Text Analysis

Week 2

Aim: To analyse an audio text to take notes on main ideas and record vocabulary in an organised way.

Text analysis

Contents
2.1 ........................................................................................................................................................... 2 2.2 ........................................................................................................................................................... 4 2.3 ........................................................................................................................................................... 6 What is Climate? - Met Office Climate Change Guide (waveform) .................................................... 7 Texts: ....................................................................................................................................................... 8 What is Climate? - Met Office Climate Change Guide ........................................................................ 8 What is climate? - Met Office climate change guide (redacted version) ........................................... 9 What is climate? - Met Office climate change guide (organised notes) ............................................. 9 What is climate? - Met Office climate change guide (Technical - non-technical analysis) ............... 10 Climate Change: the state of the science (ID new paragraphs) ...................................................... 11 Climate Change: the state of the science (data visualisation) .......................................................... 12 Waveform Hand-out ............................................................................................................................. 13 What is Climate? - Met Office Climate Change Guide ...................................................................... 13 Word Clouds.......................................................................................................................................... 14 What is Climate? - Met Office Climate Change Guide ...................................................................... 14 Climate Change: the state of the science (word cloud) .................................................................... 15 References ............................................................................................................................................ 16

Text analysis 2.1

Aims: To practice identifying main ideas in an aural text. Taking notes from an aural text. To reinforce summarizing skills (introduced earlier)

Secondary aims: To practice whole/large-group information sharing Using transcripts Self-assessment

Outcomes: Students will be better able to identify structure of an aural text using prosodic cues and signposting.

Suggested procedure Introduction: Required texts: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjwmrg__ZVw; What is Climate? - Met Office Climate Change Guide (waveform)

Play the video once and ask students to take notes, then rate their own understanding (e.g. scale of 1-10) Elicit the barriers to comprehension (e.g. background knowledge, blocking vocabulary, speed, distracting visuals) what do they need in order to improve. When writers change topic, there is clear evidence of this in paragraphing. Spoken texts also have clues to topic change: change in visuals, change in intonation, sudden increase in volume, extended pauses, introduction of new vocabulary item, signposting (see the first section of the text)

Elicit and board clues to determining when a change of topic occurs in spoken texts (equivalent to changes in paragraphs in written texts). Show visual of wave form. And see if students can make educated guesses as to when subjects change. Try to reach a consensus on how many paragraphs there are in the spoken text. Then ask students to listen to the text one more time and take notes on the main ideas (new topics introduced) Discuss/share results in groups.

Student practice:

Required text: What is Climate? - Met Office Climate Change Guide (transcript)

Hand out the text and ask students to cross out non-essential information, compare the new summary with their own notes and assess their own level of comprehension.

Text analysis
Homework: Required text: What is Climate? - Met Office Climate Change Guide (video on Blackboard)

Students should write up their notes into some organised format for subsequent retrieval. Students should be encouraged to replay the video at home to go over any parts they found difficult. According to Rost (2013), being able to control the rate of listening material can improve bottom-up processing skills (citing Zhao, 2005). Downloading the video from Blackboard\Course Materials\EAP Special\Text Analysis\Week 2 and using a media player, such as VLC, to control rate may lead to gains in processing connected speech.

Text analysis 2.2

Aims: To practice identifying key vocabulary Take notes on pronunciation Using transcripts to create word clouds

Secondary aims: To practice whole/large-group information sharing Repurposing a text Self-assessment

Outcomes: Students will be better able to analyse a text for essential (technical) vocabulary and focus on pronunciation.

Suggested procedure Review Required texts: What is climate? - Met Office climate change guide (organised notes)

Ask students to come up to the board (or give poster paper) to fill in a table summarizing the previous days text. Compare with one another. Compare with sample version below. Allow students to self/peer assess contributions.

Practice

Required texts: What is climate? - Met Office climate change guide (Technical non-technical analysis)

Using the organised notes from yesterdays class, students should now attempt to identify technical and non-technical language, i.e. which words are we free to substitute with a synonym and which words are we not. One critical element to successful communication is pronunciation. If students have identified vocabulary as essential, they should be concerned with how it is pronounced. In the spirit of preparing the students for success, point out this fact and allow Ss to listen to the audio with the express purpose of focussing on pronunciation. This may take repeated listening attempts, so having another student in control of the media player may encourage students to ask for as many repetitions as they need.

Discuss how students record pronunciation. Now ask students to paraphrase that which they can by substituting. Ask students to read out loud their paraphrased sentences and monitor for content and pronunciation.

Text analysis
Required texts: Hand-out word-cloud: What is Climate? - Met Office Climate Change Guide

Homework

Using a logical approach to identifying technical vocabulary, we could say that: As technical vocabulary has a specific meaning within its own field. These words cannot be changed, so when a writer wants to express this concept, he must use the same word each time.

This would mean that these words would have a higher frequency of use in a text than other words (as writers tend to want to avoid repetition)

So an analysis of frequency of words in a text (or across multiple texts should reveal which words are considered technical)

There is concordance-like software available to analyse frequency, but for a quick analysis, word clouds can be useful with the more high-frequency words being larger in the cloud than the lower-frequency words.

