Investigating Language in Action

Welcome to EDU E819 Investigating Language in Action, a 20-credit, post-graduate level course. The course materials have been adapted from a course E854 of the same name which is developed by the UK Open University. You will therefore see the code E854 used throughout the course materials.

In this course, we will ask you to keep records and make notes as you go along, and we will refer to these records as your 'journal'. You will probably have your own preferences about what this journal should look like. It could be a notebook or a loose-leaf folder, or you may prefer to record and store your notes on a computer. However you choose to keep your journal, it should be used whenever you are asked to carry out an activity which requires making notes or responding to particular questions. This journal will, we hope, become part of a mental map or plan which will help you to deepen your knowledge.

EDU E819 is designed for people who are interested in exploring how linguistic theories can be used to engage with real-world problems in which language is implicated. Whether your interests lie in language education, the arts or the social sciences, you will find interesting points of connection as you examine and reflect on the nature and use of language. Whatever your background, throughout the course you will be encouraged to reflect on your professional and/or personal experience in the light of your reading and the activities.

EDU E819 Investigating Language in Action will:

• equip you with theories, concepts and analytical approaches that you can apply to thought-provoking scenarios concerning the English language;
• explore the relevance of research in the field of applied linguistics to contemporary issues in both global and local contexts;
• provide structured support for carrying out your own analysis of the way English is used in situations of particular interest to you;
• develop critical reflection on the connection between theories and practical applications (particularly in the field of education and language teaching).

The course materials for EDU E819 consist of this Course Guide, the Study Guide, two readers, Additional material for Hong Kong students, a set of Supplementary Materials, two DVDs, a brief glossary and a Project and Assignment Guide — all of which are provided by HKMU. In addition, there is a set book which you must obtain yourself.

Course Guide

The Course Guide tells you briefly what the course is about, what it contains, and how you can work your way through it. It also gives you information about the tutors and face-to-face sessions, the online platform (OLE), and assessment. Remember to refer to this Course Guide throughout the course to help clarify important points about EDU E819.

Study Guide

The Study Guide leads you through the course, indicating when to use the other course materials (described below), posting questions and activities and offering interpretations and discussion. At various points, it directs you to work on the other components: the Set Book and the Course Readers, the two DVDs, the CD-ROM and the reading materials on the OLE. Please note that the CD-ROM and some of the DVD video clips mentioned in the Study Guide are not provided as part of EDU E819. Please refer to the Important Note section below for details.

Look at the Study Guide. You will see that it is divided into six parts.

• Part 1 Theories for investigating language in action
• Part 2 Describing English
• Part 3 English in the world
• Part 4 Systemic Functional Linguistics
• Part 5 Critical Discourse Analysis
• Part 6 Ethnography

Take a few minutes to flick through the Study Guide. You will notice that it includes a number of activities — identified by small marginal icons. These icons are to indicate the type of task that the activity asks you to do. They are:

	Reading: this refers to chapters from the two course readers or the set book, or to links to book chapters or journal articles which are provided on the OLE (referred to as the Study Planner in the Study Guide);
	This icon refers to tasks, associated with the DVD extracts or the CD-ROM;
	This refers to activities associated with work on the computer: for example, web or corpus searches;
	This refers to the answer keys for some activities in Parts 4 & 5 that can be obtained from the tutor (referred to in the Study Guide as provided on the Study Planner).

It is strongly recommended that you do all the activities. We have provided an estimate of how long each activity may take, but these estimates are only intended as a rough guide. The Study Guide provides feedback or comments on activities. You will also find it helpful to keep any notes you make for activities, since you may need to return to them later — for example, when working on your assignments.

Readers and set book

There are two Course Readers comprising edited collections of papers or academic articles compiled by the course team:

1. Cook, G. and North, S.P. (eds) (2009) Applied Linguistics in Action: A Reader, London, Routledge in association with The Open University. (This book is a collection of papers related to Parts 1–3.)
2. Coffin, C., Lillis, T. and O'Halloran, K.A. (eds) (2009) Applied Linguistics Methods: A Reader, London, Routledge in association with The Open University. (This book is a collection of papers related to Parts 4–6.)

There is also a set book which you will need to buy as it is not provided as part of the course materials.

Coffin, C., Donohue, J. and North, S.P. (2009) Exploring English Grammar: From formal to functional, London, Routledge (ISBN: 978- 0-415-47816-8).

