Finding my Feet

Well I have been here for 10 days now, I would love to tell you that I have done so much, but unfortunately after I arrived and my body realised the stress had disappeared, it decided to let a cold in instead.  I knew it was a good buy picking up extra Lemsips at the airport.  I passed the cold onto Uwe where it mutated into Man-Flu, and as such we didn't get too much done except visit the supermarket a few times, but at least my belongings arrived in one piece.

The view from the supermarket car park is somewhat nicer than that of Tescos in Milton Keynes!

I had my final oral assessment for L193 and got stage fright so not really anticipating a good result there lol.  It only lasted two minutes and consisted mainly of me saying "erm" and "wie, bitte?" which bummed me a bit because as soon as it was over I knew exactly what to say :( I have the L130 assessment tomorrow morning and this one is longer and a group session, I have decided there is no point worrying about it though, what will be , will be.

Uwe went back to work on Wednesday, and I haven't had the confidence to get out on my own yet, but tomorrow we are going to take the bus into town together so that I am familiar with where I am supposed to get off and not get lost, and my Monday challenge is to go buy some groceries.

We have friends birthdays to go to both tonight and tomorrow night which should be fun.

Time for a small update...

Well it is just under 5 weeks until I move and I have made a start on things, I have been furiously been copying CDs to my PC so that I can sell my collection at the car boot, I really hadn't realised how big my collection was! I estimate it at about 400, so even if I sell them all for 25p each that would be a nice sum.  I still need to sort through my books and I have a mountain of shredding that needs to be done, I could probably keep a hamster in a home for 3 years =P

In other news I got my result for U211 and I managed a Pass 2, which is brilliant for someone that had thoughts of giving up right at the start, so I am feeling quite proud of myself for even making it to the end let alone getting such a good grade, and I wasn't that far off a distinction!  My new course books have arrived for E301: The Art of English which is all about the creativity in the English we use everyday as well as in the more traditional literary sense. The assignment booklet won't be available until the beginning of September but I have looked at last years and they don't look so scary, fingers crossed for this year too then :)

Also a letter turned up yesterday from the Council and my German evening class tutor has nominated me for an Adult Continuing Education learner award! No idea what that actually is but I get to go to an awards ceremony about 10 days before I leave, how exciting!!

Anyways that is it for now, I may write again before I leave but if I remain quiet I hope you'll forgive me :)

Well I had been hoping to have results for both my assignments in English and German by now but alas I do not. I am happy to report that I did exceptionally well with my German and got 97%, although when converted into final marks it sounds a lot less impressive as it was only worth a max 5% of the continuous assessment mark, which in turn is only 2.5% of my overall score.  Anyway if I get stranded at an airport or need to spell my name or give my telephone number out I am golden apparently...

English is a rather irritating story.  I had hopes that because we had a tutorial yesterday morning that like last time the results might materialise some time on Friday.  They did not.  When asked our tutor said that he had marked them and it must be a computer glitch that we hadn't got them, benefit of the doubt things like that can go wrong. However shortly afterwards he said that the cut off was 24th November and that he'd sent them off about 10 days afterwards which was around Monday... hang on... but yesterday was the 10 day mark.  Okay so he's an English teacher not a Maths teacher, number of days might escape him.  So can he give us our marks individually? Nope they have to go via the system, he isn't allowed to discuss our own marks with us on a one to one basis... erm... oookay.  Lastly, we did have a small discussion at break between us students about the last TMA and the fact we all posted so we could read each others, and bearing in mind this guy is quite passionate about linguistics he didn't mention anything about any of our postings, such as variety, interest etc.  So conclusion? I must admit to thinking he hasn't looked at our assignments yet, let alone marked them.  Oh well the OU says that we should expect to get results back up to two weeks after submission, hopefully I'll have them before Wednesday.

Apart from the non marked assignments the tutorial was pretty useful with regards to the assignment due in January, I just need to find a program to transcribe.  I was thinking of Jeremy Kyle because it is at least linguistically interesting but he's gone and changed the format of his show, they've given him a desk and everything now! I will need to have it transcribed by the time I go to Germany or find a suitable clip I can access while I am over there, otherwise it might put a spanner in the works.

