A Level English Literature Tutoring for Students in the UAE
The gap between a good English Literature essay and a top one is almost never the reading. It is whether the essay has an argument or a series of observations.
- 4 examined components, weighted as shown below
- 9 syllabus areas mapped to your scheme of work
- Taught by a specialist in this subject, not a generalist
- 90-minute online lessons, scheduled in UAE time
How it is examined
The components, what each one is worth, and what it asks for. Planning revision without this in front of you is how students spend weeks on the part that carries the fewest marks.
| Component | Weight | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Paper 1: Drama | 30% | 2.5 hours. Shakespeare and a second drama text. Close analysis and critical evaluation. |
| Paper 2: Prose | 20% | 1.5 hours. Two prose works including one pre-1900. Comparative analysis through a chosen theme. |
| Paper 3: Poetry and Unseen | 30% | 2.5 hours. Studied poetry collection plus an unseen poem with comparative essay. |
| Non-Exam Assessment (NEA) | 20% | 2,500-3,000-word independent comparative essay. |
What the syllabus covers
Unit by unit, in the awarding body’s own terms so you can match it against your school’s scheme of work.
Drama
Shakespearean tragedy: Hamlet, Othello, King Lear · Modern drama: Williams, Miller, Stoppard · Genre conventions and dramatic structure
Prose
19th-century novel: Austen, Dickens, the Brontës · 20th-century novel: Woolf, Atwood, Achebe, Ishiguro · Comparative thematic analysis
Poetry
Studied poetry: Donne, Heaney, Duffy, the Romantics · Form and meter: sonnet, villanelle, blank verse · Unseen poem analysis under time pressure
Where marks are actually lost
Most mid-band essays are a tour: a quotation, a device named, an effect asserted, repeat. The bands above that require a line of thought that develops — where the second paragraph complicates the first and the conclusion is somewhere the introduction could not have reached. That is a structural habit, and it is learnable in a way that "reading more closely" is not.
Critical material is the other common trap. Marks come from putting a critic into dialogue with your own reading, not from quoting one to close a paragraph. An essay that names three critics and agrees with all of them has used none of them. We work on placing one critical position against the text and then disagreeing with it usefully, which is what the top band actually describes.
Tell us the board first
English Literature is offered by AQA, OCR, Edexcel, and they do not examine it the same way — different options, different papers, different mark schemes. A tutor matched to the subject without the board may be teaching the wrong specification, so it is the first thing we ask.
Frequently asked questions
The questions UAE students and parents ask us most often about this program.
Related programs
Other preparation tracks students often combine with this one.
A Level Tutoring
One-to-one A Level tutoring across the sciences, mathematics and economics, matched to your exact board and specification. Lessons are online and built around past papers and mark schemes.
A Level Pricing
A Level tutoring is priced per subject at the same rate for every subject and every board. What changes the total is when in the two years you start.
How it works
Every student starts with a free consultation and ends with a plan that has a date on it. What happens in between depends on which exam you are sitting.
Tell us where English Literature is going wrong
Send a recent piece of marked work or a test paper with the marks on it. That shows us more in five minutes than a description of the problem does in an hour.