As for the practical idea of having A level students, and university students for that matter, contribute more systematically to a larger project, well, Tim Shortis has been engaged in such an enterprise in Bristol for some years now by way of a fairly detailed questionnaire survey. Danuta Reah has just told us of her attempts to set up something like this. It should be possible for individual teachers to at least keep a log of what their students have done, a photocopy of good projects and a copy of the tapes or minidisks. As for the quality of students projects, with a little supervision some basic things can be got right, like getting decent quality cassette recordings and getting proper information on the speakers. Meanwhile, so that students and teachers are not frustrated, there is a lot to be gained in finding out about the geographical and social diffusion of linguistic features across the country as I think Peter Trudgill has pleaded for in a posting.
Many features have a southeastern origin.
Students could also look for new, local features. We didn t find anything at all southern about Hull vowels. In Reading, you can hear wadn among many younger speakers, though the levelled forms seem to be gaining ground. I think there may be restrictions. Also, of course, we need to know how far the feature has spread.