Sorry for the somewhat boring post... seems I needed a rant!

Was ich heute gelernt habe

Today was my first tutorial for L193, I was a lot more nervous about this then I was for the English one even though I was pretty comfortable with the topics covered in Thema 1.  I think it is because the dreaded speaking is involved, and with language classes you're usually made to get up and wander around asking everyone the same questions, which we were and as usual it wasn't as bad as I anticipate it to be.  It is always good to meet people that are also learning and sharing tips.

I did learn a few new bits of vocabulary which I have written down and will add to my flashcards, speaking of which I was recommended a site called Quizlet to use which has the L193 vocabulary set up by a course tutor but it can also be used by everyone to create groups and add vocabulary for any subject they like, I will add this address to my links on the right hand side. There are 299 terms in the set and I managed to get 59% (177) correct in the first try, so will be doing that as often as possible, a lot of the wrong answers were due to giving the wrong gender article or spelling mistakes rather then not knowing the word at all, which was encouraging.

In fact I was so encouraged I have submitted the first TMA which has 4 parts to it, Reading, Writing, Listening and Speaking but we are only marked on the Reading and Speaking parts this time.  I think I did okay in the end, I am happy with what I submitted but time will tell, this first TMA is only worth 5% of the continuous assessment mark so not much pressure if I find I have messed it up.

I have now posted part 2 of U211's TMA02 and submitted it as a whole, and the deadline isn't for a few more days yet which is very pleasing.  I had been absolutely dreading part 2, and I changed which person I was replying to more than once and even after I had settled on the word I changed the angle I was taking with the investigation and stumbled on some really good finds.  I really hope I have done well in this TMA as I worked hard with the research aspect and really enjoyed it a lot so it would be a shame to find out I have done poorly.  Just playing the waiting game now I don't expect to hear anything for about 3 weeks... will I be able to stand the wait?

Investigative Happiness

The last week or so has been spent doing a mini research project for U211's TMA02 into a word from a non standard English variety.  I have to admit to have been dreading this task, although I drop my t's and have an estuary like accent, the majority of my spoken language is what I would regard as standard.  However that was until I contemplated my online gamer side and realised that I spoke a very non-standard and creative variety.  I picked a word which to me was interesting and reflected that creativity and started from there.

Usually when it comes to word counts I am struggling to meet the limit, this time I could have easily gone over it and had to cut so many bits that I had discovered to fit the meagre 600 word limit.  Once finished the most scary part of all arrived.  This assignment is not just written in word in the safety of your own space but instead posted on our tutor group forums for your fellow students to read! I know we are all in the same boat, that they post theirs for me to read but it doesn't make things better, especially when you're the 20th person to post and you can see how everyone else's compares.

So why is this so public? Well the second part of TMA02 involves replying to one of the other threads with further investigation into their word/phrase/etc.  I haven't had a chance to look properly at them all yet, I didn't want to scare myself too much by comparing what I've written to what they have but I hope to have as an enjoyable time researching this part as I did with the first.

This TMA also signals the completion of Block 1 of the course, we are a quarter of the way through the module!  The last couple of chapters I have kinda skimmed through but I don't care so much, I have decided that I will not answer a question on the exam from this part, and as long as my glossary is up to date it is fine.  This has the added bonus of me now being 2 weeks ahead of schedule and I hope to stay that way at least so I don't have to do too much while I'm in Germany next month.

The waiting game

I am kind of in Limbo at the moment, it has been over a week since TMA01's deadline and although I read somewhere it should take 2 weeks for it to be marked I am constantly checking to see if my result is back yet.  I think this was not helped by some people getting their result back at midnight after the deadline was up, if I had been given a specific date that the result would be available I could at least put off checking until then, but it could arrive back at any time and I am curious to see how I did and what the feedback is before starting on TMA02.

