IB English A: Language and Literature Tutoring for Students in the UAE
Language and Literature is the English A course that puts advertisements, speeches, articles and other non-literary texts beside literature, and Paper 1 is examined entirely on them.
- 4 assessed components, weighted as shown below
- 6 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 · SL: 75 min / HL: 135 min | SL: 35% / HL: 35% | Guided textual analysis of unseen non-literary passages (SL: one of two; HL: both) |
| Paper 2 · 105 min | SL: 35% / HL: 25% | Comparative essay on two literary works studied |
| HL essay · Coursework | HL: 20% | 1,200–1,500 words on a literary work or a non-literary body of work studied (HL only) |
| Individual oral · 15 min | SL: 30% / HL: 20% | A global issue in one literary work and one non-literary body of work studied |
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.
Core and SL content
Readers, writers and texts · Time and space · Intertextuality: connecting texts
Additional HL content
6 literary works studied at HL (4 at SL), alongside non-literary bodies of work · Paper 1: guided analysis of both unseen non-literary passages · HL essay on a literary work or a non-literary body of work
Where marks are actually lost
Paper 1 gives you unseen non-literary texts — an advertisement, an opinion column or a speech, for example — with a guiding question, and the marks go to explaining how the text works on its audience, not to summarising what it says. Students trained on poems and novels read a campaign poster as if it were a poem; the analysis has to move to purpose, audience, layout and the relationship between image and words. It improves fastest with timed attempts across as many text types as possible. Paper 2 is still a comparative essay on two literary works, and it fails the same way as in Literature: two works discussed one after the other.
The Individual Oral pairs an extract from a literary work with one from a non-literary body of work — a campaign, a photographer’s portfolio, a set of speeches — around a global issue present in both. The non-literary choice is where students go wrong: a single advertisement gives too little to talk about for ten minutes, while a body of work by one author or organisation gives a real comparison. The oral is worth 30% of the grade at SL and 20% at HL, and that choice decides most of it.
The internal assessment
The IA is marked by your teacher against published criteria and moderated by the IB. We supervise it — we do not write it, because English A: Language and Literature coursework a student cannot defend is worth less than a weaker piece they can.
Global issue
one genuinely present in both texts
Texts
one literary work and one non-literary body of work
Extracts
one from each, normally no longer than 40 lines
Timing
a 10-minute prepared response, then 5 minutes of teacher questions
Analysis
how content and form present the issue
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.
IB Diploma Tutoring
Subject-specialist tutoring for IB Diploma students, at Higher and Standard Level, covering taught content, internal assessments and the core. Delivered online and planned around your school’s deadlines.
IB Pricing
The Diploma is not one thing to buy. Six subjects, an extended essay, internal assessments and TOK each need something different, and they are priced separately here so you can buy only what you need.
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 A: Language and 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.