Assignments
I thought it was about time I said something more about my study. Given I have just had a two week break, there isn't much to update, but I thought I'd talk about one assignment that I'm working on and one that I'm looking forward to.
The one I'm working on is a (very limited) language survey. A language survey is designed to explore the use of a language in a multilingual community (a community which uses multiple languages), to understand current use of a language and probable future use of that language. Language surveys are used for many purposes, and may be something I will either do or need to read in the future. It is a very interesting process. First you have to decide who to interview - for the purpose of the assignment I need to interview only two people, preferably of different genders and ages. It is one thing, though, to interview people in English who are able to speak English, who are living in Australia, but it would be another thing entirely to interview people who may or may not have a language in common with the interviewer, in their country (which may not be the country of origin of the interviewer). For the purpose of this assignment, we are looking at a language community of our choice (otherwise known as the one we can contact people from at fairly short notice!) within a particular location within Australia, which generally means looking at how migrant languages are affected by being within an English context. For someone like me with interest in languages (which most of the other students are), this is fascinating!
The assignment which I am looking forward to doing is to make a book for someone we know. I am hoping to do something for my niece and nephew, to show them something of the place I am in this year and what I am doing - why I am not around as much at the moment. I think this will be fun, and a fascinating process, even though it is not part of our marked assessment items!
All in all, I am mostly enjoying the study, with interesting and purposeful assessment tasks which are designed to develop skills in being able to do things we may have to do in the future. Why is it so hard to be motivated to do compulsory readings, though?
The one I'm working on is a (very limited) language survey. A language survey is designed to explore the use of a language in a multilingual community (a community which uses multiple languages), to understand current use of a language and probable future use of that language. Language surveys are used for many purposes, and may be something I will either do or need to read in the future. It is a very interesting process. First you have to decide who to interview - for the purpose of the assignment I need to interview only two people, preferably of different genders and ages. It is one thing, though, to interview people in English who are able to speak English, who are living in Australia, but it would be another thing entirely to interview people who may or may not have a language in common with the interviewer, in their country (which may not be the country of origin of the interviewer). For the purpose of this assignment, we are looking at a language community of our choice (otherwise known as the one we can contact people from at fairly short notice!) within a particular location within Australia, which generally means looking at how migrant languages are affected by being within an English context. For someone like me with interest in languages (which most of the other students are), this is fascinating!
The assignment which I am looking forward to doing is to make a book for someone we know. I am hoping to do something for my niece and nephew, to show them something of the place I am in this year and what I am doing - why I am not around as much at the moment. I think this will be fun, and a fascinating process, even though it is not part of our marked assessment items!
All in all, I am mostly enjoying the study, with interesting and purposeful assessment tasks which are designed to develop skills in being able to do things we may have to do in the future. Why is it so hard to be motivated to do compulsory readings, though?
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