Most people seem to be disappointed with their results so perhaps not seeing it is for the best, although these are often people that have a result of over 70% which for me would be a great result.  I have been thinking about my own expectations, 40% pass will make me relieved but not really happy, but as long as the feed back is helpful then I guess even that is okay and points me off in the right direction. 50-65% is where I am expecting to be placed, and I would be satisfied with that kind of marking, given that I have found the material rather challenging.  So 66% and above will see me smiling, the higher the number the bigger my grin I expect.

I have been wondering if my degree plan as I have it mapped at the moment is actually how I want to proceed.  I am finding the linguistics incredibly challenging and that has me wondering if I should change to study French and German, after all I do have some experience learning French previously and being trilingual would have its advantages, but would it be too confusing?  Do I instead look at mixing the degree into an Open degree and choose subjects I am interested in? I wouldn't mind popping in some Maths or Psychology units, but then an Open degree does not carry the same weight as a pre determined path.  I am not rushing into making any decisions right now as I do want to give this course a go and from reading reviews of this compared to the Level 3 English courses it seems that they are more enjoyable and that even U211 becomes better to study the further into it one gets.  I wonder how I'll feel when that result finally comes through...

Destressing...

Well the past few days for all U211'ers has been quite stressful with the run up to the first TMA deadline of the course.  There has been so much support and comradeliness on the Forums it has been great, the new posts were coming in thick and fast as people were taking a break from the word counting, referencing, general muddling over what the question meant.  Whatever time of day you visited it was active, for the first time I felt that I was not alone and that I was part of our community.

As for the TMA itself well, I am glad to be rid of it, I managed to hand it in with plenty of time to spare before deadline which was great!  I don't know what to expect in terms of a grade, I am hoping for a 40% pass at least I might even be hopeful for 50-60%.  The biggest sense of achievement really comes from actually carrying on when I wanted to give up and making a submission of something I worked my hardest on.

I have learnt a lot from this experience, I know that going forward to make notes as I read, I know not to worry about other peoples experiences of the course and to concentrate on how I am getting on and deal with it in my own time, I know that I can ask for help or express a concern on the Forum and will be met with others in the same boat.  I am not the worlds most organised person, and if it were a sliding scale I'd probably be closing in on the worlds least organised person, but I have begun to make use of organisational tools.  Every TMA and Tutorial is marked in my Outlook calendar, with alarms to remind me plenty in advance, I have also marked in other appointments and commitments so that I can make study appointments with myself.  As a result it is not only helping with my studies but every area of my life.

Now we all just have to think about what we wrote until the marks come back, which should be within the next two weeks, I'll keep you posted.  Now best get started on the next lot of studies and checking out TMA02!

Three firsts...

Well I really meant to post before now as there has been quite a lot going on to report.  I had my first U211 Tutorial at the weekend and I found it to be very useful.  The group was a nice size of about 11 people and the tutor was quite enthusiastic which was nice as I had been worried that his lack of contact was going to be an indication of tutorial quality, but I am pleased to say that was not the case.  It was good to know that like myself most people also felt a bit daunted by the module, I think that comes from the fact that it is a compulsory module in so many degree combinations so a lot of us wouldn't go near this subject by choice.  That said it is very interesting and the tutor told us that most people find the first block the hardest going and find the rest of the course a lot better, so there is hope!

TMA01 is due next week and I have been working through the text book with my highlighter pen and writing summary notes for each sub-section which I am finding extremely helpful and I have decided that I will tackle the materials this way from now on.  I don't think that I have ever been taught how to study properly, I really have never taken notes about anything but now I am able to identify areas of interest and by trying to summarise in my own words I am finding the information is even sticking!  I don't expect to get a high mark for the TMA and at the moment I am aiming for the 40% needed to pass, which is helping to take the pressure off, of course I am trying my best and it would be nice to get higher but 40% would suffice.

L193's website opened today and the first thing I checked, as I think most OU students do, was the TMAs and their submission dates.  I was surprised at the pace of the course, although I suppose it is beginners but the final TMA is due at the end of August and the ECA at the End of September, I expected that because it started one month after U211 that it would finish a month after too which would make it mid July.  I will aim to get ahead as much as I can so that I don't find L130 too much of a step up.  As for the TMAs themselves they look quite straight forward and I was happy that I can complete most of the first one without looking anything extra up, so over the past year of evening courses I have retained some knowledge!