The set book has been published independently of the course, but is required reading. You will be prompted to read specific chapters by the Study Guide. All of these chapters provide practice in describing, interpreting and evaluating English language texts, and it is essential that you take your time working through these chapters and completing all activities.

Audio-visual materials

DVD-ROMs

There are two DVD-ROMs which contain three main types of audio-visual materials:

• short videos showing authentic language data;
• documentary material;
• a set of interviews about applied linguistics, dealing with both theory and practice.

You will be prompted by the Study Guide to view or listen to specific extracts.

(Refer to the Important Note below for details of the DVD items which are mentioned in the Course Guide, but not provided in EDU E819.)

Additional Material for Hong Kong Students

The Additional Material for Hong Kong Students has been added for EDU E819 students in an effort to relate some of the themes covered in the Study Guide, Course Readers and Set Book to the Hong Kong context.

Supplementary Materials

The Supplementary Materials include journal articles and book chapters related to content covered in the Study Guide. You should read the materials at the points indicated in the Study Guide.

The OLE Platform (Study Planner)

You will be directed by the Study Guide to online resources and activities accessed via a Study Planner in order to complete your course work. EDU E819 does not have a Study Planner, instead these resources and activities are made available on the OLE (Online Learning Environment) for the course. The OLE is an online facility which serves as the course website. As well as delivering online resources and activities, it provides support for assignments, ideas for further reading, etc. and allows group members to send and respond to messages, and enter into discussions with one another.

Glossary

Important technical terms in the field of English language teaching and learning are printed in bold in the Study Guide at the point where they are first defined (either in the Study Guide itself, or in the reading being discussed). These terms are defined briefly in the Glossary.

Your tutor will help you and the other students in the group:

• to interact and learn from one another;
• to understand the content of the materials;
• to develop your research skills and academic writing skills;
• to complete the assessed components.

To supplement your self-study, there are ten two-hour tutorials, three three- hour day schools and two 'surgeries' for individual consultation throughout the year. In addition, at the beginning of the semester, there will be a student orientation and a talk on the HKMU Library for new students.

In the tutorials and day schools, your tutor will answer your questions about any problems you might face during self-study and hold other activities, such as small-group discussions, to facilitate your learning. 'Surgeries' are sessions in which you can consult a tutor individually. In addition to these face-to-face sessions, you can also have telephone tutoring with your tutor.

As soon as your tutorial group is confirmed, we will give you the name and phone number of your tutor and notify you of the dates, times and location of the face-to-face sessions. To help you to participate actively in these face-to-face sessions, you are provided with a Tutorial and Day School Manual which indicates what you should prepare for each session, and suggests some activities and questions for discussion.

You are strongly recommended to go through the Tutorial and Day School Manual before each tutorial or day school. All face-to-face sessions are optional, but attendance and active participation in them will enhance your learning.

Besides supporting you through the face-to-face sessions and telephone tutoring, your tutor marks and comments on your assignments, and keeps a close watch on your progress. When your assignments are returned, pay particular attention to the comments your tutor has written on the Assignment Form and the assignment.

Students enrolled in EDU E819 will have an additional means to communicate and discuss with their peers, tutors and Course Coordinator issues arising from course materials through the HKMU Online Learning Environment (OLE).

Your tutor will mainly communicate with you via group (and sometimes individual) emails and via the OLE and you can engage with discussions with fellow students and the tutor and Course Coordinator via the Discussion Board. You should expect to spend some time every week reading, writing and checking for messages on the OLE.

The following is a recommended strategy for working through the course. First read the Important Note below and mark on your own copy of the Course Guide those activities which are not provided, and those which will be provided for you by your tutor. Remember that whenever the 'Study Planner' is mentioned in the Study Guide, you should look for the relevant resources on the OLE for the course, or in the Supplementary Materials.

