English and English Literature Board: Cambridge IGCSE
The teaching of the English and English Literature courses is integrated, so students will be taking both the English Language and English Literature examinations.
English
You will increase your ability to understand the spoken word and to express yourself effectively in a number of formal and informal oral activities inside and outside the classroom. Activities include debates, individual speeches, role-play and group presentations to the class. The ability to read, understand and respond to all types of writing and the skills of information retrieval, analysis of writers’ methods, creative and directed writing will be developed by studying literary and non-literary material in class . You will undertake a range of writing tasks to help you express your ideas clearly and accurately, matching style to audience and purpose. One of the English Language examination questions will test your ability to retrieve information from passages taken from a fiction or non-fiction text and to use that information to do your own, original piece of writing. This may be in the form of a script of a speech, a report, a letter or an article. The second question will test your ability to ‘read between the lines’, infer, and respond to a writer’s techniques when handling an extract from a short story, novel or nonfiction text. Summary skills are examined in a third task. For both Language and Literature there is a coursework element; English Language coursework covers a range of types of writing: creative, discursive and informative. Coursework assignments will mostly be started in school and finished at home. The Exam Board requires evidence of drafting and re-drafting. For English Language, three pieces of coursework, covering a range of writing skills, are required.
English Literature
You will study three texts for the examination and will be required to answer a question on each of them. You are encouraged to annotate your own copies of these texts while studying them and clean copies of the Drama text are provided for the examination as per regulations. The texts will be a selection of poetry, drama and prose. For example, Thomas Hardy’s Poetry, ‘All My Sons’ by Arthur Miller and a prose text which will be a selection of short stories. For your coursework option you will study some complementary texts, including a Shakespeare play and a pre-20th century prose text and submit two pieces of written work of 1000 words.
Methods of Assessment
In addition to sitting the examination papers, each candidate must submit a coursework folder for both English Language and Literature showing achievements in creative writing and essays demonstrating a range of skills. This is worth 50% for English Language and 25% for English Literature. Reading skills as well as writing objectives must be demonstrated by response to both non-fiction texts and extended literary texts, including Shakespeare.
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