I am still excited to be studying, I will be happier after next week when the first assessment is under my belt though.

Bis später!

Distracting Distractions

Well I finally wrote the first 51 words of TMA01 today, being sick with Flu too.  I think they are a good 51 words, well I suppose good is in the eye of the beholder but I am happy with them.  The TMA is split into two parts.  In the first part we have to explain the meaning of two linguistic terms, which have been chosen by the course moderators, in 100-150 words per definition.  Part two is a 900 word essay about one aspect of the history of English.

I still have 2.5 weeks before it is due but I am not sure how I am going to understand what is expected more than I do today, our tutor so far has made no contact, other people have at least had a welcome email even if for some it had out of date information.  Others are lucky and have active tutor group forums with activities and advice, I am hoping that the tutorial will be good next week and he is just waiting until he has met us in person before posting on-line, but somehow I'm not holding my breath.

So because of my lack of knowing which direction to go in pretty much everything else seems a lot more interesting than studying, such as the U211 forum which as you might have noticed from my previous posts is not short of controversy.

There are couple of people that are self confessed experts and feel the need to chime in and assert their egos dropping highly academic concepts to people that for all they understand might as well be written in Chinese, and there are people that seem to praise them every time they say something which only encourages them to get more involved.  I am sure they are trying to be helpful but there have been a few occasions where they have been wrong and most of all they are making a lot of people feel very uncertain with their ability, so this week I was happy to see the emergence of something called "The Out Crowd" which is open to anyone who doesn't have a clue what is going on.  The other thing to bear in mind is that as interesting as I am sure it is, we need to stick to the U211 curriculum and it might be that the information given to us by people other than the tutors might be a hindrance rather than a help.

(Edit: I wanted to add to the above as there was a post on the Out Crowd thread from someone that has been very helpful and not one of the people I was referring to above saying that he will no longer post on the forum because he doesn't want to make people feel put off by "clever answers".  I have found all posts by the guy in question to be extremely helpful and easy to understand.  The posts that I am referring to contain highly technical information that a person with no linguistic background cannot understand, which is why most people find it frustrating.  I shall say no more on this subject as it is not my intention to offend anybody just to vent my own inner thoughts, which is why I have added this here and not created yet another new blog entry on the subject.)

The other thread which is getting most attention is one about Linguistic Pet Peeves, which does have some of the things in there that you might expect such as They're/Their/There, Your/You're, etc but a lot had to do with the pronunciation and regional dialectal variations, such as pronouncing "garage" as garridge and valette instead of valet, which has unsurprisingly riled some people.  The many varied dialects and accents of Britain are wonderful and should be celebrated, it is a way of identifying immediately with someone you have just met and most of us wear our accents with pride.  I love a nice west country accent personally because it reminds me of my Nan and many childhoods spent there, of course there will be some accents we prefer to listen to, and some we might not even be able to understand but if we all spoke in the same way then wouldn't television be boring?

The Joys of Forums

Forums, they are a great source of information and if you find the right one to pose your question on there will be someone that knows the answer to that question no matter how obscure.  Often they are also the home of a fantastic (insert sarcasm) breed of people called "Forum Trolls", generally they have no life and will post anything if they believe it will provoke a negative response from other users, nothing is sacred and because they can hide behind the anonymity of their avatar they are more outrageous and confrontational then they would be in real life.  One of their favourite things on Facebook is to create a number of false accounts and join groups just to troll, they will post racist, sexist and any other kind of negative and offensive -ist comment and unfortunately people rise to the bait, in fact I have heard people refer to it as Baitbook.

It happens on all forums to different degrees, I have spoken before about the self promoting know it alls, but someone brought up a good point on the U211 forum earlier that often hostility arises from misinterpretation of written language compared to spoken is this accidental trolling?  When you speak to someone, even if you can't see their facial expressions, you can hear their intonation and intention.  When it is written it the person may have penned a cheeky comment that if spoken would have been light and mischievous in tone, the person reading may interpret it in a more direct way as if it was meant to insult.

