1. ELRS Group 2 A study into how well-recognisedcommon student colloquialisms are to native English speakers and international students

2. Results we wanted to generate: What common colloquialisms were used by students Whether all native English students were familiar with these common colloquialisms What colloquialisms international students struggled to understand Whether or not the growing use of colloquialisms, slang words and abbreviations are difficult for international students to master

3. Meetings Weekly basis One hour Quiet area Group discussionMinutes Follow-up to meetings Posted on blog Tasks

4. New method for us to learn as a group Individual and group use What did we post on our blog? Development of blog posts Technical development What did we use it for?

5. We began with the idea of focussing on Mandarin Chinese to form the basis of our investigation, with a view to concentrate on phonetic and grammatical constraints facing Chinese students when learning English. In order to uncover these issues, we decided that sending a questionnaire that we would later create, to a selection of Chinese students studying at the University, would highlight sufficient problems for us to analyse and understand.

6. After much reflection and advice from Alison regarding our original proposal, certain issues came to light, which meant that perhaps this research proposal was too ambitious for us in the time that we had available. Issues included: the amount of competency Chinese students would already have in English Language, studying at a predominantly English speaking University, and the sheer logistics of interviewing large samples of people, thus transcribing the results.

7. After many meetings, we agreed to take our investigation in a different direction. Ultimately, we chose to concentrate on colloquialisms used within the English Language, between both native English speakers and international students. With the final research question reading: Compare the familiarity of English colloquialisms between native English speakers and students who have learnt English as a second language, at the University of Birmingham. We believed that this topic would play to our strengths more, and we felt more confident in tackling this investigation. This led to a more thorough and accurate investigation.

8. Sealey, A. (2010) Researching English Language: a resource book for students. London: Routledge www.urban dictionary.com Nordquist, Richard Colloquialism [online], http://grammar.about.com/od/c/g/colloquialismter m.htm [Accessed 22 October 2012] Barford, Vanessa (2009) Mind Your Slanguage [online],http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8388545.stm [Accessed 22 October 2012] Arua E. Arua, Modupe M. Alimi The Creation of Students Academic Slang Expressions in the University of Botswana [online], http://www.linguistik- online.de/40_09/aruaAlimi.pdf [Accessed 22 October 2012] http://rsel2012.blogspot.co.uk/ https://sites.google.com/site/researchingenglishlanguage/

9. This resource has been extremely useful for bridging the gap between last years Independent Study module and this much bigger project. Helped us chose a topic Showed us how to write a research proposal Highlighted the importance of reading around our topic Made us realise that we wanted to collect out data through a questionnaire

10. www.urban dictionary.com Gave us a better knowledge about the words we were analysing Good source because it is interactive and constantly being updated by people who use the words

11. Nordquist, Richard Colloquialism [online], http://grammar.about.com/od/c/g /colloquialismterm.htm [Accessed 22 October 2012] Barford, Vanessa (2009) Mind Your Slanguage [online],http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazi ne/8388545.stm [Accessed 22 October 2012]

12. The questions were written, with it in mind that we needed to discover several things It would illuminated some words which we may not have thought of due to not being familiar with the regions slang As some of these results were quite obscure we put them in a multiple choice format Our presearch had a feedback question on so we could doctor our final questionnaire to be as clear as possible

13. QUESTION 1: -Most popular words circled were Smashed, Hammered and Wasted - Un-circled words were battered, intoxicated and tipsy QUESTION 2: -Most popular words suggested as words we could have included in the question above were Messy and Pissed -Other suggestions included mortal, trollied, car parked, twatted, rat-arsed and para QUESTION 3:- Most popular word for describing drinking before going out to a club was pre-drinks followed by pres - other sugegstions were pre-lash and prinks QUESTION 4:- Words students said they had learnt since being at the University of Birmingham include Terrored, Allow, Hypeting, Haps, Amazeballs and parr QUESTION 5:- Sentence examples using the word bare included: - im bare cold -He got bare annoyed -Got bare work to do -Chatting bare breeze QUESTION 6:- Sentence examples using the word Sick included: - Thats so sick -I feel very sick -Those are sick shoes - Went out last night, it was so sick QUESTION 7:- Words used to describe somebody who is good at something were top quality, Class, Don, Beast and Pro - Most popular word suggested was Boss QUESTION 8:- Words suggested to replace the word money were dosh, papers, pennies and quid - The most popuar term suggested was Dollar, followed by cash, moulas, dough and wonga QUESTION 9:- Words used to describe someone ugly included Hideous, Meff, Sket, Fugly, Dirt, Grenade, Nasty, Butterz, Filth, Cruttas and Dog -The Most popular suggestions were Dirty, Minger and Munter QUESTION 10:- Words used to describe someone with a good body included Bangin, Lush, Peng, A Tank, Tidy, Stacked, Racked, Ripped, Wedge, King Prawn and Sexy - Most popular words were Fit and Hench. QUESTION 11:- Words that people shorten are as follows: -Totally=totes - Laugh out loud=LOL - Amazing= Amaze -Amazing= Amazeballs -Obviously= Obvs -Ridiculous= Ridic -Selly Oak=Selly -Fab and Fresh= Fab -Because= Cause - Sorry= Soz QUESTION 12:- Suggestions to improve our questionnaire: - Questions need to be less vague more specific -Repitition of a similar structure for questions when the format of questions should vary - Also, we needed to consider whether or not our questions and phrasing could be deemed offensive to other cultures.

14. -QUESTIONS KEPT: Have you learnt any new words since coming to UOB from your peers? Give an example sentence using the word bare Give an example sentence using the word sick What would you call someone who is good at something? List some words for money List some words for ugly What would you call someone with a good body? Do you shorten any particular words? NEW QUESTIONS: Is English your first language? What words or word would you use to say you were relaxed or are relaxing? What term would you use to collectively describe your group of friends? What is your opinion on slang words? Do they confuse or enhance spoken language for you personally? Who do you use colloquialisms/slang words with in conversation? Which of these words used to describe people are negative and which ones are positive?

15. We sent out a few pilot versions of our questionnaire to make sure it could be understood and was accessible to everyone Our pilot questionnaire seemed to work well Therefore, we distributed the same questions through email for our final questionnaire

16. Two of the International students answered this question with sexy and one answered with fit Fit is the word used by both groups of people Hench and peng are words only used by Native English speakers

17. We could have sent out our questionnaire much earlier We could have publicised our questionnaire more in order to get more results We also felt that we could have narrowed the questions down We could have made our questionnaire easier and quicker to fill out

18. Our results and analysis show that international students are not as familiar with University slang words and colloquialisms as native English speakers Some international students used the words in different contexts However some words were understood by both groups of people

19. Rose Ecclesfield Lizzie Hubbard Hannah Mason Josh Roy Becky Stevens Yasmin Zahran