Varieties of English

American English

• English first introduced to the Americas by English colonization in 1607.
• Varieties in spelling such as including/removing 'u', where standard English includes and American-English removes- e.g. "colour"/"color". This also includes the variation in spelling when using an 's' or a 'z' where standard English users are using the spelling with the 's' rather than the 'z'. 
• Differences in lexis where terms are not the same but the meaning is e.g. "Boot"/"trunk", "bonnet"/"hood". However speakers can generally understand eachother due to increased usage of technology such as movies and social media - so interactions are still fluent. 
• The use of past/present tense in the same situation - Standard English users may use the past tense for a present situation such as "I am sat in the class" where as American-English users would use the present tense "I am sitting in the class".
• Different formatting of dates - standard English uses day/month/year but American-English uses month/day/year.

Chicano

• English of a Mexican origin/influence.
• Consonants are often pronounced as in Spanish - e.g. the 'z' and 'v' often undergoes devoicing.
• Chicano English also has a complex set of nonstandard English intonation patterns, such as pitch rises on significant words in the middle and at the end of sentences as well as initial-sentence high pitches, which are often accompanied by the lengthening of the affected syllables.
• It is not a 'learner' variety of English, but is a fully developed form of English that is the native variety of many of its speakers.
• Often uses double negatives - however may also be a dialectical feature of some standard English in the UK, such as Bristol.
• Spanish signifies the third person possession through pre-positional phrases rather than possessive nouns, and so sentences such as "the car of my brother is blue" may be produced.

English Lingua Franca (ELF)

• This is the use of English as a means of communication between speakers of a different language.
• English is used due to the links between business, the media and even communication during The Olympics - the English language has spread to all 5 continents.
• Often includes aspects of the speakers native language, so the use of grammar and lexis may vary depending on their mother tongue.
• Some users may accommodate their language to their recipient, changing the language that they use in order to have a more successful outcome. Some may even slip into the recipients native language to further ensure better communication.

Manglish

• Originates in Malaysia.
• Spelling generally follows British English, however it has adopted many American English expressions and slang - particularly among Malaysian youth.
• Some Malaysian words have become common in Manglish, such as suffixing a sentence with -lah to signify a sentence as being not so serious.

New Zealand English

• This is the first language of the majority of the population in New Zealand, and was developed by colonists during the 19th century.
• Some New Zealanders may respond to questions with a rising intonation at the end - making their response sound like another question. This is also heard in Australia.
• In informal speech, some New Zealanders use the third person feminine she rather than the third person neutral it, again, this is similar to Australian English.
• Follows the British English usage of -re rather than the American -er, such as "centre" rather than "center".
• Also favours the English use of -ce rather than the American -se, e.g. "defence"/"defense".

Language Change timeline

1348 - The Black Death:  After almost 1/2 of the population died, people were able to request better conditions and higher wages from their landlords as fewer people were available to work. Subsequently most of these people advanced to higher ranks in society. Language standards may have increased and standard English may have became more prevalent.

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1601-1603 - Shakespeare and Hamlet: introduced more sensitive and existential discussions. May have been shocking to the public, but new language uses may have been introduced and used.
1608 - English arrives in North America: Founded in Virginia, the founder being adventurer John Smith. The spread of the English language,
1611 - King James' bible introduces new phrases: 'salt of the earth' etc. Around 250 phrases are now a part of the English language.
1613 -  First English Dictionary: 3000 words. The preface quoted the poor standard of English at the time. The public may have accepted that is it now unacceptable to speak in a way not supported in the dictionary.
1616 -  Opening of The Globe theater in London - Possible advances in spoken language use.
1674 - Criminal slang: The Canting Academy by Richard Head records the customs, phrases and songs of urban villains and scoundrels. Increase in the use of non-standard Enlish? More slang/offensive language introduced?

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1700 - John Dryden Fables: His style of composition was a template for writing in English in the 1800s.
1724 - Trade and the English language: Cargo lists from other countries such as India influenced our language greatly - Indian influences and backgrounds. Words of an Indian origin may have been introduced and altered over time.
1755 - Johnson's Dictionary: the most famous dictionary in English history, listed 40,000 words. and took 55 years to complete. The English language had grown greatly in the last 100 years. (1613 - 3000 words known).
1762 - Lowth's grammar: fulfilled the demand among a growing middle class for guidance on how to use 'polite' or 'correct' English.
1791 - Walker's correct pronunciation: The public on both sides of the Atlantic were eager for guidance on how to speak correctly. Walker illustrated how to reproduce a 'cultured' London accent. Above all, this was for Londoners with a Cockney accent which to Walker is 'a thousand times more offensive and disgusting'.

