billylinguist English, English Language and Literature, Linguistics, Uncategorized

The language of the lake

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Today’s puzzle from Alex Bellos in The Guardian requires a range of skills which can be developed in English Language programmes (and in other subjects, including maths).

As Alex says, today’s puzzle is ‘hard, but not impossible’. He also suggests that working on puzzles like this can help you develop the skills needed to find a job with technology firms such as google. That suggestions is based on this article by Sam Gibbs in which he reports thoughts from google’s head of search, Ben Gomes.

Alex’s puzzle is one that has been used in the North American Computational Linguistics Olympiad, one of several linguistics olympiads held around the world which then select teams to enter the International Linguistics Olympiad. The UK Linguistics Olympiad has been  very successful with lots of school students taking part each year.

You have until 5pm UK time today to solve it before Alex reveals the answer . . .

 

billylinguist English

Clearing Day 2018

It’s clearing day at Northumbria. Several colleagues are helping answer calls from applicants for our BA courses in English Language, Literature and Creative Writing and also our Foundation Year in Humanities.

The clearing hotline number here is 0800 085 1085

If you’re not involved in clearing and/or would like to read some thoughts from colleagues in English at Northumbria, here are some recent articles which appeared in The Conversation:

Tony Williams on the story Cat Person and #metoo

Claire Nally on graphic novels

Katy Shaw on why the novel is not dead

Sarah Duffy on how we think about time

Claudine van Hensbergen on Hamilton

Here also is a piece by colleagues at Bradford and Swansea on how students use social media in making decisions about university applications

billylinguist Uncategorized

Character to Caricature

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Character to Caricature 1660 to 1850 is a one-day conference organised by Northumbria Postgraduate student Montana Davies-Shuck (Northumbria) and Jenny Buckley (York).

It takes place in the Institute of Humanities at Northumbria on the 3rd of September 2018.

The keynote speaker is Elaine McGirr (Bristol).

You can find full details of the programme at:

@Character2018 or http://www.character2018.wordpress.com/

It should be a great day!

 

billylinguist Language Learning and Teaching

EU-Speak Event 20-21 July: New ideas on adult language learning

EU-Speak July 2018

We are very much looking forward to hosting an important event at Northumbria on the 20th and 21st of July, in collaboration with colleagues at Newcastle University and a number of international partners.

The event, organised by the Eu-Speak Project, presents and explores new ideas for teaching adults to learn to read in a new language for the first time.

The EU-Speak Project is an eight-year project working to make a difference in the educational outcomes for immigrants with little or no education. It involves a number of international partners, including colleagues here at Northumbria and at Newcastle University. The project has already been very successful, developing a range of important findings and useful materials, and it continues to grow and to make significant progress, You can read about the project here

The event will include a wide range of workshops and hands-on activities.

Here are links where you can find out more and book a place:

EU-Speak event website

EU-Speak event flyer and programme

Registration form

There is a fee to attend but bursaries are available (see registration form for details)

If you have any queries about the event, please contact Rola Naeb

 

 

 

 

 

Tony Williams Creative Writing, English, writing, literature and cultural studies

Lisa Matthews wins Welshpool poetry competition

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Final-year PhD candidate/PGR researcher Lisa Matthews has been announced as the winner of the 2018 Welshpool Poetry Festival competition. The event took place over the weekend of 8/9 June, and festival judge Andrew McMillan said of Lisa’s prize-winning entry:

‘Gaze’ is a poem that I’m still working out each time I read it; the definite nature of the title is misleading, it’s a kaleidoscopic, shifting poem which keeps returning the reader to a place of uncertainty. Each time we return to it things appear slightly clearer, we see a little more, but then the ground moves beneath us again. It’s as if we are looking at the world through a diamond.

Lisa’s doctoral research at Northumbria explores the role of prose poem sequences in transforming life experience into poetry; and ‘Gaze’ is a prose poem triptych taken from an emergent practice strand.

The news is timely as Lisa’s fourth collection, Callisto, has just been released by Scotland-based publisher Red Squirrel Press. Callisto is made entirely of interconnected prose poem sequences and Gillian Allnutt has described Callisto as a “courageous book, clear-eyed, unflinching”. For more details about Lisa and her writing/research visited her academic profile and writer’s portfolio.

To read Lisa’s prize-wining poem ‘Gaze’ visit the Welshpool website, where you can also view Andrew McMillan’s full statement about the selected poems, and get more information about this annual festival.