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WHY STUDY A LEVEL ENGLISH LANGUAGE?
The course enables students to build on the skills developed at GCSE, by engaging
creatively and critically with a wide range of texts as well as introducing students to
a wealth of new technical and grammatical understanding. You’ll use exciting and
relevant text and data-based sources that enable you to look at how language
works in the real world and its impact.
COURSE CONTENT AND ASSESSMENT DETAILS
NON-EXAMINED-ASSESSMENT
20% of the A Level is coursework-style assessment which provides opportunities for
students to pursue their own areas of interest through a Language investigation and
develop personal and independent learning skills. In addition, there is a piece of original
writing which encourages students to develop their own sense of style and creativity.
In addition, there are 2 external exams, comprising 40% of the total A Level each:
PAPER 1 ‘EXPLORING LANGUAGE’
Section A ’Language Under the Microscope’
The focus of this section is on the effect of lexical choices and grammatical features
in a short written text. Students are asked to micro-analyse a short text with a
discreet focus on parts of language. The terminology required for this question
covers parts of the mark scheme across all other questions.
Section B ‘Writing about a topical language issue’
This section focuses on an issue or concept related to language in use. Engaging
with a variety of texts and contexts in Section A will help to prepare learners to
emulate these styles in this section. This section assesses students on their creative
writing, as well as understanding of concepts across Language study.
Section C ‘Comparing and contrasting texts’
Building on Section A, learners will also be expected to show knowledge and
understanding of how language levels can be applied to a range of contexts for
language use, including: geographical, social and individual varieties of English;
aspects of language and identity.
PAPER 2 ‘DIMENSIONS OF LINGUISTIC VARIATION’
Section A ‘Child Language Acquisition’
The focus of this section is on children’s acquisition of spoken language. Students are
expected to write a discursive essay on children’s language development, with a
choice of two questions where the data provided will focus on spoken, written or
multimodal language.
Section B ‘Language in the Media’
This section is synoptic and will require learners to draw together their understanding of
these different language concepts and issues, alongside the contextual aspects of a
media text, in order to effectively analyse and evaluate language use in media texts.
Section C ‘Language Change’
The focus of this section is on the analysis of historical varieties of English. The analysis
will be based on drawing connections and comparisons between two texts from
different times. Students will study the ways that the English language has developed
and changed over time, including methodologies for the study of language change.
The variety of assessment styles used, such as data analysis, discursive essays, original writing
and research-based investigative
writing, allows students to
develop a wide range of skills.
These include critical reading,
data analysis, evaluation, which
are invaluable for both further
study and future employment.
The course demonstrates that
you have an ability to think
quickly, write cogently and are
adept in your ability to evaluate
the use of grammar.
