Year 13 English Language trip to London - By Harriet Cork
Towards the end of the last term, a group of Year 13 English Language students headed to London to learn more about what they had been studying on the course, visiting important linguistic sites.
The trip started off at Peterborough train station around 8:30am, and after a quick debrief of the day ahead that mostly could be found in our preprepared booklets, we left Peterborough station. After an hour and a half, we arrived in City Thameslink, a short walk away from Dr Johnson’s house, the creator of a ground-breaking English language dictionary.
Dr Johnson’s house reflected the changes in the last 600 years or so of the dictionary and how we used to define words and concepts. Our tour guide used interactive activities to show us the varied levels of Johnson’s dictionary. For example, we saw that the old word for "migraine" was defined as “disorder in the head”. Later, our tour guide showed us examples where meanings would overlap or would refer to a variety of concepts, again demonstrating semantic change since Johnson’s original dictionary.
After our tour round his house, we walked to the British Library before being set free to get lunch.
We regrouped after lunch and headed into the British Library to look at important linguistic texts of the past, such as the Magna Carta, including some more modern displays such as The Beatles and British Armenian history. After touring the British Library, we headed to St Pancras International and got on a train back to Peterborough.
Ms Kemp said it was “a delight to see the students enthused in issues of language change and history as they reach the end of their A-Level course." Thanks also go to Mr Williamson-Ward, who also supported the trip.