Workshop for teachers

The University of Salford is hosting a workshop for English Language teachers in April. Organised by Sue Fox and Heike Pichler, it looks like covering a range of really interesting material for teachers who are keen to keep up with recent developments in spoken language analysis and digital corpora.

More details can be found here, and Jenny Cheshire and Sue Fox's Linguistics Research Digest, which runs regular updates about recent linguistic research, can be found here.

Ace DC

Your English Language teacher may well be a snappy dresser, a master of wit, or a pedagogical dynamo who brings light to your otherwise darkened life (Business Studies, Accounting and PE A levels in other words), but does he or she have a beard like David Crystal? She does? Cripes...



Professor David Crystal is one of the biggest cheeses in the world of linguistics and he's speaking at March's emagazine English Language conference in London. To get a taste of the range of his knowledge (and frankly his bare skillage) have a look here on the emagazine conference blog where we've posted some links to some of his TV and lecture performances.

emagazine English Language conference 2012

The second  emagazine English Language conference is now taking bookings and promises to be another really excellent event. We've booked a great line-up, with talks by David Crystal, Angela Goddard, Marcello Giovanelli and the head of Aston University's Centre for Forensic Linguistics, Tim Grant.

The conference blog is here and you can find out more about what we're putting on here on the English and Media Centre's conference page. Also, details of last year's fantastic conference can be found here if you're interested.

A timely reminder about the Emagazine English Language conference

Apologies if you've already booked a place, or if you've had enough of the self-promotion, but our conference for A level students and teachers is still recruiting and we're heading towards capacity. Well over 600 students have signed up to attend - which is brilliant - and more are booking each day, so if you want to be sure of a place, get onto the English and Media Centre's site here and get your places booked!

We are also very keen to collect language data from those attending for use in Jonnie Robinson's session, so please add your data to the Survey Monkey questionnaire. You don't even have to attend to add your data: the more the merrier.

Hopefully, see you there.

Emagazine conference site now up and running

The site to support the forthcoming Emagazine A level Language conference is now up and running. You can find it here.

At the moment, you can see the programme, the speakers' details and how to get there, and you can also book tickets for your school or college (if you are a teacher).

There is also a blog running alongside the site to help collect data from you for Jonnie Robinson's session and to submit your questions about language to David Crystal for his Q and A session. We'll be updating the blog regularly with information about each speaker, links to interesting research and some follow-up activities after the conference. You can find the blog here.

We're very excited about the conference, so get your tickets now!!!

emagazine A Level Language Student Conference

Sorry for not posting much recently, but I've been busy with various things including some A level workshops, the day job (doing neeky grammar things) and organising (or organising how to avoid) trips to Mr Tumble in pantomine. The other thing I've been doing is helping the English and Media Centre organise what we hope will be a brilliant conference for A level English Language students.

All the details are here and if you want to attend as an A level student then badger your teacher to get a booking made. If you are a teacher, email Barbara Bleiman (barbara@englishandmedia.co.uk) at the EMC to express your interest and provisionally book some places. If you are a university student, there will probably be individual tickets available and more details will be made available soon after Christmas.

The details:
Wednesday March 16th 2011 – with David Crystal, Deborah Cameron and others...
At the Logan Hall, Institute of Education, London WC1 (10 min walk from Euston)
Following the success of the Literature and Media Studies student conferences in the Autumn Term, emagazine is planning a conference for A Level Language students in the Spring Term, for AS and A2. We are working with Dan Clayton to plan the day.

The programme will include lectures, a session on approaches to investigation, with an interactive element, and a short session modelling how to respond to data in an exam. At lunchtime, we are hoping to organise a ‘Language Fair’, with stalls from one or two university departments, a surgery held by the emag editors for anyone wanting to write for the magazine and a ‘resident linguist’ who will answer students’ questions and chat to them. We’re also hoping to set up a Conference blog, in advance of the Conference, to get students involved before the day.

Speakers confirmed so far:

• Deborah Cameron
• David Crystal (including a Q&A session, with David Crystal, based on students’ questions, sent in advance, and submitted on the day)

Programme: 10.30 – 3.15 to allow for ease of travel
Cost: £20 per school/college student. 1 teacher per 10 students goes free. £50 for teachers wanting to attend without students, as CPD.
A conference website will be set up at the beginning of next term, (accessible from the EMC and emagazine websites) with full details and the facility to make provisional and confirmed bookings. In the meantime, put it in your diaries and if you would like us to keep you informed, please email barbara@englishandmedia.co.ukwith ‘Emagazine Language A Level Conference’ in the subject line.