Topic Three (1.3): Recap – Key Skills and Grammar from AS English Language
Introduction
As you extend your study of English Language further at AL and go into greater depth about how language is used in a range of contexts, how it has changed over time and how children acquire it, you will need to have a strong command of the basics in order to include enough detail in your essays. It is therefore imperative that you understand all the material covered on grammar at the start of the AS course, so you have a solid foundation on which to build. Even if you feel confident about grammar, now is an excellent time to go back and review your notes and the materials on grammar from AS. If you did not study AS with Wolsey Hall, you should look very carefully through all of the following materials now.
Read and Make Notes
You may wish to look back at pages 14 to 21 in the Gould and Rankin textbook for a brief overview of some important basic concepts including grammar and syntax. The detail is quite limited here, so it is useful for revision, but if there are any features you don’t understand, it is best to refer to your more detailed AS notes for clarification.
Quizzes
- If you studied AS with Wolsey Hall for exams in 2021, you will already have taken these quizzes, but if you studied on the older AS course, or did not study AS with Wolsey Hall and have just joined us for AL, these quizzes will be new, and you should take them now to ensure you have a solid understanding of grammar on which to build.
- You will need to be able to identify grammatical features in your AL essays, especially those on child language acquisition and language change in Paper 3. This level of knowledge adds important detail to your answers, so take the time to recap on these skills now.
- We recommend you aim for a score of at least 75% in each one. If you do not achieve this, you should try the quiz again to ensure you have fully understood the material. You may take each quiz as many times as you like.
Terminology
Make sure you understand all the key terms covered in this topic. You may like to make flashcards of key terms now, to help you with revision later on.