25/10/2016

IntoUniversity Lang-scape Curators workshop - Harehills, Leeds.

Today I’ve been invited by Jess to help out at the ‘IntoUniversity Lang-scape Curators workshop’, a three day scheme which introduces pupils from year 7 and 8 to partake in tasks designed to introduce and develop basic research skills. To meet this objective, the children will assume the role of ‘lang-scape investigators’, a role that will involve the exploration of their community lang-scape, equipped with a flipcam and a desire to obtain data in the field.

Initially, I had mixed feelings about the project as I felt that the itinerary was rather uninformative and I was feeling fairly nervous about what was expected of me. However, shortly after helping oversee the first (linguistic repertoire) task, I felt like I relaxed and started to enjoy myself; this was going to be fun after all!

Task 1 - Linguistic Repertoires

The children (and adults!) were required to sketch an outline of one of their group members’ body. They were then instructed to draw or write something in each body part which they connected with a specific language they spoke or heard regularly. I felt that this was a fairly sophisticated exercise for the children to complete, but once they began brainstorming ideas, their creativity knew no bounds. What began as simple (but relevant) representations, an English flag on the mouth, for example, to denote English as the mother tongue, rapidly evolved into a human smorgasbord of semiotics; the KFC logo etched onto the stomach and numerous social media emblems scattered around the fingers (to demonstrate the variety of languages spoken online) were two personal highlights.

Perhaps the most stark and invigorating  effort appreciated by all in attendance had to be attributed to a bright year eight pupil who inscribed the following quote at the bottom of her group’s drawing: ‘A different language is a different vision of life.’ - Federico Fellini

Despite being visually perturbed at having to explain her inclusion (and pinpoint recollection) of the quote, I felt that the powerful sentiment was a perfect way to bring the first task to a conclusion.

Task 2 - Geosemiotic Task

After lunch the groups were assigned with photographs of familiar signs in and around the Leeds area and then asked the following questions in relation to the signs:

Who is speaking?

What are they saying?

Who are they speaking to?

What can we learn about that place?

I listened in on a group who had some interesting ideas regarding the photograph of a Chinese market. One pupil commented that the market’s signs were mostly written in Chinese because the owners wanted to ‘sell to Chinese people.’ I then asked the group if they thought this was true (ensuring I didn’t use a leading question). Another pupil then disagreed with their peer, commenting that while ‘Nihao’ was written in English and not Chinese because the owners of the market wanted to ‘speak to us too’, and went on to say that the inclusion of English was ‘welcoming’ because ‘most people speak English so they’re speaking to everyone.’

Task 3 - Outdoor Research (armed with flipcams!)

The climactic task involved heading onto nearby streets to study the linguistic langscape, a task that the pupils enjoyed immensely. Whether they were recording still images of signs of interest (the first two being discarded Coca-Cola cans), or charging into local takeaways to instigate impromptu interviews with the proprietors, the enthusiasm for applying the knowledge they’d learned throughout the day was a joy to witness.