Ask Ss to analyse the word cloud hand-out to see if there is a correlation between the larger words and technical vocabulary.

Text analysis 2.3

Aims: To consolidate skills presented in previous classes

Secondary aims: To practice whole/large-group information sharing Repurposing a text

Outcomes: Students will gain further practice with text analysis. Suggested procedure Review Review all skills introduced: Identifying transitions in texts, summary by deletion, Identifying technical vocabulary and using summaries and knowledge of technical vocabulary to create paraphrased summaries.

Practice

Required texts: Climate Change: the state of the science (ID new paragraphs), http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EWOrZQ3L-c

Give hand-out and ask students to first draw boundaries (e.g. //) where they think the boundaries between new ideas lay. Results can be shared among group members. Listen to the text to confirm. ID main ideas in text using knowledge of transition points Organise notes for clarity ID essential vocabulary and pronunciation Students practice paraphrasing main ideas

Homework

Required text: digital version of the transcript Climate Change: the state of the science (data visualisation)

Ask Ss to search online for word-cloud software and copy and paste the transcript to analyse the technical vocabulary for themselves.

Text analysis
What is Climate? - Met Office Climate Change Guide (waveform)

Extended pauses followed by sudden changes in volume and pitch indicate a change in subject (not an exact science but a reasonable correlation). You can also see clause boundaries here in the shorter pauses between streams of sound.

Text analysis

Texts:
What is Climate? - Met Office Climate Change Guide
To be able to understand climate change, we need to be able to understand climate. What is it? And how does it work? What is the difference between weather and climate? In this short video, well explain what climate is, how our climate works and how different factors affect our climate. First of all, lets answer the question of what is the difference between weather and climate. Weather is the elements we see daily, such as temperature, rain and wind. These can change hour by hour and day by day. Climate, on the other hand, looks at how the weather changes over a long period of time; typically around 30 years. Scientists have been able to define climate zones around the world. Here in the UK we have a temperate climate. That is neither especially hot nor cold, wet nor dry when compared to other climates. Ours is a very different climate to that in the Sahara, for example, which is known as arid, because throughout the year, the weather is dry and hot. Scientists have to look at how the atmosphere interacts with the oceans, ice-sheets, land masses and vegetation. These different interactions create a climate system, and these interactions, as well as the composition of the atmosphere itself, create a very complex system. The sun also drives our climate. Sunlight provides energy which heats the earth. Without the earths atmosphere and certain gasses our climate would be very different to what it is now. The atmosphere stops the heat from escaping into space. If it didnt do this, our planet would be a very cold place, indeed. Certain gasses allow the suns energy through but stop it from escaping back into space; acting like a greenhouse. Thats why its called the greenhouse effect. The gasses responsible for this effect, such as water vapour, carbon dioxide, and methane are called greenhouse gasses. Scientists explained the heat trapping effects of greenhouse gasses more than 150 years ago. They discovered that, without the greenhouse effect, the earth would be about 30 degrees Celsius cooler, making it uninhabitable to most forms of life. Greenhouse gasses are so effective at keeping the earth warm, that any changes will affect the earths temperature. Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjwmrg__ZVw

Text analysis
What is climate? - Met Office climate change guide (redacted version)
To be able to understand climate change, we need to be able to understand climate. What is it? And how does it work? What is the difference between weather and climate? In this short video, well explain what climate is, how our climate works and how different factors affect our climate. First of all, lets answer the question of what is the difference between weather and climate. Weather is the elements we see daily, such as temperature, rain and wind. These can change hour by hour and day by day. Climate , on the other hand, looks at how the weather changes over a long period of time; typically around 30 years. Scientists have been able to define climate zones around the world. Here in the UK we have a temperate climate. That is neither especially hot nor cold, wet nor dry when compared to other climates. Ours is a very different climate to that in the Sahara, for example, which is known as arid, because throughout the year, the weather is dry and hot. Scientists have to look at how the atmosphere interacts with the oceans, ice-sheets, land masses and vegetation. These different interactions create a climate system, and these interactions, as well as the composition of the atmosphere itself, create a very complex system. The sun also drives our climate. Sunlight provides energy which heats the earth. Without the earths atmosphere and certain gasses our climate would be very different to what it is now. The atmosphere stops the heat from escaping into space. If it didnt do this, our planet would be a very cold place, indeed. Certain gasses allow the suns energy through but stop it from escaping back into space; acting like a greenhouse. Thats why its called the greenhouse effect. The gasses responsible for this effect, such as water vapour, carbon dioxide, and methane are called greenhouse gasses. Scientists explained the heat trapping effects of greenhouse gasses more than 150 years ago. They discovered that, without the greenhouse effect, the earth would be about 30 degrees Celsius cooler, making it uninhabitable to most forms of life. Greenhouse gasses are so effective at keeping the earth warm, that any changes will affect the earths temperature.

