English Language And Applied Linguistics

Get to know Dr Clare Wright, our Director of Research for English Language:

Clare, our Director of Research, is an expert in multilingual acquisition, and language learning and teaching. She’s always been interested in languages, coming from a part-French background, and time spent during her childhood in Holland and Italy – though as she says, “My Dutch is now limited to a few tongue-twisters and my Brownie promise”. Clare’s first degree was an MA in History at Cambridge, which led to a varied career in politics and marketing until retraining in English language teaching in 1997. She gained her PhD in Linguistics at Newcastle in 2010 looking at the role of working memory in promoting speed of L2 development among Chinese learners of English. She was fascinated to notice similarities between the emerging language of her 3-year old daughter and her Czech au-pair which led her to question the assumption of many language teachers in schools that “language in equals language out”, or that language proficiency is based mainly on explicit memorising. Instead, Clare found that the best progress was made among learners ready to have a go regardless of “getting it right”, based on systematic development of implicit knowledge of language.

Clare joined Reading in 2013 from Newcastle, attracted by the strength of the department in ELT and psycholinguistics, and its leading role in setting up the new Reading Centre for Literacy and Multilingualism. Her main interest is in how language knowledge (grammar, lexis, phonology) intersects with the psycholinguistic processes supporting fluency in speech production – which she says “has involved getting technical with CLAN, PRAAT, DMDX and other specialised software – given I am not a natural technician, this has been quite a steep learning curve, but well worth it!” She is currently leading innovative research into learning Mandarin, while also working on L2 French and English, from primary learners (EAL) to adult learners, including ESOL learners without literacy (ESOL).

Her interest in multilingualism also goes into the role played by language in boosting successful international student experiences, including via online learning or MOOCs. She says” I know from teaching students coming to the UK how there are many barriers to interacting with home students, and getting the right support from teachers”. So Clare also looks at how to improve internationalisation of higher education from both student and teacher perspectives, and particularly to encourage 1-1 interaction between home and international students – as students taking her Autumn class on Core Issues in ELT will know! Clare also runs a follow-on module in the Spring Term called Teaching the Language Skills, which looks in more detail at how language knowledge and processing combine across the different language skills. Dissertations on all such topics welcomed!

Moneesah Siddiqi writes:

1. Be in the know: Subscribe to email newsletters such as TargetJobs and Milkround. Ensure you have read around to find out the jobs that are out there and best suited to you.
2. Join the Bright Futures Society: Attend Bright Futures career events or other career related networking events so that you can network with potential employers whilst asking them questions about each job sector. Skills based sessions such as CV workshops and Mock Assessments will also be held.
3. Participate in extra-curricular activities: This will show employers that you have an enviable list of skills other than academia. You will end up with lots to talk about during interviews and applications.
4. Take note of how you come across during group work: Think about the type of group member you are e.g. Leader, Organiser, Time Keeper etc. You can then talk about this in your applications. Group work is an important feature of careers so communicating with your peers is essential.
5. Quality of applications: Always take the time to research a company before investing the time to apply for a job. It is better to tailor each application to a smaller amount of appropriate companies rather than using the same general answers for many different companies.

Moneesah Siddiqi, President of the Bright Futures Society, BA English Language, Part 3

Michelle Holdsworth writes:

After studying BA Applied English Language Studies at the University of Reading, I was particularly intrigued by the Child Language Development and Language Acquisition modules. Having considered teaching from a young age, I then undertook my Primary PGCE at the University of Bedfordshire. This included placements in ‘Challenging Schools’.  After this fascinating experience, I then began my teaching career as an NQT back in Hampshire, Andover. Having acquired Masters Credits during my PGCE, I decided to pursue this further and I have now graduated from the University of Winchester with a Masters in Education. This September I became a TLR at my school, specialising in assessment. I am very much looking forward to what the future brings!

Michelle Holdsworth

Catlin Dewar writes:

Over the summer, I was lucky enough to be involved in the British Council’s ‘Teach English in Thailand’ scheme. I went with approximately 250 students from universities all over the UK. The official job title is ‘English Teaching Assistant’ (ETA), but more often than not, you’re expected to be the teacher. This can seem daunting at first, but it’s amazing how quickly you warm up to the role.

I was allocated to a Primary school in the North of Thailand which was around 8 hours from Bangkok in a province called Phrae. I taught 6 classes for 2 hours each week, with students ranging from 6, 7, 8 and 10 years old. The children were very cheeky and chatty but extremely welcoming as well – some of the girls would regularly sit me down to plait my hair!

I travelled a lot on the weekends, and for the rest of the time I was lucky enough to live with my mentor, who very quickly became like a mum to me. All in all, it was the most incredible experience and I would recommend it to anyone. If you want to read more about what I got up to, check out my blog.

Catlin Dewar

Amy Banda writes:

So far this year, my favourite module has been LS2EG English Grammar. This compulsory 10 credit module is taught throughout the autumn term by Dr Jackie Laws. I find grammar an interesting area of language. Although I find some concepts difficult to grasp at times, Jackie is always on hand to answer any questions either in person, via email or through Blackboard. It has only been a few weeks but I already find this module very useful. Over the past four lectures, we have been covering work studied during my first year which includes parsing sentences. As there is a parsing test this term during week 11, going over past work has been refreshing. In addition to this, Jackie has set parsing homework each week and the answers are uploaded the following week via Blackboard.

Amy Banda, BA English Language, Part 2

Emily O’ Hare writes:

For those of you who don’t know, the university offers an opportunity for all second year students to partake in a summer placement called UROP. Lecturers across the university employ one part two student as a research assistant on a real project. This is a fantastic opportunity and you develop on so many skills! I worked on a UROP project alongside Professor Rhona Stainthorp, from the Institute of Education. The project explored whether transcription skills (handwriting speed, writing hand, spelling, punctuation and vocabulary) affect the quality of written texts in early secondary years.

During term time, I went into a local secondary school to administer group based tasks to the whole of the year 7. The tasks were really interesting and assessed how fast children could write under different circumstances, whilst assessing their vocabularies, spelling and punctuation skills when writing spontaneous prose. After the tasks were administered and marked, the scores were then inputted into SPSS (a statistics programme). We found that the students’ performance on text writing quality, spelling, punctuation and grammar were all at least equal to the expected level relative to their age group (as assessed by standardised scores). In addition, we found that vocabulary and writing at speed when composing texts were poorer than the expected level. These findings are important because they indicate that in order to achieve the best of their ability with all of their subjects, it is vital that the students improve their handwriting speed when writing. This will therefore ensure that students are getting all of their ideas written as efficiently and clearly as possible in the time constraints of examinations.

I hope that my insight to this programme will encourage second years to consider this programme and apply!

Emily O’Hare, BA English Language, Part 3

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