A Level English Language

Develop your independence, creativity and maturity with one of our English courses.

Do you ever wonder why people use language in so many different ways? Do you enjoy expressing your opinions on spoken and written language? If so, you will find this course particularly fascinating. You will also develop valuable tools for investigating how language actually works.

About the Course

As part of the new A level you will analyse a range of written texts, explore electronic communication and study many different kinds of spoken texts. To underpin all this, you will learn the terminology and grammar to enable you to understand how language works. You will also discover how children learn to speak during the initial years of life and how language represents different social groups.

You will learn mostly by investigation, group work and discussion. Some of the most interesting classes will be when students bring in their own samples of language for analysis. Your work will be supported by a rich set of intranet resources including a wonderful set of speech recordings from across the country.

Opportunities unique to this course

We invite experts in Language and Linguistics from Cambridge and other universities to inspire students. We put on talks from ex-students on studying Linguistics at university. We conduct field research into regional accents and dialects. You will have a unique opportunity to conduct your own independent research project. English Language students can enter department creative writing competitions.

Theme 5: Original Writing - creative writing in a genre of your choice.
Theme 6: Language Investigation Project - investigate a language issue of your choice.

Examinations at the end of Year 13

Consists of two written exams and one non-exam assessment

Paper 1

Language, the Individual and Society (2hr 30mins, 40%)

• Textual variations and representations.
• Children's language development.

Paper 2

Language Diversity and Change (2hr 30mins, 40%)

• Language diversity and change
• Language discourse

Non-examined assessment

Language in Action (20%)

• Language Investigation.
• Original writing.
• Methods of language analysis are integrated into the activities.

You need to be qualified by both the relevant Admissions Score AND the predicted GCSE grade for each A level you apply for.

Please go to the College website to find the most up-to-date entry requirements for each A level that we offer: https://www.hillsroad.ac.uk/study-with-us/a-level-subjects

You can also visit www.hillsroad.ac.uk/apply to find out more about making your application.

Language is an excellent foundation for a variety of career paths. Specialisms can include journalism, law and publishing, whereas some ex-students have gone on to become teachers, speech therapists and lexicographers. Forensic linguistics is an exciting emerging field.

For more information and to read the FAQs for this subject visit www.hillsroad.ac.uk/english-language