Interpreting Questions and Understanding the Examiners Report

1. Interpreting Questions and Understanding the Examiners Report English Language

2. Identifying and Analysing an idea or concept: What does this mean? • Determining the main idea, concept or purpose in a text. • Drawing on your own knowledge to make connections between a text and/or stimulus material with a prompt or question. • Outlining what a text or concept is about. • Determining implications of an idea or concept.

3. Identifying and Analysing an idea or concept: This may refer to the following in EL: Short Answer and Section B:Function and social purpose Register and Level of formality Application of Subsystem to purpose and formality Essay: Variations of Australian English Impact of Language Change Language as a creator and facilitator of identity Perception of identities based on Language use and linguistic repertoire

4. Identifying and Analysing an idea or concept Terms you can see on the exam: • Comment on • Consider • Describe • Discuss • Explain • Identify • Justify

5. Finding Information or examples What does this mean? • Locate key words • Identify key metalanguage • Breaking down the question • Demonstrate understanding of key terms • Finding relevant examples to support located key terms

6. Finding Information and examples Where will you see this in EL? • Short Answer and Section B: • Identifying key metalanguage asked of you. • Identifying word classes and examples of word classes. • Identifying key metalanguage to underpin social purpose and formality. • Essay: Breaking down the key metalanguage to support the social understanding of language. • Looking for key words in the stimulus material • Understanding what the prompt is asking of you.

7. Finding Information and examples • Common terms from past exams: • Identify • Explain • Describe • Refer to • Example Prompt in relation to identifying information: • Language and Identity are inextricably linked. How is this reflected in the current Australian context? Refer to at least 2 subsystems in your response.

8. Understanding words What does this mean: The meaning of words and phrases depending on the text. Drawing on context. Where do we see this in EL? Short Answer and Section B: Identifying and demonstrating your knowledge of key metalanguage in terms of the texts context. Eg How does turn taking reflect and affect the nature of the conversation, social purpose of a text and the formality. Justifying your identification of metalanguage. Eg: What sentence type and how do you know this. Ie How and why is the sentence interrogative?

9. Understanding words • Examples of terms in past exams: • Comment on, analyse, explain, refer to, how does, discuss

10. Concluding What does this mean? • Making judgements based on fact and details provided in a text and or stimulus material. • Search for relevant evidence to support your conclusion

11. Concluding Where will you see this in EL? Section B: • Ability to use your knowledge of linguistic concepts to draw conclusions about the social purpose and minor social purposes of a text. • Using your knowledge to identify register and register shift. • Using your knowledge of stylistic and discourse features to articulate the social purpose and indicate sociolinguistics. Essay: Using your own knowledge to draw conclusions using the prompt and stimulus material. Using the stimulus material effectively to support your conclusions.

12. Concluding • Key terms commonly seen on the exam: • Consider • Assess • Comment on • Justify

13. Inferring What does this mean? • Making decisions about what we think the text or concept is true or likely to be true. • Using contextual understanding and contextual material to determine what they believe to be true.

14. Inferring Where can we see this in EL? • Section A and B: Initial reading of a text to establish impact of context, sociolinguistics, social purpose and register. Eg a conversation may be contextualised through an interview. What will be believe to be true of the nature of such a interaction. What evidence supports this. • Essay: Using the social context of language to inform your conclusions about language use. EgEthnolects are a minority and have vastly different linguistic repertoires than the majority. Subsequently negative attitudes about these ethnolects will form and ultimately impact on how society perceives identity.

15. TASK • Using the table given to you, form possible questions relating to English Language using the terminology. Perhaps you have seen these used on exams already.

16. Breaking down the Examiners Report • Every year the examiners report comes out and articulates what students did well, what they did poorly and what they need to do to achieve high marks. • Chances are what students did poorly will most likely occur on the exam the following year.

17. 2012 Examiners Report: Advice to students • This study requires a sound knowledge of grammar; students should be able to identify and comment on the use of parts of speech (word classes) and other elements of grammar. • Students are reminded to apply the knowledge learnt in Unit 3 to essay writing. The features of formal, written texts need to be used. • In Section B students are encouraged to link features of discourse and stylistic features to social purpose, register and context. • Students are reminded that, while it is not directly assessed, handwriting must be legible in order for assessors to award marks.

18. Section A Q1: Describe the register of the text. 2 marks • State Mean 85% School Mean 85% Q2: Identify an example of the passive voice in lines 3-6 and explain how the use of the passive voice contributes to the register of the text. • State Mean 40% School Mean 25% Q3: Identify two different modal verbs and explain the function of each one in its given context. 2 marks • State Mean 40% School Mean 20% Q4: How does the verb tense in LL9-34 support the purpose of the this section of the text. 2 marks • State mean 43% School mean 23% Q5: Explain, using the appropriate metalanguage, how lexical choices contribute to the register of the text. Refer to specific line numbers and examples in your answer. 4 marks • State mean 48% School mean 30% Q6: How does text 2 differ in purpose and register from text 1? Discuss some of the linguistic features that demonstrate this difference. Refer to at least 2 subsystems of language, citing specific line numbers and examples in your answer. 4 marks • State Mean 55% School mean 39%

