English lang/Lit HL & French Lit HL

[Guest Sagefemme]

I am starting the IB program this Sept. have heard French and English at HL is tough?

[Sandwich]

Both of them are mostly a question of technique. If you've ever excelled in a literature course before then they're actually very easy subjects because they require a minimum of work. However, if you've not got the hang of literary analysis (and many people never do) and you don't have good essay writing skills, then it can be hard to score highly. Essentially, they are subjects where people who have the technique will find them a doss and people who don't have the technique will either have to acquire it or just not do that well. A lot of people struggle to get the technique because their teacher doesn't demonstrate it to them properly. Nobody ever actively teaches you, but there are ways of the teacher analysing things in lessons such that you pick up on what they're picking up on and can get the hang of it by osmosis - maybe ask people in years above you to see how well they're taught. There's not much memorisation and so relative to other HLs both are a lot less work, just read a load of books (which is easy to do, paced over 2 years and in lessons...) et voila, you're sorted.

So really it depends on how good you are at both as to whether you're going to find them really chilled out and easy or whether you're going to find them hard - and if you do find them hard, it won't be in terms of work but more in writing essays but having no idea how the hell to get your mark any higher (i.e. not having the technique correct). Don't know if that explains it very well, but that's how it is in my opinion. You either get it or you don't, and for people who don't then not that many people actually seem to learn over the course of the 2 years.

[foodismylove]

If you're not doing anything that requires hardcore english such as journalism, I think you should take english language and literature instead. It is far more enjoyable and most students do much better in this subject than english literature. I made the mistake of taking english lit HL, english was one of my strongest subjects and one of my greatest fields of interest but think course just made me realise how hard it really is and almost impossible to get 7's (this is true for every single person in my class).

Language subjects really depend on how much you know initially. Although your learning skills are also important personally I think that not knowing the language well is a disadvantage because many people take language courses that they already know to some extent. Of course you can still do well if you concentrate on your studies and work hard but it is still a demanding subject especially at a higher level. I switched from french SL to danish SL ( i live in denmark) because my other subjects were demanding and I had less time to spend on french. The only boy (who is half french and knows french well) who took HL dropped to SL french soo it is a hard subject.

This is not to scare you but I do wish I could go back and change some of my subject choices so I just want you to be aware that if you do take these subjects you will probably have to work hard. It also depends on your academic ability some people are born to be math geniuses and don't have study too much but it's different with a language courses because it's a longer learning process and you only have 2 years in the IB.