Prefixes
A prefix is a group of letters placed before the root of a word. For example, the
word “unhappy” consists of the prefix “un-” [which means “not”] combined with the
root (or stem) word “happy”; the word “unhappy” means “not happy.”
A short list of prefixes:
Suffix
A suffix is a group of letters placed after the root of a word. For example, the word
flavorless consists of the root word “flavor” combined with the suffix “-less” [which
means “without”]; the word “flavorless” means “having no flavor.”
A short list of suffixes:
Writing paper
For all you IB English B students out there: Yes, Paper 1 can be hard! Prior to May
2020, the writing paper tasks would give you the text type (e.g. write an
article/speech/review) you had to write. Hoyouver, after the 2020 changes to IB
Language B, students must now choose the text type they will use to respond to
their chosen writing task.
Consider this example:
•
Many languages are spoken by a small number of people, and some are in
danger of dying out. Write a text in which you explain to your peers how and
why minority languages should be maintained.
Speech
Blog
Diary
Context – What are the circumstances?
Any writing you produce is in reaction to the situation you find ourselves in.
According to the keywords – what happened? When you can answer your that
question, you know the situation, a.k.a. the context. For Paper 1, the description of
the context is included with each keyword:
Keywords
Many languages are spoken by a small number of people, and some are in
danger of dying out. Write a text in which you explain to your peers how and why
minority languages should be maintained.

Context
Some languages that are spoken by very few people could die out.
Think: What’s not been included in our context?
Audience – Who are you writing to?
If you refer back to our example, spotting our audience is easy. You see straight
away that you are writing to “our peers”, presumably from school. The important
thing is what you do with that information because it tells us so much more than
simply who you are writing to.
In fact, the audiences you find in Paper 1 can be categorised into the following:
1. Personal audiences
2. Mass audiences
3. Professional audiences
For each category of audience, our relationship with the audience and the language
you use are going to be different:
Personal audiences
Example
•
•
•
Friends
Family
Yourself
Relationship You know these
people youll.
Language
You write to these
people using
informal language
Mass audiences
•
•
The general public
A group united by
something specific
(gender, age,
shared interest,
geographical
location, school…)
You may or may not
know these people
youll.
Professional
audiences
• Your teacher
• A local
administrator
Someone from
the government
• A business
Either:
You don’t know
these people youll.
Or:
These are people of
authority.
You could write to these You write to these
people using formal or
people using formal
informal language (think language
about the context)
In the example, you know that you’re writing to our peers (from school). Based on
the info above, you can categorise this audience as a “mass audience”.
Then, you need it to decide what kind of text type you use to respond to this task.
Purpose – Why are you writing?
You can ansyour this question by looking at the verbs in our prompt:
…explain to your peers how and why minority languages should be maintained.
Of course, whenever you write something, it’s not just to explain something! You do
it for all sorts of reasons – to persuade, to enquire, to request, to complain, to
apologise… This absolutely influences your choice of text type – are you going to
use the language of a diary entry for a customer service enquiry? What about the
language of a business proposal for an apology to a family member? Either way, you
can expect to see many of these verbs and more when tackling Paper 1.
But even after you’ve found the basic purpose of why you’re writing, then what? Or,
for this example, explain what?
“…explain to your peers how and why minority languages should be maintained.”
Lastly – Putting it all together
Here’s what you have now:
Context
Some languages that are spoken by very few people could die out.
Audience
Mass audience - My peers from school
Purpose
Explain how and why minority languages should be maintained.
In the example, you are given the choice of writing a speech, blog, or diary. Let’s
now consider our context, audience, and purpose when evaluating each three of
these text types:
Diary
•
Audience: My diary is written for me! No way I would want the whole school
reading what I write in there.
• Purpose: I need to explain a perspective, but not to myself! I have to
explain it to other people.
Decision: Not okay
Blog
•
Audience: Sure! I could imagine people from school reading my blog. But
is everyone in my mass audience guaranteed to read it?
• Purpose: Sure! A blogpost can be used to explain a perspective.
• Context: For all I know, these languages could die out pretty fast. They
would then be lost forever. This makes the situation seem urgent and one
with high stakes. Is just writing a blog immediate enough?
Decision: okay, but could be better with other genre
Speech
• Audience: Great fit! Speeches are made for mass audiences.
• Purpose: Sure! A speech can be used to explain a perspective.
• Context: This solves one issue I had with writing a blog! Giving a speech is
more immediate than writing a blog and is better suited to a task that is
potentially urgent and that requires attention soon.
Perfect!
Try it out.
Now try to write a speech on the above topic.