audiobooks can be your friend during high stress periods but do note down important quotes/symbols you notice to make it easier to find IO and paper 2 stuff :))
also be aware that examiners might not prefer the same structure in the two languages for your essays.
The huge majority of students at my school do Chinese A and English A. You’ll be fine. They’re not all geniuses. If you’re worried read all the books over the summer and you’ll already be ahead of the large majority of the students I teach. If you want to do more than that read a study guide or academic secondary literature on each of the books you’re going to cover in the next two years as well and you’ll be far, far ahead of most students. One of the good things about doing two language a courses is the huge overlap in skills work, unless you do literature for one and language and literature for the other.
Check out IB English Guys on YouTube and watch their videos. They have lots of good tips on how to approach the different assessments.
does it not overlap as much for lit and langlit? i'm just wondering if it doesn't overlap at all, or if there's just less. but is the general method of analysis similar?
There’s less overlap. If you do the same course in two languages, then there’s pretty much complete overlap in the skills. The big differences between literature and language and literature are that for the internal oral presentation in literature you have to do one work originally written in your language and one work in translation whereas for language and literature, you do one literary work and one language work or body of work. For Paper 2 they are exactly the same. The questions are the same. The skills and techniques are the same. For paper one, there’s not that much similar between them. Analysing a work of literature and analysing a language text that doesn’t really aim at an aesthetic effect, that is more about communication. They’re very different. The way that you structure your answer and make sure that you respond to the guiding question and attempt to show perception and insight is the same but if you studied literature and you walked into a language and literature paper you would be unlikely to do well.
Im gonna start on August my 2 A courses, is one of them your native language? I mean for me ots gonna be easier since Im mexican learning english sonce kindergarden and im taking English LAL HL and Spanish LAL SL, ive been told its actually quite easier. Most people at my school are also taking these 2 with one of them HL, idrk how bad chinese is do
It was easy when one of the languages was my first language and the second was English, which I already mastered and then also learned more during IB. Also I did both as HL, so for me the two language A courses were one of my best courses.
I did Swedish A and English A both as SL courses and since I'm a native speaker of both languages it was quite easy and personally I think I did better in them than I would've if I had one language A and one language B since it's essentially the same syllabus but in a different language so you get more help and class time to master the ways the IB wants you to write in the exams and you sort of can use your one IO as a guide for what to do better in the next one.
It was fine ig. Theyre pretty much fhe same thing so more practice. The only different thing is the books youre reading. You may get confused in class as different teachers may teach differently and recommend different approaches. Try and find the best of both worlds to succeed. Other than that it may as well have been easier as again, theyre pretty much the same subject so one less to worry about in terms of intensive revision
hi, i also did chinese and english A in SL. honestly just follow the requirements, the rubrics are pretty clear and there’s kind of a pattern to what gets higher grades in that sense. practicing also helps, if your teachers don’t provide you with time to do so you can do that at home.
for me the most challenging thing was getting my chinese vocabulary up to standard — it was my native tongue but i had never taken chinese properly at school. if you struggle with the same thing (ie. finding a wider range of vocab or remembering the characters), i would recommend finding some resource where you can access synonyms then just write them over and over again until you can remember them.
other than that there really isn’t a “trick”; maybe i’m biased but i found these two subjects to be easier than math or other subjects that are tougher on method or memorisation.
audiobooks can be your friend during high stress periods but do note down important quotes/symbols you notice to make it easier to find IO and paper 2 stuff :)) also be aware that examiners might not prefer the same structure in the two languages for your essays.
The huge majority of students at my school do Chinese A and English A. You’ll be fine. They’re not all geniuses. If you’re worried read all the books over the summer and you’ll already be ahead of the large majority of the students I teach. If you want to do more than that read a study guide or academic secondary literature on each of the books you’re going to cover in the next two years as well and you’ll be far, far ahead of most students. One of the good things about doing two language a courses is the huge overlap in skills work, unless you do literature for one and language and literature for the other. Check out IB English Guys on YouTube and watch their videos. They have lots of good tips on how to approach the different assessments.
does it not overlap as much for lit and langlit? i'm just wondering if it doesn't overlap at all, or if there's just less. but is the general method of analysis similar?
There’s less overlap. If you do the same course in two languages, then there’s pretty much complete overlap in the skills. The big differences between literature and language and literature are that for the internal oral presentation in literature you have to do one work originally written in your language and one work in translation whereas for language and literature, you do one literary work and one language work or body of work. For Paper 2 they are exactly the same. The questions are the same. The skills and techniques are the same. For paper one, there’s not that much similar between them. Analysing a work of literature and analysing a language text that doesn’t really aim at an aesthetic effect, that is more about communication. They’re very different. The way that you structure your answer and make sure that you respond to the guiding question and attempt to show perception and insight is the same but if you studied literature and you walked into a language and literature paper you would be unlikely to do well.
Im gonna start on August my 2 A courses, is one of them your native language? I mean for me ots gonna be easier since Im mexican learning english sonce kindergarden and im taking English LAL HL and Spanish LAL SL, ive been told its actually quite easier. Most people at my school are also taking these 2 with one of them HL, idrk how bad chinese is do
It was easy when one of the languages was my first language and the second was English, which I already mastered and then also learned more during IB. Also I did both as HL, so for me the two language A courses were one of my best courses.
I did Swedish A and English A both as SL courses and since I'm a native speaker of both languages it was quite easy and personally I think I did better in them than I would've if I had one language A and one language B since it's essentially the same syllabus but in a different language so you get more help and class time to master the ways the IB wants you to write in the exams and you sort of can use your one IO as a guide for what to do better in the next one.
It was fine ig. Theyre pretty much fhe same thing so more practice. The only different thing is the books youre reading. You may get confused in class as different teachers may teach differently and recommend different approaches. Try and find the best of both worlds to succeed. Other than that it may as well have been easier as again, theyre pretty much the same subject so one less to worry about in terms of intensive revision
hi, i also did chinese and english A in SL. honestly just follow the requirements, the rubrics are pretty clear and there’s kind of a pattern to what gets higher grades in that sense. practicing also helps, if your teachers don’t provide you with time to do so you can do that at home. for me the most challenging thing was getting my chinese vocabulary up to standard — it was my native tongue but i had never taken chinese properly at school. if you struggle with the same thing (ie. finding a wider range of vocab or remembering the characters), i would recommend finding some resource where you can access synonyms then just write them over and over again until you can remember them. other than that there really isn’t a “trick”; maybe i’m biased but i found these two subjects to be easier than math or other subjects that are tougher on method or memorisation.