Research Methodology

So my program of study is MA in Applied Linguistics Research Methodology or MAALRM.  Am I the only one that when I look at the acronym sees the word alarm? Or is that a twisted arm...? I am hoping it will not be a cause for alarm as this semester it lives up to it's name as it prepares us to do research... this summer... so we can get the degree.  

With a title of research methodology what would you expect to learn?  Yep, methods for doing research in applied linguistics.  Now that we have the overview out of the way, it is time to get down to the nuts and bolts of the program.  The program that I am on is also considered the first year of the IPhD.  (Integrated PhD)  What it means is that my core classes are with the PhD students.  The only difference is that I get to write the master's dissertation, and they will start their doctoral thesis.  No, I did not get that backwards, the British did.  Or did we change it along with spelling and pronunciation just to be different, not real sure..... I digress.... 

There are three of us on the MAALRM module and 9 IPhD students. So my three methodology classes are very "cozy".  One of the PhD students in the first class on Monday was a bit put out that there were 3 MA students in the class.  I'm sorry, didn't mean to be a lower class student here... however when I'm done with all of this I will have more experience than you will, but whatever.... It also means that most of my friends on the program are not in my classes.... time to make more friends.

So we have a Research, Design and Practice module, Quantitative Methods, and Qualitative Methods.  That should cover the bases... then the two elective modules are Language and Intercultural Communication and Language Ideologies in a Globalizing World. Two of the methods courses are only 6 weeks.  I'm looking at the calendar figuring that because the Easter holiday is a full month in the middle of the term, the professors are bound to make sure we can't enjoy it.  Sure enough,  one assignment is due 4 days into the vacation, one 3 weeks in and 1 due the week after.  Two of these are 100% of my grade.... However, the classes will be finished as well so I guess I get the good with the bad, but it makes for ugly. 

It's not as bad as it sounds.  Most of the assignment work is preparation for and/or part of the dissertation.  The point is to help us understand and know what research methods will be best for the study we want to undertake and how best to use them.  One of them is to actually complete the literature review part, which will also help to focus our research and know where the gaps are and the the best ways to approach our topics. I'm actually excited for the modules and the skills and knowledge to be gained from them.  Hopefully, with planning I can still enjoy the Easter Holiday without it just being a holiday from going to class.... so if I apply method to my madness and maybe even a little madness to my method, I will be ready to start my research in a methodical and methodological way. 

The Waves of the Sea

I suppose technically it really isn't the sea, but the two rivers that run to the sea, however they are big enough that you can't see the other side.  Unless of course the Isle of Wight counts...  

Monday two of my flatmates and I decided we needed to celebrate surviving the first semester.  So Tuesday afternoon we head out on foot to the docks.  My one flatmate had been with a classmate and said she knew how to get to a really lovely place along the docks.  So we sallied forth.  Now I'm a shutterbug and there are parts of Southampton that I haven't been able to capture on "film" yet.  So I keep stopping to snap pictures and they keep walking. I'm used to that, my family does it to me as well.  One of them looks at me weird and asks why the pictures because it wasn't like this was someplace new.  Well, it wasn't where I had been before and there was cool stuff they were just walking past!  well like these... It is was is left of medieval Southampton that wasn't destroyed in the war.  So you have all the modern and then pieces of wall or castle interspersed among things, which I think is really cool, but I'm a bit of a nerd that way.  

 

So we get  to the docks as the sun is starting to set.  Definitely worth the walk. We stood there and watched the waves, enjoyed the sea breeze, even though it was cold, and let all the tension and stress wash out on the waves.  

As we were standing there watching the waves my one flatmate asked "So what do you think of when you watch the waves?"  No one answered but continued to watch.  Later she said so you want to know what I was thinking watching the waves? I was thinking about the axis and the gradient..."  My other flatmate said , "oh.... I was thinking about emotions on the waves...."  Yep.... we've been working way too hard..

So now that we were chilled to the bone we decided we needed to go get food and get warm.  So,yep we went to get ice cream! 

 

Well, a hot crepe with warm chocolate with fruit... and ice cream. :)  This was my treat to myself for making it through! 

The rest of the week was well, with the sea.  We had two days of blue skies and sunshine, so I took advantage and went to see sights with two friends (one has a car, so that's a plus. :)) 

In short, I went to Chawton where Jane Austen lived, Romsey to see the Abby, and several places along the coast including Highcliffe, Barton, and Mudford Quay at Christchurch.

