The CLiC blog showcases research and impact activities from the AHRC-funded CLiC Dickens project. We write posts summarising our research output, reporting on impact events and explaining new features of the CLiC web app.
Fe Brewer is an English teacher and Lead Mentor in Leicester. She is the co-author of Succeeding as an English Teacher (Bloomsbury 2021) and presents regularly on English subject knowledge and education. In this post, she explores how Dickens’ portrayal of children echoes contemporary changes around the concept of childhood.
In this post, students of the TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) MA at the University of Birmingham blog about the CLiC Web App as a language learning resource. This post originated from a task set by Dr Viola Wiegand for ‘Corpus-Assisted Language Learning’, a TESOL module that encourages students to engage with the philosophy of data-driven learning. Many thanks to Weiqing Chu, Luyi Wang, Miaoting Wu and Xinzu Li for their fantastic contribution.
Dr Rosalind White takes you through a quick-start guide exploring some of CLiC’s features. If you would prefer video instructions these instructions are available in a Twitter thread. You can also find further guidance on the help tab of the CLiC Web App. The CLiC Web App (Mahlberg et al. 2020) was designed specifically for the analysis … Continue reading “CLiC Quick-Start Guide”
This post presents the winning entry for the CLiC Digital Reading Competition 2019 by Kaja Kozlowska of Bishop Walsh Catholic School in Sutton Coldfield. Kaja’s submission focuses on the themes of power and over-powering violence in Stevensons’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. She addressed the question: “In what context is power … Continue reading “Winner of the CLiC Digital Reading Competition 2019: Power & over-powering violence in Jekyll & Hyde, by Kaja Kozlowska”
In this post, Chris Jones (University of Liverpool) shows how the CLiC quotes subsets can be explored to aid English language teaching. He provides a sample activity from his recent open access article in the Journal of Second Language Teaching & Research, co-authored with David Oakey. Nineteenth century fiction may seem an unlikely place to … Continue reading “Conversations in the CLiC corpora: Exploring their potential as models for dialogue in ELT”
In this guest post teacher Claire Stoneman shares her passion for Victorian literature with a case study of servants and agency in The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. She emphasises the role of doors in this context – reiterating the importance of doors in this novella, which our Blog readers may remember from Lorraine … Continue reading “Signposting and gatekeeping the supernatural: Servants and doors in The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde”
Beth Kemp (@BethKemp on Twitter) is an English teacher, A Level examiner, teacher trainer and writer of textbooks and study guides for A Level, GCSE and KS3. She is also passionate about reading for pleasure and contemporary YA literature, finding that language and books of various kinds tend to dominate her work and her leisure. Looking … Continue reading “Revising Frankenstein with CLiC Dickens”
Kat Howard (@SaysMiss on Twitter) is an English teacher at Brockington College, an 11-16 Secondary School in South Leicestershire. Previously undertaking roles such as Literacy Coordinator and overseeing KS3 Curriculum Planning and Assessment, Kat provided T&L training through the National College of Teaching and Leadership and has written resourcing content for a range of providers … Continue reading “What’s in a Word: Exam-ready with CLiC”
Lorraine Adriano has taught in secondary schools in England and Italy. She was curriculum leader for KS3 and Head of Department, developing schemes of work and assessments. Lorraine now teaches English language and English literature years 7-13 at Bishop Walsh Catholic Secondary School. She is an examiner for both English language and English literature at GSCE and is … Continue reading “CLiC in the classroom”
The AHRC-funded CLiC Dickens project has officially come to an end. We celebrated the successful conclusion of the project with our CLiC Dickens Day, at the Birmingham and Midland Institute (BMI), on 1 December. As Charles Dickens was one of the early presidents of the BMI, the venue was particularly suitable for our event. The … Continue reading “CLiC Dickens Day: our end-of-project celebration at the BMI”