What is climate? - Met Office climate change guide (organised notes)

Notes (the difference between weather and climate) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Weather = elements we see daily; climate= how weather changes over a long period of time Scientists define climate zones: in the UK = temperate; in the Sahara = arid Scientists look at how different interactions create a climate system Sunlight heats the earth The atmosphere stops the heat from escaping like a greenhouse (the greenhouse effect) Without the greenhouse effect the earth would be cooler If greenhouse gasses change, this will affect the earths temperature

Text analysis
What is climate? - Met Office climate change guide (Technical - non-technical analysis)
Notes (the difference between weather and climate) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Key: xxxxxxxx = technical language Weather = elements we see daily; climate= how weather changes over a long period of time Scientists define climate zones: in the UK = temperate; in the Sahara = arid Scientists look at how different interactions create a climate system Sunlight heats the earth The atmosphere stops the heat from escaping like a greenhouse (the greenhouse effect) Without the greenhouse effect the earth would be cooler If greenhouse gasses change, this will affect the earths temperature

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Text analysis
Climate Change: the state of the science (ID new paragraphs)
Our planet is vast. Its difficult to comprehend the scale. Its difficult too to comprehend the scale of humanity and the vast changes weve wrought in a lifetime. Population, production and consumption have grown exponentially. Roads; railways; airlines shipping routes; a digital revolution; weve created a globally interconnected society. Evidence is mounting weve entered the Anthropocene. Humanity is altering earths life support systems. Carbon dioxide emissions are accelerating. Greenhouse gas levels are unprecedented in human history. The climate system is changing rapidly. The inter-governmental panel on climate change assesses the risks and options for societies. Its latest report states it is extremely likely humans are the dominant cause of warming in the past 60 years. Without deep emissions cuts, it is likely earth will cross the target of 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels; the target set by international policy. This could happen as early as 2050. If emissions keep rising at current rates, a 4 degree rise by 2100 is as likely as not. Its very likely heat waves will occur more often and last longer. The arctic will warm faster than the global average. Its likely sea ice will all but vanish in summer within decades if high emissions continue. Its very likely sea level rise will accelerate. Cities and coastal areas are vulnerable. In general, wet regions are set to get wetter; dry regions drier. Monsoons are likely to become longer. Their footprint likely to grow and downpours likely to intensify. The acidity of the ocean has increased 26% since the start of the industrial revolution. The full consequences of all these changes on the earths system are unknown. Humanitys carbon footprint is huge. Societies will need to adapt to climate change. The scale of change depends on decisions made now. Can we remain below 2 degrees? It is possible, but it is up to societies now to decide the future we want. For a likely chance of achieving the 2 degree target, societies can emit another 250 billion tonnes of carbon. We burn about 10 billion tonnes of carbon a year. At current rates, we will use this budget in about 25 years.

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Text analysis
Climate Change: the state of the science (data visualisation)
Our planet is vast. Its difficult to comprehend the scale. Its difficult too to comprehend the scale of humanity and the vast changes weve wrought in a lifetime. Population, production and consumption have grown exponentially. Roads; railways; airlines shipping routes; a digital revolution; weve created a globally interconnected society. Evidence is mounting weve entered the Anthropocene. Humanity is altering earths life support systems. Carbon dioxide emissions are accelerating. Greenhouse gas levels are unprecedented in human history. The climate system is changing rapidly. The inter-governmental panel on climate change assesses the risks and options for societies. Its latest report states it is extremely likely humans are the dominant cause of warming in the past 60 years. Without deep emissions cuts, it is likely earth will cross the target of 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels; the target set by international policy. This could happen as early as 2050. If emissions keep rising at current rates, a 4 degree rise by 2100 is as likely as not. Its very likely heat waves will occur more often and last longer. The arctic will warm faster than the global average. Its likely sea ice will all but vanish in summer within decades if high emissions continue. Its very likely sea level rise will accelerate. Cities and coastal areas are vulnerable. In general, wet regions are set to get wetter; dry regions drier. Monsoons are likely to become longer, their footprint likely to grow and downpours likely to intensify. The acidity of the ocean has increased 26% since the start of the industrial revolution. The full consequences of all these changes on the earths system are unknown. Humanitys carbon footprint is huge. Societies will need to adapt to climate change. The scale of change depends on decisions made now. Can we remain below 2 degrees? It is possible, but it is up to societies now to decide the future we want. For a likely chance of achieving the 2 degree target, societies can emit another 250 billion tonnes of carbon. We burn about 10 billion tonnes of carbon a year. At current rates, we will use this budget in about 25 years. Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EWOrZQ3L-c

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Text analysis

Waveform Hand-out
What is Climate? - Met Office Climate Change Guide
Mark on the waveform where you think the narrator changes topic.

How did you make your selection? What clues did you use?

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Text analysis Word Clouds

What is Climate? - Met Office Climate Change Guide

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Text analysis
Climate Change: the state of the science (word cloud)

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Text analysis

References
International Geoshpere-Bioshpere Programme, (Jan. 2014). Climate change the state of the science (data visualisation). Retrieved from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EWOrZQ3L-c

Met office, [Matthew Roberts], (Mar 2011). What is Climate? - Met Office Climate Change Guide. Retrieved from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjwmrg__ZVw

Rost, M., Wilson, J.J., (2013), Active Listening. Harlow: Pearson Education Ltd.

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