In the case I am referring to in particular someone asked a question in a new thread when it had already been answered in the exact same way in another larger thread of the same subject, there are in fact about 7 or 8 threads with the same topic, unfortunately the forum has no sticky or else an FAQ thread could have been started, another person pointed it out and expressly said that he was not ranting but just offering advice. The original person then took complete offence and wrote quite a direct reply back which could have only one way of interpreting it, you get the idea.

As with everything there are pros and cons to forums and for the most part they are, as I stated at the beginning of this post, great sources of chat/information sharing/ideas bouncing, but how can we make the most of them and post our pieces of text to be interpreted the way they are meant to be?  This extends to not just internet forums but all forms of written communication such as email, texts, instant messaging, internal memos, etc.  With more and more ways of communicating instantly via textual means this is something that might evolve in the future, a version of English that can be taken the way it is meant to be.

Other than that I have finished all the units and am still not so sure about my ability to write the TMA, everyone else seems to be talking about how many notes they have taken and I have to admit to taking none, I never have taken notes but I am wondering if perhaps doing so might help my learning and understanding, so from tomorrow I will be reading through the first three chapters of the book for the third time, but at the end of each sub section within the chapter I will try to write a summery of what it was about in my own words.

On the Up

Well last night after my panic I did go on to work through the whole of unit 2, some of it I had looked at before I knew the subject of TMA01, and I am now confident enough that I could be able to draft a an answer to past of the question and I know the structure needed for another part of the question.

In the coming week I will study unit 3 which is the last unit which TMA01 is concerned with and then after that I shall start drafting, I would like to have a first draft of the TMA ready by the tutorial on 16th October, that way afterwards I will hopefully have a better idea of what the tutor is looking for and therefore be able to tweak it into a finished version.

I am really pleased that I worked around the panic attack, which blocks be from functioning as a human being for so many things, I really want to make a go of this module, I am not expecting miracles like a distinction but I would like to pass with more than just the minimum mark.

The one concern that I am having at the moment is my lack of note taking, I am sure that I should be doing something, but I suppose that if I want to know a particular piece of information I know where it is located within the unit/course books/dvds and should be able to access it fairly easily, unlike a lecture which when it is over it is only available in memory and notes taken. My Glossary of Terms is getting slightly bigger though so that is something at least.

Anyway I am going to have some time away from the books today and do something fun...

Panic Stations

U211 officially starts tomorrow, so now that I have started understanding the more basic grammar terminology I thought I would start working through the course materials to get a head start. Armed with all the materials I need I sat down and looked at TMA01 so that I can hopefully pick out the areas which will be helpful.

Unfortunately this has put me into a full on panic about my ability, complete with nervous sick feeling in my belly. I wanted to just give up right now but instead I decided to take a break after re-familiarising myself with the first unit, I took a walk to the shop for some fresh, albeit wet, air and decided that I need to blog in order to convince myself that I can do this.

I am not supposed to open up the TMA booklet and see a question that I can answer immediately, if that was the case why am I studying the course. I haven't even started working on the parts that will most relate to the questions so of course I don't know where to start yet. There is a tutorial between now and the cut off date where any questions I have can be asked.

I know that I am not alone, yes there are a few people on the forums that seem to have studied linguistics before either professionally or out of personal interest but they are the minority, there are many people that have used the word "daunted" for a variety of reasons. It is a natural human trait to show off how much you know about something already, I am sure I have done it myself when it came to a subject I was passionate about, even so it can make you feel a little on the dumb side if you are lacking confidence in the first place.

I do think that the course is going to be extremely interesting, what I have read so far strengthens that view. I think most of it is down to the fact that I have not written an essay to this level of academic study on this subject ever before, coupled with the knock I took a couple of weeks ago in my understanding of Grammar.

I am pleased to report that blogging has indeed calmed me down for now, so Unit 2 watch out! I'm coming to get you!

