Language Reading through many a Scribble article, I’ve noticed one key component of English that I feel is quite deprived of the platform it deserves – that being English Language. To much of our dismay, yes it’s compulsory, and yes we have to pass it (at some point) – unfortunately for some GCSE English Language is a long, winding uphill journey that involves numerous attempts to achieve that precious grade 4. Since the introduction of the 9-1 grading system for English in 2017, the amount of students I’ve heard exceed their predictions by some 3 grades, and others achieve 3 grades below what they had wished is absurd. One positive; English Language almost always seems to be the subject that students are genuinely surprised about on results day. It’s a subject that unbeknownst to many, is developed as a skill first introduced at the budding age of six years old (year 2), through reading comprehensions, the exhilaration of creating your own fictional monster story as well as (my personal favourite) spelling, punctuation and grammar. Its importance stands parallel to that of maths: a GCSE in English Language is required for your entry to sixth form, university, and even certain jobs – I’m not saying it’s the be-all-and-endall of anyone’s success in life, but as a qualification it’s something quite valuable that I believe we, as students, need to start thinking about. Throughout my GCSE experience, a predictable groan filled the room as Mr Allen introduced any lesson beginning with ‘English Language’, this followed with a desperate attempt to convince him to do any other English revision over the dreaded ‘practise questions’ of the 4, 8 and 20 markers. As this didn’t appear to work, our next mission was to
manipulate him into writing answers for us and when that failed, we finally gave up our pursuit and got stuck into the work ourselves. It was a lengthy process, but conclusively benefitted our class as a whole. Realistically, we should’ve approached Language as enthusiastically as we did Literature, but that wasn’t the case – here’s my theory why. English Language is taught methodically – even when it comes to the creative writing element of both papers. Obviously every answer requires some structure, as this is one of the factors that allows you to gain marks. However there’s still this stigma of rigidness associated with the approach to each question, one that doesn’t necessarily exist when thinking of English Literature. When given a 30 mark essay question and a blank piece of lined paper, it’s as if you’re being set a journey to embark on, but one that you’re entirely in control of and one that you can manipulate to your advantage. You can add your own flare and charisma to this journey and ultimately reach a destination that will serve as a masterpiece. What some students don’t realise, and this is why I believe there’s a certain level of restraint when approaching a question, is that English Language can be exactly the same. There may only be a certain
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amount of lines given per question in the answer booklet, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t ask for more! Of course teachers give you a structured answer to help you, but don’t think it’s a sin to not follow that specific structure – if you find a technique that suits your style of writing, use that instead! To put it into perspective, every school will teach exam technique differently, so although you may not be following what you’ve specifically been taught, there will be hundreds of thousands of other students around the country that will approach one question differently, meaning there will be countless exam techniques that work for various individuals. Once you get past the idea that English Language is simply a sequence of repetitive questions and that you can actually manipulate it to your sole advantage, the subject can become quite fun. In fact, it’s a subject that can encourage the development of self expression. Papers 1 and 2, question 1, quite frankly