19. Question 5 Lexical choices contributing to the formal register of the text included • use of legal jargon • nominalisation • repetition of verbs • use of noun phrases, using proper nouns, subsequently referred to by acronyms. Students were asked to use appropriate metalanguage in this response. The use of terms like ‘long words’ or ‘polysyllabic words’ were not sufficient when explaining a formal register. Following is an example of a high-scoring response. • This text involves many instances of complex lexemes of Latinate origin such as ‘liable’ (line 5) and ‘omissions’ (line 11) which contribute to the text’s formality. There are also examples of nominalisation for example ‘submission’ (line 6) which are typical of formal texts. Proper noun phrases, for example ‘Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations’ (line 23) contribute to the text’s formality by lending a sense of power and authority. Finally, modal auxiliary verbs in the present tense such as ‘must’ (line 3) and ‘will’ (line 10) lend the text a formal tone by outlining formal duties and responsibilities.

20. Question 6 The second text is more casual and informal than the first. Its purpose is to advise students how to proceed once they have their results. • Linguistic features contributing to the informal register included • discourse particles ‘okay’ and ‘so’ • the use of the pronoun ‘you’ creates a link to the reader and personalises the text • contractions ‘don’t’ and ‘it’s’ • colloquial expressions and lexicon ‘news isn’t so great’ and ‘you’re not alone’. The focus of this question was on Text 2 rather than Text 1, as some students seemed to assume. It was important to discuss features within that text rather than features not present in the text. Following is an example of a high-scoring response. • The main purpose of text two is to provide informational support and comfort for students receiving VTAC offers, as well as building a rapport with them. In this way the text is a lot more personal than text one, with constant use of the personal pronoun ‘you’ (lines 2-5). Furthermore, the use of the exclamative sentence type (line 1) in text two helps reduce the formality compared with text one which contains mostly declarative sentences. This sentence type also helps the author build a rapport with his readers by reducing social distance, hence supporting that function of the text. The discourse particle ‘okay’ (line 2) also reduces the formality of the text by imitating spoken language, thus helping to build rapport with the audience. This feature is not seen in text one, being a more formal text which seeks to depersonalise itself not completely but as much as possible to create an authoritative tone, establishing themselves as an important body which must be obeyed.

21. What does this mean? • As a state most students did this section quite poorly. • The basic questions referring to word classes, ie verbs, verb tenses etc, implies that you must not overlook these simple terms when studying for the exam. THEY ARE IMPORTANT. • Being able to identify metalanguage and explain its use within the social purpose and context being asked is a MUST! • Passive Voice was done poorly, chances are it will be on the exam this year. • Give text references.

22. Section B • In this section students were asked to provide an analytical linguistic commentary on the text provided. The text was a conversation between 2 females in a dog park. • The commentary should have analysed the following: • Stylistic and discourse features • Social purpose and register • Contextual factors affecting/surrounding text • Referred to at least 2 subsystem in the response

23. Results and Report • On average the state mean was at 55% the school mean was 45%. This implies the state again did quite poorly at attempting this section. Examiners Advice: • Students are encouraged to structure their responses and use paragraphs. • Students should not restrict their responses to one part of the text; some students did not refer to the conversation about mascara and analysed lines 1–82 but not lines 83–107. • Students should be aware of the appropriate features to discuss; prosodics, topic management, turn-taking and non-fluency features should have been key areas of focus and discussion. While discussion of coherence through inference was reasonably appropriate, the main focus of the analysis was not cohesion and coherence. • The less able students who used the subsystems of language as a structure for analysis were sometimes limited in what they could discuss. • The length of a response is not necessarily related to the quality of the response. Some students weakened their answers because comments towards the end of their responses were irrelevant, repeated or not analytical. It is not a requirement to fill the answer book, but conversely, writing one-and-a-half pages of analysis is usually not sufficient for a high-scoring response. • Weaker students failed to engage with the text in a detailed manner. These students listed stylistic and discourse features but did not connect these features to the social purpose, register and context of the discourse. • Most students did not use subheadings. The use of subheadings would have added structure to some responses.

24. Implications • There needs to be more of a link back to social purpose and contextual understanding of the text. • Link back to register and formality. • Students needed to refer to subsystems to highlight the social purpose. • Stylistic and discourse features must be covered. This varies on the text. • Need to know dimensions of both spoken and written texts.

25. Section C The state mean for this section was 55% the school mean was 45% This Question had 3 Options covering: • Language and Identity within Australia • Impact of technology, attitudes towards it and the effect of technology on English. • Corporate Speak and public discourse

26. What the examiner had to say: Successful students • identified the focus of the topic • provided a sophisticated analysis of the linguistic issues • used linguistic terms appropriately • used language appropriately and accurately • identified and discussed relevant, contemporary examples • demonstrated a strong grasp of language use

27. What can you do now: • Download and read the examiners reports and note where students went wrong and what they did well. • Ensure you break down every question properly and complete plenty of exam practice. • Download the exam revision booklet that is in the EXAM TIME section on the wiki. This will help you go back to the basics.