include:

- Mind maps

- Flash cards

- Quizzing

- Paired / group revision

- Using exam questions and mark schemes

- Re-doing an exam question you were unhappy with

- Planning responses

-  Podcasts

- Re-reading any of your literature texts
Links to the School Curriculum

Drama

History

PSHCE

Drama

History

PSHCE

Drama

History

PSHCE
Enrichment Activities Read a biography of one of your chosen authors, read another text by one of your taught authors, read another text on the same theme,  go to the theatre, watch programmes about literature and the arts – BBC4, BBC2 and Sky Arts  or listen to Radio 4: Book at Bedtime. Read a biography of one of your chosen authors, read another text by one of your taught authors, read another text on the same theme,  go to the theatre, watch programmes about literature and the arts – BBC4, BBC2 and Sky Arts  or listen to Radio 4: Book at Bedtime. Read a biography of one of your chosen authors, read another text by one of your taught authors, read another text on the same theme,  go to the theatre, watch programmes about literature and the arts – BBC4, BBC2 and Sky Arts  or listen to Radio 4: Book at Bedtime.
Web Links https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0374bx8 https://poetryarchive.org/ https://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/units/faculty-english-language-and-literaturehttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjz6LNDQOWaCkQegAHxyo2g