 English countryside

Jane Austen home in Chawton

thatched roof cottages

 graves of Jane Austen's mother and sister

 Romsey Abby

 Highcliffe castle

view of the sea from the castle grounds

 the lighthouse at the end of the Isle of Wight called the needles (the rocks to the left of the lighthouse)

  I spent hours looking at the sea, watching the waves, feeling the "breeze" as it came off of the water.  I found it very therapeutic and relaxing. I am now ready for the next semester.  :) 

No rest for the weary

The past week was test/assignment/revision week.  Technically next week is too.  I just have to get to tomorrow (Mon the 18th) at 16:00, then I can pass out.  I'm on the home stretch and things look good for the completion of the last assignment and making it over the finish line in time. 

So let me explain. When arriving back from holiday, I had 5 assignments (most of my grade for my classes) Due within  2  to 2 1/2 weeks. I had 4 major assignments that were due by this past Thursday, and one more that is due tomorrow. So that gave me about 3 - 4 days per assignment.  The thing that makes it hard is that the topics were only briefly discussed in class, or mentioned in passing.... So it requires finding resources, read/scan through them for content before I can start writing.  Then while writing referencing and referring back to those plus in the processes finding more. Each essay requiring 15 - 20 different references. (so three essays is 45-60 total different sources needed, and referred to in the writing....)  

So my days look something like this: I get up about 5:00 am. By 7:00 I'm at my computer. Around 1:00 my stomach is yelling loud enough to make itself known, so I wander to the kitchen and forage for something fast and head back to my room with it to continue working.  About 19:00 I find that I am starving again, so I stop long enough to find something eatable and then work until about midnight. At that point I crash into bed and start the process again the next morning. This is called how to learn a semester's amount of information, synthesize it and explain it in 2500- 4000 words in about 3 days.  I hadn't seen one of my flatmates since Monday morning and when I wandered into the kitchen sometime on Thursday she says "Vicki! you're alive!" I'm thinking if you mean still breathing, then yes. Mentally I'll get back to you on that. 

Things I have learned this week:
1. Anything can be made into a sandwich.  My new favorite is toasted fried egg with cheese and Mayo. 
2. When you are short no chair is comfortable after several hours no matter how many ways you tuck your legs under you. 
3. Taking out the trash can be seen as a reward and a good reason to leave the 12 x 12 cubical I call home. 
4. Microsoft updates are installed at the worst timing possible.
5. Anything tastes good when you're starving.

I hit a new record low for steps in a day this week.  Friday I had 711 steps. (for optimal health it is suggested you walk about 10,000) But I had 163 min of heart rate in the fat burn zone.... so who says mental activity isn't physically draining? 

Word for the week: Invigilator.  (in honor of my flatmates who had actual exams. It is why I learned the word...) 

Academic things I have learned this week:

1. How the concepts of face, politeness, and social deixis relate and how they affect our everyday lives.

2. The contribution of L2 interaction to L2 acquisition with reference to Vygotskian sociocultural theory. 

3. How to use the British National Corpus to find the paradigmatic and syntagmatic semantic relations for the words finish and complete. Their syntactic behavior and their collocations. Then using this information to identify in what ways finish and complete are and are not synonymous. 

All in all it has been a rather productive week.  One more day and then my assignments will be complete and I will be finished. Then maybe I can rest.  

Fish and Chips

It has taken four months, but I have now eaten fish and chips.  For it being a British staple, and there supposed to be a fish and chips shop on neighborhood corners, I haven't come across very many.  Infact, this was my first real encounter with one and it was at a service station, not a neighborhood variety.  

A service station or a motorway service area is like a rest area/truck stop/food court kinda thing.  So when traveling the motorway and you are hungry, or need the loo, you pull into a service station.  It's like a mall food court without the mall.  Some also have hotel accommodations and there is a separate area at some to buy petrol.  (gas station which is what most of you thought of when I said service station...)  It's a "one stop shopping" for all your traveling needs.  I find it really interesting at most of these the food offered is things like McDonalds, KFC, Subway, Starbucks.... though they throw in Costa, WHSmith, Waitrose, and some others to remind you that you really are still in the UK and didn't somehow drive across the pond and land in the US.  

