New GCE English Language and Literature B – Launch video
Transcript
As the UK's leading exam board, we have responded to the revised QCA criteria by designing a specification that seeks to preserve as much as possible from the current specification but provides some exciting new opportunities for students to respond creatively to the texts that they will study.
There have been some important changes to the subject criteria. We're pleased that there are fewer, simplified, Assessment Objectives. We're pleased, too, that students can now compare texts in each of the new units. We also believe that the requirement to use un-annotated texts will help preserve the freshness of a student's response.
The new specification gives students the chance to write creatively in three of the four units and we think this will be engaging for students and interesting for teachers.
Much will be familiar to those who teach the current specification. Teachers will instantly recognise the new unit 1 which has, as its text for study, a short anthology of themed texts. In this unit there is the same requirement for students to look closely at the language, form and structure of a text but there's only one question for candidates to answer rather than two. Students can compare texts, which they can choose from anywhere in the anthology. We've yet to decide the title of the new anthology – why don't you tell us what you think the theme and content of the new anthology should be!
The new Unit 2 is a coursework module and its title reflects the emphasis on the genre of prose fiction that forms the basis of study in the unit. The pairs of texts we have chosen include some that students have enjoyed exploring in the previous specification, together with some new ones which we feel they will also enjoy and which will provide a suitable challenge.
The coursework assignment is in two parts. Firstly students write a response for each pair of texts on a theme chosen by AQA, but using complementary extracts that they have skilfully chosen themselves.
It's in the second part of the assignment that candidates will be required to respond creatively and we expect to be excited by what many of the students will choose to do here.
In unit 3 students study talk in life and literature - the study of how a writer produces dramatic effects in his works and the study of spoken exchanges in everyday life.
There's very little change to question 1 which asks how dramatic effects are created by writers through their use of language although candidates will only be required to respond to one, not two extracts from the play, as previously.
We've introduced a new element to question two and here students have the opportunity to respond creatively.
The second part of the question gives students the chance to reflect on the choices they made and to demonstrate further their knowledge of spoken language and of genre conventions.
Students have always engaged well with the concept of text transformation and some of the most interesting student work has been stimulated by the current text transformation unit. So we are delighted to include it in the new specification, having made a few changes along the way. Students are required to transform two texts chosen from a prescribed list of authors but we're sure students will find plenty to inspire them from the huge range of texts on offer.
We hope too that teachers will be inspired by our new specification in Language and Literature B which we believe will be enjoyable to teach and for your students to study.