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1818 - Mary Shelley, Frankenstein: Frankenstein was a ghost story she made up to amuse her husband.
1824 - Grammar for children: Children often became bored when learning grammar, so colour and poetry was first introduced here.
1825 - Punctuation for children.
1837 - Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist: He adapted his spellings to convey a sense of natural rhythms of London speech at the time.
1847 - Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights.
1855 - Cookery for the poor, Alexis Soyer: Possibly could have heightened the language standards of the poor.
1862-1864 - Alice's adventures in Wonderland.
1864 - The Queen's English: This was one of the earliest and most influential style models. Much of the content addresses Henry Alford's personal views on the use and abuse of English.
1878 - Invention of the telephone: The book 'All about the telephone and phonograph' was also published.
1879 - The Oxford English dictionary: Created a vast and comprehensive collection of English words from 1150 onward.
1886 - The Anglo-Indian dictionary: As British control in India grew, the English language established itself and began to develop. Henry Yule and Arthur Coke Burnell used their notes on Anglo-Indian words to create the 2000 word dictionary.
1888 - Jack the Ripper: Some say that the newspapers came up with his name in order to sell more copies.

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1904 - Sherlock Holmes: Inspired by Doctor Bell of Edinburgh who could predict illnesses in patients and was said to do so by chance. Sherlock Holmes was written as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle thought science should have a part in 'chance'.
1914 - Suffragettes protest: empowerment for women.
1929 - BBC English was formed: Basis on how to pronounce uncommon words or words with varying pronunciations.
1939 - Wanted poster for Hitler: From The Daily Mirror, the 'Wanted' sign cast Hitler as a classic wild west criminal. This was to strengthen the country's resolve against him. This format has been popular in newspapers ever since.
1948 - Immigration from India: introduction of Indian influences on language.
1950s - Chinese restaurants: Chinese may have began to influence English.
1976 - 2nd December The Sex Pistols: Whilst live on TV, the presenter ridiculed the band and 'rude words' went out to the nation. There was a huge backlash from the media and the public.

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Children's writing samples

Nature book - Year 4 / age 7-8

The garden

The garden has got a pond with lilly pads and a fish.
Round it has got flowers and a tree.
there is a patio.
It has got lotf of grass


Page 9
In are yard ther is a big tree
I see bloutit in it my dad put a Bold box on the tree.
We have a swing the stains came the robns we put bred and seeds.

The star of Wathapd
One day i whet to intanmost
I sow a lagtayttit & a {unclear}
it was good i whet to the capays & I got some keyl mit cake.
Then i whet {unclear}
The end.

Wild animals - Year 5 / age 9-10

Jungle animals
The tiger has strips all over his coat.
The lepord has spots here and there.
The poor hippotamas has a probics.
Th gorilla is covered with hair.
The giraffe has, by heack a very long neck.
The elephant has a large trunk.
The lion is king of the jungle,
but they all run away from the skunk.

The African Jungle {extract}
One sunny morning leo the lion was thinking. He was thinking of the jungle to make it nicer. Hello leo! replied Hisser, 'what are you doing today?' Well I want to change the jungle, to make it nicer. I don't want you to "said Hisser. I like it as it is she said. I am the king said leo arngreyley. Nila, leos wife came back from the jungles in north Africa. The pack of monkeys up a tree from leo, were very happy to see Nila.

Children's writing

Children's spelling

• Doubling consonants – e.g. breezzy, dissappeared

• Spell phonetically – e.g. ment, brite

• Stressed and unstressed letters – knife = nife, stomach = tomach

• Vowel combinations – i.e. ‘I comes before e’ e.g. coulourful

• Suffixing and prefixing – e.g. living = liveing

• Initial letter – e.g. England = Ingland

• Insertion - adding extra letters 

• Omission - leaving out letters

• Substitution - substituting one letter for another

• Transposition - reversing the order of letters in words

• Phonetic spelling - spelling words according to the standard phonemes that graphemes make

• Over/undergeneralising of spelling rules - applying or not applying rules in inappropriate contexts or one specific context

• Salient (key) sounds - only including the key sounds

Cohesive features

• Connectives

• Punctuation – full stop, colon

• Order of the text

• Tenses used

• Paragraphs

• Headings, sub headings

• Consistency of audience

• Anaphoric references – referring to the past - last week

• Cataphoric references – referring to future – later on

• Continuity of style

• Conventions followed

• Structure

• Illustrations

• Layout

• Consistency of sentence lengths

Stages in the development of writing - DOCTOR CATHY BARCLAY 1996

Stage 1: SCRIBBLING STAGE

• Random marks on a page

• Writing and scribbles are accompanied by speaking

Stage 2: MOCK HANDWRITING STAGE

• Writing + drawings

• Produce wavy lines which is their understanding of lineation

• Cursive writing

Stage 3: MOCK LETTERS

• Letters are separate things.