1. Organize a study schedule. Refer to the Study Schedule provided on the OLE. Note the time suggested for you to spend on each section and how the assignments relate to the sections. You will receive details of your face-to-face sessions and, later in the year, your examination. Once you have decided on your own study schedule, do everything you can to stick to it. The major reason that students fail is that they fall behind with their course work. If you get into difficulties with your schedule, please let your tutor know before it is too late to help you.
2. Work on your course by reading through the Study Guide. When you come to an activity, follow the instructions and read the assigned article(s) and/or answer the questions. Then return to the Study Guide. In each part of the Guide, you may be directed to the relevant sections of the Supplementary Materials.
3. In reading materials from the readers and set book, try to focus on the main points and not get bogged down in the details. Also, read carefully any commentaries in the Study Guide on the readings to guide or reinforce your learning.
4. Watch the DVDs and listen to the CD when you are directed to do so. If necessary, you may need to listen to/watch parts of them more than once in order to grasp the main points.
5. Use the Project and Assignment Guide to identify the pieces of work you are required to submit for assessment during the course of the year and ensure that your pattern of study will allow you to meet the criteria listed there.
6. Review your work at the end of each section. When you have completed Part 6 and Assignment 5, review the course and prepare yourself for the final examination. Look at the Specimen Examination Paper, which you will receive later in the year, to see what kinds of questions you will be expected to answer in the examination.

Important Note

The audio and video clips or reading for the activities listed in the table below are not provided in the Study Guide or on the DVDs. They will be provided for you later either by your tutor or via the OLE or you may follow the links provided below.

You will also be prompted by the Study Guide to (optionally) work through relevant activities on a CD-ROM for E303 offered by UKOU (as ENGL E320 at HKMU). As this CD-ROM is not provided for EDU E819 students, you may refer to the activities in the set books for ENGL E320 for HKMU students instead.

Please mark your Study Guide on the pages where these activities occur as a reminder that you should consult your tutor for the relevant resources.

EDU E819 has two methods of assessing your progress: continuous assessment (assignments) and a final examination.

Assignments

There are five assignments for continuous assessment purposes in the course. ALL the assignments will be counted and contribute 60% to your final course result.

Assignments 1, 2 and 4 comprise a critical review, a text analysis and an essay, which together account for 34% of your final course score.

Assignments 3 and 5 relate to a small-scale investigation of an issue(s) in the course. This project is completed in two stages. Initially you are asked to prepare a project proposal (Assignment 3) setting out your plan. This proposal is an important opportunity to receive your tutor's comment and guidance on how to improve the design of the project. Once you have completed your project proposal you will be asked to prepare a final project report (Assignment 5). Your project proposal (6%) and report (20%) in total account for 26% of your final course score.

Details of the assessment regulations, questions and guidance, general guidance on the project, due dates for all assessed work, etc. can be found in the Project and Assignment Guide.

Examination

The examination for EDU E819 will last for three hours and is worth 40% of the total course result.

You are advised to use the time between finishing the last section of the Study Guide and sitting the examination to review the entire course. You might find it useful to review also your assignments and comments on them before the examination.

The Specimen Examination Paper will be similar in format to the final examination, although the questions will be different. To earn a pass for the course, you must pass both the continuous assessment (assignments) and your final examination.

We hope that, by studying EDU E819 Investigating Language in Action, you will develop your understanding of how linguistic theories can be used to engage with real-world problems in which language is implicated.

We wish you every success in the course.

Centre for Language and Communication: Dr Caroline Coffin, Professor Guy Cook, Dr Theresa Lillis, Dr Sarah North, Dr Kieran O’Halloran (central academics and authors).

Conultant authors: Dr Susan Feez (University of New England, Australia), Dr Martin Rhys (The Open University in Wales), Dr Denise Santos (Reading University, UK).

Jane Docwra (production manager), Fiona Durham (Learning and Teaching librarian), Carol Johns-MacKenzie (course secretary), Catherine McNulty (course manager), Fulden Underwood (programme manager), Angela Whicker (course secretary).

Learning & Teaching Solutions: Liaket Ali (DVD author), Carole Brown (Sound & Vision), Chris French (Sound & Vision), Gill Gowans (co-publishing advisor), Sue Lowe (project manager), Neil Mitchell (designer and graphic artist), Michael Peet (Sound & Vision), Sean Scrivener (editor), Mark Thomas (interactive media designer), Nikki Tolcher (media assistant).

The course team would like to express their thanks to Professor Mike Baynham, University of Leeds, UK, for serving as external course assessor and providing useful commentary on draft materials.

We would also like to thank our developmental testers and critical readers, including Judy Anderson, Professor Lynne Cameron, Dr Diane Phillips, Professor Najib Shehabi, Lian Wang.