Getting to grips with linguistics

I've always had a fondness for reading and writing.

At Grammar school (age 11) we read Homer's Odyssey (in translation). In junior school we'd come across some poetry. Over the years, I read / studied Charles Dickens' stories and plays by Shakespeare. English Language and Literature were compulsory, with the bonus that I enjoyed most of my studies.

Recently, I took up the study of linguistics (O.U.). Worlds of English whetted my appetite for more study. This year, I'm doing E304, Exploring English Grammar. 

The website opened last week, so I had the opportunity to look at and download resources. I also accessed the first 5 weeks of the syllabus. We're going to be learning something called 'Corpus linguistics', working with corpora and doing our own research activities. I'm looking forward to it, but I reckon there'll be some who'll moan.  

I had a go at using the corpus linguistics software (O.U.) and was thankful to have done some technology courses, M150 in particular. The GUI graphical user interface looks fairly simple, but not intuitive. Looking thro' the course calendar, study they've built in time to learn to use the software, and something called digital skills.