So traveling back on Wednesday afternoon from the London Temple (which is in Lingfield, Surrey...) we stopped to grab a bite to eat at a service station.  This was a big newer one and almost as overwhelming as a large mall food court. Surveying our options, my friend Margaret spotted a fish and chips in the corner.  That seemed like a better idea than KFC, or McDonald's to me, and since I hadn't had proper fish and chips decided that was my best option. 

 Margaret, being the kind person that she is, decided I needed help trying to order, because really it was way simpler than I was used to, mostly.  You just order a regular plate of fish and chips.  The side dish was the problem.  I was then asked if I wanted mushy peas or baked beans.  Mushy peas? the picture on the board looked like, well mushy peas... She described them to me as mushed canned peas with ... I didn't catch that.... added.  Apparently quite good.  I was told it was a Yorkshire thing.  I've never been a fan of canned peas, I don't care what you put with them, it can't help them, so I opted for the baked beans.  The guy behind the counter at this point asks "American?"  Seems Americans are the only people who don't know about Mushy Peas.  Margaret figured he'd heard me speak and figured by my accent.  So now it's his job to educate me on how this works.  He gives me my receipt, tells me to take a table and he will call when it is ready.  I dutifully sit while Margaret and Don go and get KFC.  When my food is ready, they guy announces Fish and chips, looks at me and points to my food, so I know it is my order.  He asks if I want vinegar and salt.  There are large salt shakers and containers of vinegar to the left of the pick up counter. I opted to try the British way and I put vinegar on half of the fish and chips for a trial run.  I didn't add salt, because I figured it wouldn't need extra.  Unlike the states, they didn't salt any of it, and so I actually needed to go back and salt it.  It was rather bland without any. 

The meal was rather delicious.  I am a fan of vinegar on chips.  The baked beans were warm and not sweet, that was a pleasant surprise as well.  Yes, I at the chips with a fork and knife.  The fish was moist and almost as good as my daughter in law makes.  ;) The meal hit the spot and I can understand why the British eat it.  I guess normally it would be served in a newspaper, instead my plate was a newspaper.  I learned many interesting facts about fish and chips from my plate actually.  

 

I also learned that day that British doughnuts used to always be the filled kind, either the long ones or the round kind.  They had custard or jam.  It wasn't until Krispy Kremes came along and they learned you could have them with icing or sprinkles.  So they will pay to have the experience of Krispy Kremes.  I however have always been a fan of the filled doughnuts, but they are not jelly filled, jelly is jello.... and we won't discuss how they pickle everything...onions, walnuts, red cabbage, gherkins, beetroot, eggs....mostly found at christmas time to off set all of the cheese that they eat. 

So now I have experienced fish and chips.  I'll have to find the "good one around the corner" for those days when I just don't want to cook.  Maybe I'll even try the mushy peas. 

And... I'm back

After 22 hours spent traveling, I am back to my flat in England.  I am grateful I was routed through San Francisco to London, because any flights on the east coast were cancelled due to weather, so that was a major blessing.  Temperatures here are 30- 40 degrees warmer (F) than in Utah, with rain instead of snow. I'm OK with that.  

Part of my heart is still with my family, but I am happy to be back.  I am learning to really love it over here.  The foreign is becoming familiar and things that used to be familiar were kinda foreign to me back in the states. I found myself missing the British accent, and on first arrival back in the states actually struggled with listening to Americans talk.  I needed a knife to eat, and missed some British foods more than I have missed more of the American foods.  My cultural heritage has become clearer to me through all of these travels.  

It was funny when my children introduced me for two weeks.  "This is my mom, she is visiting from the UK."  Some expected me to be British with an accent.  One person asked my daughter if she was British....  Oh the assumptions people make! However, the introduction was comfortable, because the UK is currently my home, and well, I can accept that.  

Since being back, I have been diligently working on assignments.  I had even less study time than I had hoped in the states, and now I need to make up for literal lost time.  New Years Eve and New Years day I spent doing school work.  I didn't even leave my flat.  However, I think I am ready for an oral presentation that is due tomorrow, with another assignment 90% completed, topics for the other three and a quasi game plan to get them done on time.  The good news is that after the last deadline (Jan 18) I have a free week. :)  Definitely need to plan some kind of sightseeing in there.  

Life is good, I am looking forward to a glorious 2016.  I'm excited to be learning and following my dreams.  I know the road ahead is long and hard, but that is where I am happy.  So bring it on new year, there are fabulous adventures to be had and wonderful things to learn.  My head is high and my shoulders squared to the task.  It is going to be a year like none other.  Look out Britain, your American daugher is back.