The Bishop’s Stortford High School
AS English
Language
Language
Survival Guide
Edited by: Scarlett Stock. Written by: Scarlett Stock. Front cover by: Ben Fuller.
Year 12 Subject survival guide
Subject: English Language
Advice on:
1) General/classwork tips
 Write down all new words that you hear and either ask for their definition or look
them up yourself. Highlight these words and make a list as you go along because
terminology is the key to success in English Language.
 Buy the two English Language text books and go through all of the terminology in
the back- write yourself a list and then learn them from the beginning because that’s
how you get the best grades. Make sure you get the spelling right though.
2) Homework tips
 In the beginning don’t worry about timing, just work on getting the right things in
there. After you know what is the right stuff to put in- then work on timing.
 Don’t overlook the simple things. Commenting on the fact that standard English is
used is simple, but can easily be related to the context of the audience, who it’s
issued by, and where the text is from.
 Don’t always type essays. Write them out as often as you can so you can practice
writing faster and don’t have spell check (because some of the terminology is a bit
tricky and you want to make sure you get it right in the exam).
 If you don’t have any homework just try taking a random text- that could be an
advert or anything and just analyse it, look at all of the features and see what you
can get from it (in terms of the context). This will get you more ready for the exam
since any text could come up.
3) Exam tips – ways to get the best grades
 For the groupings:
 Timing! Make sure you have time for three groupings or you won’t be able to get a
very good grade. Spend 10/15 minutes reading and annotating the sources, and
making a list of which groupings you can do. Then spend 15 minutes on each
grouping (20 minutes maximum on the grouping of three texts if you only spent 10
minutes reading the sources). Make sure you finish on the hour or your next essay
will suffer.
 Try to come up with imaginative groupings; one about audience, one for purpose,
and one linguistic technique- but don’t try to be too ambitious unless you know you
can do it well. Stay with a safe one if you know you’ll do it really well.
 Take highlighters into the exam and maybe get into the habit of a colour coding
system. This will help you to organise your thoughts when quickly deciding which
texts to group.
Edited by: Scarlett Stock. Written by: Scarlett Stock. Front cover by: Ben Fuller.
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Practise grouping the texts quickly because you don’t want to spend too long on it
because it’ll be detrimental to your essays.
Terminology is the key. Make sure you put as much English Language jargon in as
you possibly can- use lexis instead of words, use discourse structure instead of
layout. Simple things that will get you marks.
Comparing the texts; make sure you say what they do that’s similar, and what they
do that’s different- but say WHY- see next point.
A03 CONTEXT! This is the most crucial thing in English Language- the WHY. Why
does this text use bold font instead of comic sans? (Relate this to the key thingsaudience, purpose, form- all of the factors that affect why a text is the way it is- and
that’s what you’ve got to explain).
For the coursework: Monologue
Take all of your drafts seriously because this counts for a lot of your final AS grade.
For the monologue- do something you’re comfortable with. If it’s something you
can’t relate to or dig your teeth into you’ll find it hard to be creative about it and
make it believable for the reader.
If you don’t think it’s working keep trying, but if it isn’t working at all, try something
else that suits you.
Do your research. Including specialist references to that type of person will make it
more believable.
Watch the word limits.
Coursework- Polemic:
Choose something you can rant about.
Try to use a good vocabulary of words.
Structure it systematically.
The opening and ending are crucial- it needs to stick in the reader’s mind.
Focus on your target audience and what they would want to read.
Write in a style that suits you; whether that’s funny or sarcastic.
Have fun with it.
For the Language and technology/power/gender exam:
Remember that gender doesn’t just mean women. Be prepared for a text that’s just
about men.
Know all of your theorists really well and all of the components of their theories.
Context (A03)- why something is like it is because of the person or audience etc- is
the most important thing- then link this to theorists, or if it challenges them.
Know your terminology.
Practice with lots of different types of texts.
Edited by: Scarlett Stock. Written by: Scarlett Stock. Front cover by: Ben Fuller.