A Level English Language Tutoring, for Every Board

Specifications are revised periodically. Each block links to the specification it was read from and gives the date it was checked; if your school has moved to a newer specification, that document takes precedence.

• Reciting theorists instead of reading the data

  In questions on child language and language change, students reach for named theories and write down what each theorist said. The marks sit in the data: what this child’s utterances actually show, which feature supports or challenges a theory, and what the context of the recording explains. A theory mentioned without evidence from the transcript or text is description, not evaluation.

• Reading a transcript as faulty writing

  Spoken data has its own conventions — overlaps, pauses, false starts, back-channelling, non-standard forms — and students who read a transcript as if it were badly written prose misjudge it. Calling ordinary features of speech “errors”, or ignoring who holds the floor and why, loses analysis marks. Read speech as speech: purpose, power and the relationship between speakers come first.

• Writing that ignores the brief

  Every board assesses writing shaped to a form, audience and purpose: directed writing at AQA, original writing on a language issue at OCR, directed response and shorter writing with a reflective commentary at Cambridge International, and a text in a set genre built from unseen sources in Pearson Edexcel’s Crafting Language unit. Marks go when a generic essay voice replaces the article, speech or blog post the task called for.