Language A

Group 1

Course outline

The IB is committed to enabling students around the world to continue studying the language and literature of their mother tongue to the highest level, and therefore offers students the opportunity to achieve a bilingual diploma by taking a second language A subject, alongside English Literature.

The benefits of studying your mother tongue are enormous:

• You receive a bilingual Diploma

• You remain in touch with your own language and culture while studying in a foreign country and language

• You may find yourself with additional career opportunities

Our MFL department is able to support the following language A courses, subject to takeup:

• French HL/SL.

• German HL/SL.

• Spanish HL/SL.

• Mandarin HL/SL.

As with English A, you read widely: you study ten texts from three to four different genres and from at least three historical periods across the four distinct parts of the course. All texts are chosen in discussion with the IB Coordinator.

The first two texts, in Part 1, are both works written in other languages. You read them in your own language but discuss them in English. At the end of Year 12, you write a 1500 word essay, which is sent for external assessment, on one of those texts. The texts in Parts 2 and 4 are assessed orally, in an examination at the end of Year 13.

The exam, which is recorded and sent away to native speaker examiners, consists of two parts: a prepared presentation on a topic of your own choice dealing with two texts from Part 4; and a more detailed commentary on a short passage from one of the Part 2 texts. You prepare ten separate passages on the two texts but you do not know which of the pieces you will finally be asked to use. The three texts from Part 3, all drawn from one genre, are studied in preparation for the second of your final examination papers.

The first paper is a written response to an unseen poem or piece of prose.

“I wanted to continue studying German because it is my first language, because I enjoy German literature and because, even though I may not return to Germany for University, I want to keep a little bit of my homeland with me always.”

“To continue studying Mandarin is important to me because I think and dream in both English and Mandarin, which means greater variety. To stop studying my mother tongue would mean losing one of the constants in my life and a vital part of my culture.”