Academic Language Workshops
Reading – summarising main points
What are your main difficulties?
Why? Discuss with the person next to you.
Feedback:
HOW do you make your notes?
Mind map?
Keywords?
Sentences?
Task 1
Read the following text and write down the keywords
This paper investigates the verbal construction of emotions in a bilingual/bicultural
setting, the target languages and cultures being American English and Cypriot
Greek. To examine whether bilingual speakers express different emotions in their
respective languages, a study was carried out with 10 bilingual/bicultural professionals.
A scenario was presented to them first in English and a month later in Greek
and their verbal reactions were recorded. The participants’ responses were then
analysed through three questions: (1) whether they translate from one language to
the other; (2) whether and when codeswitching occurs; (3) whether there is a pattern
in the use of emotion words. The analysis of the results shows that respondents
displayed different reactions to the same story depending on the language it was
read to them in. The paper argues that participants changed their social code, i.e.
sociocultural expectations, with the change in linguistic code. These findings raise
interesting questions about the relationship between language, emotions and
cognition, and the formation of the bilingual self.
Panayiotou A 2004
J. OF MULTILINGUAL AND MULTICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT Vol. 25, No. 2&3, Routledge
Task 2:
Can you write a summary from your keywords? If not, go back to the text for extra information.
What were the main difficulties?
Task 3:
What do you think is the author’s main point in the passage below? Why is he talking about Harry Potter?
Around the world, children are delighting in the
magical world of young Harry Potter and his friends
at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. In
the Harry Potter stories, author J K Rowling inventively
explores themes such as the struggle of good
against evil and the importance of friendship and
belonging.1–4 She has been credited with creating a
fantasy-led revival of reading in a generation of
children,5 but her quirky, multilayered plots likewise
appeal to adults by delivering powerful insights into
the everyday world around us.
The text Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone,1
with its companion film, serves as a rich source of
material with which to engage clinical teachers in
discourse about the principles of instructional method.
It is, after all, the story of an educational
institution and the teaching and learning activities
that take place within it. Led by the highly respected
Professor Albus Dumbledore, the teachers at Hogwarts
assume the onerous responsibility of supervising
the transition of each young student from
novice to competent and independent practitioner
of witchcraft or wizardry. Each plays a key role in
providing instruction in the intricacies of his or her
craft, just as clinicians do in the world of medical
education
Conn J. Clinical teaching and Harry Potter •MEDICAL EDUCATION 2002;36: p.1176
Blackwell Science Ltd
Keywords for text 1:
emotions, bilingualism, social constructionism, discursive psychology,
Greek/English bilinguals, linguistic scenarios,