The Language and Literature (English A) course in the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Programme is a unique blend of literary study and language analysis. Designed for students who are proficient in English, it goes beyond traditional language classes to explore how language shapes ideas, identities, and cultures. This course equips learners with analytical, interpretive, and communicative skills that are essential for academic success and global understanding.
The Diploma Programme (DP) is a rigorous pre-university course of study designed for students in the 16 to 19 age range. It is a broad-based two-year course that aims to encourage students to be knowledgeable and inquiring, but also caring and compassionate. There is a strong emphasis on encouraging students to develop intercultural understanding, open-mindedness, and the attitudes necessary for them to respect and evaluate a range of points of view.
The course is presented as six academic areas enclosing a central core. Students study two E modern languages (or a modern language and a classical language), a humanities or social science subject, an experimental science, mathematics and one of the creative arts. Instead of an arts subject, students can choose two subjects from another area. It is this comprehensive range of subjects that makes the Diploma Programme a demanding course of study designed to prepare students effectively for university entrance. In each of the academic areas students have flexibility in making their choices, which means they can choose subjects that particularly interest them and that they may wish to study further at university.
Normally, three subjects (and not more than four) are taken at higher level (HL), and the others are taken at standard level (SL). The IB recommends 240 teaching hours for HL subjects and 150 hours for SL. Subjects at HL are studied in greater depth and breadth than at SL.
In addition, three core elements—the extended essay, theory of knowledge and creativity, activity, service—are compulsory and central to the philosophy of the programme.
This IB DP subject brief has three key components:
I. Course description and aims II. Curriculum model overview III. Assessment model
I. Course description and aims
The language A: language and literature course aims at studying the complex and dynamic nature of language and exploring both its practical and aesthetic dimensions. The course will explore the crucial role language plays in communication, reflecting experience and shaping the world, and the roles of individuals themselves as producers of language. Throughout the course, students will explore the various ways in which language choices, text types, literary forms and contextual elements all effect meaning.
Through close analysis of various text types and literary forms, students will consider their own interpretations, as well as the critical perspectives of others, to explore how such positions are shaped by cultural belief systems and to negotiate meanings for texts.
The aims of studies in language and literature courses are to enable students to:
- engage with a range of texts, in a variety of media and forms, from different periods, styles and cultures
- develop skills in listening, speaking, reading, writing, viewing, presenting and performing
- develop skills in interpretation, analysis and evaluation
- develop sensitivity to the formal and aesthetic qualities of texts and an appreciation of how they contribute to diverse responses and open up multiple meanings
- develop an understanding of relationships between texts and a variety of perspectives, cultural contexts, and local and global issues, and an appreciation of how they contribute to diverse responses and open up multiple meanings
- develop an understanding of the relationships between studies in language and literature and other disciplines
- communicate and collaborate in a confident and creative way
- foster a lifelong interest in and enjoyment of language and literature.
II. Curriculum model overview
III. Assessment model
It is the intention of this course that students are able to fulfill the following assessment objectives:
1. Know, understand and interpret:
- a range of texts, works and/or performances, and their meanings and implications
- contexts in which texts are written and/or received
- elements of literary, stylistic, rhetorical, visual and/or performance craft
- features of particular text types and literary forms.
2. Analyse and evaluate:
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- ways in which the use of language creates meaning
- uses and effects of literary, stylistic, rhetorical, visual or theatrical techniques
- relationships among different texts
- ways in which texts may offer perspectives on human concerns.
3. Communicate:
- ideas in clear, logical and persuasive ways
- in a range of styles, registers and for a variety of purposes and situations
- (for literature and performance only) ideas, emotion, character and atmosphere through performance.
Assessment at a glance
