Switching languages after first year?

[Anne Hindenberg]

Hey guys! i wanted to German in my school, but they didn't over it, and now they do offer it. My problem is i ended up just doing spanish, and its almost the end of the first year for me, but i was wondering if i would still be able to switch as i would find it much easier to do german as i can fluently speak it.

What do you guys think??

[Sceptyczka]

First of all, what kind of German do you want to switch to? Is it German Literature, German Language&Literature or German B? SL or HL? It's hard to answer your question without knowing that. I will assume that you're talking about Languages B as changing your Group 1 subject at the end of the first year in IB is quite unlikely.

 

If you are fluent in German then I don't see why you wouldn't consider switching to it. Languages B (assuming that these are the ones we are talking about) are quite easy. However, it seems like you want to do a two year long course in one year and sit the exam in November 2015? Is it even allowed at your school? If yes, I'm quite surprised because I have faced a similar situation in my school and we weren't allowed to do so. While I was in pre-IB some people from my class wanted to do Economics but it wasn't offered. It came to life when I was finishing my first year of IB (I will be entering Senior Year in September) but my class still isn't allowed to do Economics as then we would have only a year to complete a two year long course. It's only available for younger students.

 

So it's up to you but you would have to be really confident about your language skills to take the risk of completing a two year long course in one year and losing all the time you took on studying Spanish. Unless you are sure that switching to German will help you increase your overall result (what is quite unlikely considering that you will only have a year to prepare for exams), I recommend you to keep Spanish lessons. Only if you get bad grades in Spanish it may be useful to switch. Otherwise, it's certainly better to stay with the subjects you have chosen at the beginning of the IB instead of changing them after a year. Unfortunately, choosing the "right" subjects is very intuitive.  Just keep in mind that at the end of the day it's your overall IB score that matters (as well as meeting your future college's requirements) and choose your subjects accordingly.

 

I guess my reply wasn't very helpful. However, I hope I made it a bit easier for you to decide whether it's actually worth it to switch German after one year of IB. Ultimately, it's only your decision.

 

Good luck with your choices.

Edited August 24, 2014 by Sceptyczka

[Sandwich]

Technically if you're genuinely fluent, you shouldn't be allowed to do German as a Language B so perhaps your school won't let you depending on how strictly they follow the rules. However it would definitely be possible (and by the sounds of it, an easy 7) to switch next year. It's basically just command of the language and if you've already got there, go for it. The only problems would be within your school - like whether they can meet X hours of teaching, whether they'll let you switch and whether they'll let you take a fluent language at B level.