LLAS Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies

INTERNATIONAL TRANSLATION DAY 2011 at the Free Word Centre
Join English PEN and other leading translation organisations for a full day of events focused on literary translation.

Prospect/Franco-British Council creative writing prize
Win a trip to France and cash prizes!
Prizes will be awarded to sixth formers and university students (aged 16-25) for a short story inspired by France and the French. The winning pieces will also appear in Prospect and the best contributions will be included in an exciting new collection of work to be published by the Franco-British Council.

Times Higher's annual humanities essay writing competition
The Palgrave Macmillan and Times Higher Humanities and Social Sciences Writing Prize 2004 is looking for well written essays aimed at academics yet accessible to all. The writing must be your original work and not exceed 3,000 words. Closing date 24th September 2004.

Postcards from favourite places - reading and writing exercise (German)

In this learning object exercise you will read a postcard that was published by jetzt.de in June 2007, learn some new expressions that are typical for the region it was sent from, answer some questions and finally write your own postcard. This learning object has been subject to peer review and editing.

Spanish: Material for Spanish oral classes
This pack contains beginners, intermediate and advanced classes. Each section includes: instructions and information for the teacher, the topic and learning objectives of the lessons, how to organise students and to conduct each activity, the role/s of the teacher; summary of grammatical points which will be used in the activity or indications of those which need to have been seen before carrying out the activity; suggestions about how to explore the topic of the lesson further by practising other language skills (writing, reading, etc.); and teaching material (ready to photocopy).

Spanish: El problema del agua, de la seguía y el Plan Hidrológico Nacional
WWW material covering the topic "El problema del agua, de la seguía y el Plan Hidrológico Nacional" which includes personal photographs with texts, links to other www sites relevant or relating to the topic, and exercises aimed at year 2 students to develop reading/summary writing skills and to increase knowledge of this topic.

Self access: Worksheets for self access language centre
Advice on: "Watching Films on Video"; "Taking Notes"; "Writing"; "Learning Vocabulary"; "Conversation Exchange" Template for student's "Activity Record" for language learning folder

French: Difficultés de la langue française
This 2-semester grammar course is essentially geared towards English Learners of French and is intended to improve students' writing skills. Its main aim is to improve writing accuracy at noun phrase and sentence level; nevertheless, it also aims to strengthen students writing techniques and text-production/text-transformation skills through a review of linguistic processes of pronominalisation. It originated from the observation (i.e. via several error analyses conducted between 1997 and 1999) that foreign learners of French recurrently make particular mistakes when they write and that this is often due to a lack of grammatical knowledge. Thus, it is hypothesised that these mistakes can be avoided thanks to an introduction to/a revision of basic grammatical concepts (i.e. What is a Part of Speech? What is a Grammatical Function? What do Gender and Number mean? Etc). Further, though the course mainly focuses on writing skills, register differences, and in particular stylistic differences between written and oral expression, will also be underlined. Finally, this programme also reviews central difficulties linked to the choice and use of tenses in French (second semester).

Spanish: accelerated reading and writing in Spanish
The materials are devoted to the development of lexical structures in Spanish. They contain explanations, descriptions and exercises which will help the learner build up a solid lexical structure. The coursebook is made of 15 dual units (Spanish-English) for accelerated vocabulary acquisition. During the first 10 units the most productive processes for word recognition and word derivation are presented. The second 5 units add more advanced passages, taken from the literature of the Spanish-speaking world, and present vocabulary of high frequency and practical use. The materials in the course go from survival to Advanced Creative Spanish. The first 10 units consist of a Basic Passage, based on survival lexicon and intercultural issues, followed by a Reading Passage connected in topic but at a higher level. The last 5 units present a more literary style followed by practical exercises aimed at using this type of structures and vocabulary.

