BLOCK 2: ENGLISH B LANGUAGE

Head of Department: Matthew Taylor matthewtaylor@leightonpark.com

Course overview: English B Language can be studied at Standard and Higher Level.

The new Language B Standard Level (SL) and Higher Level (HL) are language acquisition courses for students with some previous experience of learning the language. While studying the language, students also explore the culture(s) connected with it.

The course is organised into themes. The five themes to be studied are:

• Experiences

• Identities

• Human ingenuity

• Sharing the planet

• Social organisation

During the course students will focus on five key conceptual ideas:

• Audience

• Context

• Purpose

• Meaning

• Variation

The course also provides the opportunity to engage with English cultures from around the world, fostering an international outlook and a need for cultural understanding. They will be introduced to a range of issues from across the globe that will help them to learn way beyond a simple language acquisition course.

At HL, students will also read two literary texts, reading for meaning, and preparing for an oral assessment on an extract from the text. Comprehension exercises on three audio passages and three written texts, drawn from all five themes. For the oral and written components of the assessments, students receive marks based on their level of competency in language use, cultural interaction and expression of message. For reading/listening comprehension, students receive a grade based on a mark scheme (answer key) for questions that are multiple-choice, shortanswer, true/false/justify, matching and extended response.

Oral oral discussion with the teacher based on: a) at SL visual text stimulus or b) at HL an extract from the studied literary works

Paper 1: Production Skills One writing task of 450–600 words from a choice of SL 25% three, each from a different theme, choosing a text type HL 25% from among those listed in the examination instructions Paper 2: Receptive Skills comprehension (1 hour) (25 marks) comprehension (1 hour) (40 marks)