English Language

Assessment

This is a two-year course. Both examinations will take place in June of the second year. Paper 1: Language, the Individual and Society - Section A: Textual Variations and Representations: Three compulsory textual analysis tasks will be set on two unseen texts. One text will be modern, the other will be historical. You will be asked to analyse how writers and speakers convey their ideas in the written, electronic or spoken modes. - Section B: Children’s Language Development You will answer an essay question on child language development, based on stimulus material, e.g. data set of children’s speech. - Two-hour, 30-minute written examination. - 100 marks in total – Section A (70 marks), Section B (30 marks). - 40% of total A Level. Paper 2: Language Diversity and Change - Section A: Diversity and Change: You will answer an essay question on how accent, gender, social groups, occupation and nationality affect language, or how and why English has changed. - Section B: Language Discourses: You will answer one compulsory textual analysis question. The text(s) you will analyse will be about a language topic (40 marks of 70). You will also complete one compulsory writing task, in which you evaluate the ideas expressed in the texts set for the textual analysis task, e.g. write an opinion article evaluating attitudes to language change and arguing your views about language change. (30 marks of 70). - Two-hour, 30-minute written examination. - 100 marks in total – Section A (30 marks), Section B (70 marks). - 40% of total A Level. Coursework: Language in Action - Task 1: A 2,000-word investigation on a language topic of your choice. - Task 2: A 750-word piece of creative writing (either storytelling or persuasive/informative writing) and a 750-word commentary - 100 marks in total. - 20% of the total mark