Spanish: Contemporary Language and Culture

This is a specialist online language and culture course for students who have achieved an advanced level in Spanish because they are in the final year of their University degree, have spent time in a Spanish-speaking country or are false native speakers. The course has been devised to reinforce and develop the language through reading, writing and speaking. The materials in the components follow each other closely and complement vocabulary expansion with development of linguistic structures. The contents of the course cover contemporary cultural issues such as TV, cinema, family and work, and linguistic minorities in the Spanish-speaking world. The cultural-linguistic diversity of Spain and Latin America is exploited through a selection of authentic materials showing different styles, accents and media. The course is structured to develop transferable as well as language skills through hands - on experience of IT use and language activities. The materials can be easily adapted to meet the requirements of students in secondary schools, sixth form colleges or Higher Education. The website also contains pages to help teachers to adapt their own materials or to produce their own courses.

Marking students’ written work: principles and practice
This practical guide to marking MFL and EFL students’ written work covers continuous writing and translation. Marking is considered as one stage in an integrated, collaborative process of teaching and learning, requiring awareness of the tutor’s dual role as coach and assessor, and consultation and calibration among tutors. Issues discussed include: How much to mark; making appropriate comments; using symbols for the nature and seriousness of errors; consistency and fairness; giving positive feedback through ticks; converting quantitative scores into marks. The guide concludes with three illustrated case studies: a marked copy of a piece of first-year writing in French; suggested criteria for assessment of Year Abroad projects; a marked copy of a final-year English to French translation. Reference is made to surveys of research findings on marking.

Learning second language writing systems
Learning to read and write a second language writing system (L2WS) requires developing new skills or adapting pre-existing ones. Different writing systems represent different language units, with different levels of transparency and different symbols. L2WS learners, who developed processes and strategies appropriate for their L1 writing system, must adapt to the cognitive demands of their new writing system. Learners may need to become aware of new language units, to adjust their reliance on the phonological route, to adapt their eye movement patterns and hand movements and to learn new orthographic conventions. Learning an L2 writing system is therefore a complex but rewarding task.

Writing in a second language
Writing is not only the process the writer uses to put words to paper but also the resulting product of that process. This process and product are also conditioned by the purpose and place of writing (its audience and genre). Writing in a second language is further complicated by issues of proficiency in the target language, first language literacy, and differences in culture and rhetorical approach to the text. Instruction in writing can effectively improve student proficiency in a number of key areas. Approaches to instruction have variously targeted process, product and purpose of writing. More recent approaches both to its teaching and assessment recognise the need to integrate all aspects of writing.

Language and education
This paper outlines an approach towards teaching and learning about language and education which is underpinned by sociocultural theory. It argues for an exploration of the connections between language and learning through analysis of educational discourses, including classroom talk, academic writing, and academic computer mediated communication.

Student essays - an academic literacies perspective
Students writing in the university - an academic literacies perspective - intergrating the process of writing about academic knowledge with the teaching of academic knowledge - writing as a social and disciplinary practice in contrast to writing as a technical skill.

Rough guide to MFL postgraduate research (20 Nov 06)
Event date: 20 November, 2006
Location: CILT, London

Collaborative writing in Russian with shared text editor
A shared text editor was introduced into a Russian class in writing skills and used over a period of four years. It was initially adopted for its potential practical advantages over a traditional classroom whiteboard. Its use has led to new language learning activities that have contributed to the whole language programme and the writing class has become more integrated into the language programme as a whole. Opportunities for sharing and collaboration have been greatly increased and the role of the teacher has changed.

Spanish students in British universities: developing a support resource to improve their academic writing skills

A substantial number of Spanish students enter British universities each year. Those students, like other international students, have to adapt not only to a new academic environment, but also to a new culture and a new way of communicating in a language that is not their native one. This piece of PhD research has analysed the difficulties that Spanish students have to face when studying in higher education in Britain.

Writing Strategies: Differences In L1 And L2 Writing

This paper aims to: explore writing strategies in bilingual writers; compare first and second language writing strategies; discuss the results of the study and its implications in teaching second language writing.