Stage 4: CONVENTIONAL LETTERS

• Usually involves writing the name as the first word.

• Child usually puts letters on a page but is able to read it as words.

Stage 5: INVENTED SPELLING STAGE

• Child spells in the way they understand the word should be spelt- own way.

Stage 6: APPROPRIATE/ PHONETIC SPELLING STAGE

• Attach spelling with sounds.

Stage 7: CORRECT SPELLING STAGE

• Are able to spell most words.

Stages in the development of writing - B.M. KROLL 1981

Stage 1 - Preparatory Stage

• The child learns the basic principles of spelling.

• Learns the basic motor skills needed to write.

Stage 2 - Consolidation Stage

• The child writes in the way they would speak.

• Uses mainly short declarative sentences including mainly 'and' conjunctions.
• 
  
• Incomplete sentences as they don’t know how to finish the sentence off.

Stage 3: DIFFERENTIATION STAGE (age up to 9)

• Child becomes aware of the difference between speaking and writing.

• Recognises the different writing styles available e.g. letter, essay.

• Lots of mistakes.

• Use writing guides and frameworks to structure work.

• Write to reflect thoughts and feelings.

Stage 4: INTEGRATION STAGE (12+)

• Child develops a personal style.

• Child understands that you can change your style according to audience and purpose.

 Children's authors

It is clear that the most popular children's authors are those such as J.K Rowling, Roald Dahl, C.S Lewis and Beatrix Potter. I believe that these authors have been successful because they use tools such as imagery and humor in their novels to keep children engaged. The use of drawings and images in the novels make reading more fun for children who may not want to read, and humor and rhyme are other tools that these authors use frequently to make their stories more entertaining, so that the children really want to read them. One book I remember from my childhood is “Hairy Maclary from Donaldson’s dairy” by Lynley Dodd. I believe that this book was particularly memorable to me due to the use of engaging illustrations and rhyme throughout the whole story. The rhyme and layout of the novel allowed it to be read almost as a song either to or by the child, this means that it would be more fun for the child and would encourage them to read more often.

Teaching children to read

The most popular method of teaching children to read is through the use of synthetic phonics. This is where the teacher breaks words down into the sounds they make – for example, ‘dog’ would be broken down into ‘d’, ‘o’ and ‘g’ and then the sounds are blended to make ‘dog’. This technique can then be transferred to learning to read and write as the sounds in words can be converted into letters onto paper. However, there are some arguments against this method which suggest that synthetic phonics cannot be used to teach children to read everything, for example words such as ‘friend’ are more difficult to decode and cannot be broken down into sounds. This could mean that another method of teaching would have to be suggested in order for the child to fully develop their reading. Although there are some criticisms, it could be said that the method of using sounds to teach children could be more simple for children to understand and it has been found that children who are taught to learn with phonics are up to 2 years ahead of those who used other methods,

Another method of teaching would be using reading schemes. The most popular reading schemes are Oxford Reading Tree, Collins Big Cat and Rigby Star. These reading schemes are developed in conjunction with literacy experts. The Oxford Reading Tree for example, is supported by Debbie Hepplewhite, who developed the synthetic phonics method. Most schemes begin in the Foundation Stage and progressively become more difficult. For example, Key Stage 1 books are written with a mix of high-frequency and decodable words to develop a range of reading strategies in the children, while Key Stage 2 books cover a wide range of genres and subjects, linking to the curriculum. This would develop their reading further and expand their vocabulary. When a child is ready to progress to ‘normal’ reading, most discover their own books they would like to read and do this freely. However, some critics believe that the books that are used in reading schemes have bland content and a uniform appearance, which could even delay children's access to the real world.

The Miscues

Correction:
A common sign of a competent reader, a correction is a miscue that the student corrects in order to make sense of the word in the sentence.

Insertion:
An insertion is a word or words added by the child that are not in the text.

Omission:
During oral reading, the student omits a word that changes the meaning of the sentence.

Repetition:
The student repeats a word or portion of the text.

Reversal:
A child will reverse the order of the print or the word. (from instead of form, etc.)

Substitution:
Instead of reading the word in the text, a child substitutes a word which may or may not make sense of the passage.