Getting Ready for Study

So it took a while for the OU to get themselves sorted when allocating tutors but it looks like everyone has been allocated one now and tutorials all set up before U211 starts on Saturday. I have 8 tutorials which is about once a month which are very local to me, and there is one day school which is about 60 miles away, I am not sure if I will attend that one as I can't drive and going by train means trekking across London, but as I get closer to that I'll make a firmer decision, I might feel that I need the guidance. I am not sure what to expect really but my first tutorial is in a couple of weeks so I'll report back then, so far although the general forum has been very lively the tutor group has been silent.

I have also signed up for another 30 point German course L130 which starts in February, after looking at the L193 texts it covers a lot of German I already know so I feel confident enough to take on a second course, I am also starting my evening class tonight, so all this German some of it should get inside my head!

I have started getting to grips with Grammar too, some of it makes my head hurt but someone posted about some great youtube vids of an old American Cartoon which actually really helped me, here are my favourite ones!

Why Were We Not Taught Grammar In School?

Okay so that is not strictly true, but why are we as native English speakers not taught formal grammar? Well I read in one article that it is because in the 1960s and 70s it was decided that it stifles creativity. So instead we are taught that something is a "doing word" or a "describing word" or a "naming word". We know that you have to say "the brown dog" and not "the dog brown".  If you listen to children learning the language it is clear that they have applied some rules through association, past tense is very often given an -ed and through hearing them say "I runned" or "I goed" it is clear that they have recognised the rule, now to teach the exceptions.

Yes most of us know that a sentence needs to begin with a capital letter and end with a full stop, we understand there is a need for commas and question marks and often a whole tirade of exclamation marks. After some thought I can come up with the correct definition for a Verb (doing word), Adjective (describing word) and Noun (naming word) but I can often have trouble associating an actual word to a group. I have no idea what an adverb is, or a split infinitive, or a pronoun, or the genitive case is.

My boyfriend who learnt English as a second language has no problem understanding grammar and through playing online games it seems a common view of the non-native English speakers that the English have no grasp of their own language. Something that often brings a violent reaction in chat is when someone uses the phrase "would of" rather than "would've", personally I forgive this error completely because it is more of an accent issue.  When speaking the "'ve" part is pronounced "uvv" which sounds a lot more like of then it does have and in English it doesn't sound completely alien to say "I would of done it" then say "I would from done it" the problem comes when translating it back to another language like German when "of" can also be translated to "from". Maybe I am more forgiving because I was 12 when I realised which the help of Richard and Judy that "this morning" was spelt that way and not actually as people with my accent say "the smorning".

I am not so forgiving about "they're", "their" & "there" and "your" & "you're". Yes they do pretty much sound the same when speaking, but this is much more common and corrected a lot more often then the "would of" situation. I was quite pleased when I managed to explain to get through to one young lad and he started using you're correctly, until someone else in chat used "your" in the correct context and he helpfully chipped in that "your is not an actual word".  After hitting my head on my desk I went back to the drawing board. But the question is if we went back to a time when we were taught formal grammar would our language skills in the age of instant text be any better?

I am sure that anyone that is familiar with grammar is probably shaking their heads at my postings, with my ignorant mistakes I undoubtedly make. It annoys me, but never before has it really stopped me until a couple of days ago when I was trying to get ahead with my U211 and I came across an exercise about changing words by adding morphemes (e.g. -er, -ed, -ing) and part of it was to say what the word had changed from and too. I couldn't do it. It frustrated me to the point of tears, yes perhaps that was a little over the top but I have a fragile disposition at the moment.

My lack of understanding Grammar in English has a knock on effect that I find it hard to understand Grammar while learning German, something which I had become increasingly frustrated with and not associated the two as being related. I relaxed a little last night when my L193 Beginners German course books arrived last night and in the Other Resources section a book called English Grammar for Students of German with the description "This is a guide written in plain English aimed at people who have no previous knowledge of grammar in any language" was recommended.  The fact that this book exists made me realise, yet again, that I am not alone in my complete lack of understanding of the subject.

I have decided to put my studies of U211 on hold, the official start date is not until 2nd October anyway, and I have ordered a grammar guide with a workbook in an attempt to teach myself in the hope that it not only helps my understanding of the course but means that my TMAs will be of a higher quality and correctly structured.