Top Tips on preparing for your IB English Language & Literature Individual Oral Commentary
When preparing for your IB English A Language & Literature assessments, it’s important to be clear on what is required for you to be successful in achieving the marks you want. With a number of different components, it is easy to get a bit muddled on what you are supposed to do and even more challenging to develop a solid plan on how to do it. The information below, extracted from our English A: Language and Literature Standard and Higher Level study guide written by Fiona Swanson, will help you better understand how to successfully prepare for and complete your Individual Oral Commentary (IOC). An updated version of this guide is due for release in 2021, so be sure to sign-up for our newsletter below to be notified of its availability.
What is the Individual Oral Commentary?
In the IOC, you are being assessed for your close study of literary texts. The close focus is on looking at the detail of how a short extract of text is written, rather than looking more broadly at the whole work. This is called a commentary, and it is your competence in this aspect of reading literary texts that you will reflect in your IOC.
There are three main areas to think about:
You have to read your literary works in detail, so you can show your understanding of how writers convey their meaning, explicitly and implicitly; that is, what they choose not to say openly, but imply through the omission, as well as what they do say directly. In other words, the meaning does not have to be explained directly. You also have to be able to explain where in the whole work your extract comes from.
You have to show your understanding of themes and how they indicate and illustrate such things as the writer’s moral or ethical position in the work. You can show this by using evidence from the text that illustrates the writer’s position, and by considering as well how point of view can be conveyed differently in different genres.
You have to make clear your understanding of a relevant critical vocabulary. You will do this by using the terminology appropriate to your analysis, showing that you recognise and apply it accurately. You will reflect this in, for instance, your discussion of characterisation; vocabulary; sentence structure and grammar; use of imagery; and other critical aspects of the work or extract.
For the IOC, you have to attend to the minute detail of how the use of language in a text creates its meaning; and of what effect the choice of language and stylistic features has. You do this in relation to the close study of your two or three (standard or higher) works.
How can I prepare for my IOC?
The steps to being prepared are basic:
Know your works really well. One reading is not enough – you need to read exam texts several times and be thoroughly familiar with them.
Make sure you have learned the critical vocabulary you need to discuss the extract in detail. You will have been keeping a list of terms as you have come across them during the course, with illustrating examples from your own texts – this will prove invaluable.
Practice by choosing samples from your works and analysing them. One useful exercise for this type of assessment is to identify key moments in a work; think about critical episodes in the narrative, or moments of revelation about a character, or turning points in the development of a tragedy, places where the them is particularly clearly addressed, passages where the use of language is most noticeable. Find them in the work, and count forty lines around them – very often such moments fit into forty or so lines of text – they wouldn’t be key moments if they last for many pages. These passages will provide you with excellent practice material. You should go through them very carefully, linking them to the whole text, identifying stylistic features and so on.
Familiarise yourself with the assessment criteria.
Check that you understand the learning outcomes.
Things to remember during the IOC assessment
In your twenty minutes preparation time, you will have to go through your extract identifying everything that needs comment, and indicating what that is. The list below suggests a way of approaching the preparation time. It does this by including questions you should/could ask yourself as well as giving some “Dos and Don’ts”. The list is not exhaustive and you should add to it your own ideas and techniques you have learned throughout your IB diploma.
Annotating the extract
Go through it carefully – write all over it. This is the best way to ensure that your commentary is specific and detailed.
Underline or highlight words or phrases.
Identify all the stylistic, grammatical, poetic, literary, dramatic features you can find. Think about form if it is drama or especially if it is a poem. Identify characteristics of its genre.
Jot down links between the extract and the whole – does it exemplify particular use of stylistic features? Does it illustrate the theme particularly well? Is its place in the narrative especially significant? When you have done this, you will be able to see which comments go together to make your answer coherent.
Avoid going through the extract line by line in your presentation. You will go through it line by line as you prepare, but only so that you collect all the points you need to deliver a coherent presentation.
While you don’t have to consider the guiding questions one after the other, you do have to make sure that your answer addresses them, and it is sensible to think of referring your commentary to them in your conclusion. Show that you recognise the need to talk about language as well as theme.
In your planning, even in the introduction, do not summarise the narrative or retell the story; be aware of this particularly if your extract is from a play, novel or short story.
Make sure you have an introductory sentence, possibly identifying the work and contextualising the extract in the whole if it comes from a longer work. If it is a poem, you could give an overview of the main theme. Keep the introduction short and very clear.
A few more top tips
Only refer to the whole work if it is necessary for your commentary on the forty lines you have been given.
Your task is to comment on what is said in your extract, and how it is said. That is, on content and language. The guiding questions will reflect this.
Don’t give a potted biography of the author, or list other works. This is sometimes a feature of introductions – it is unnecessary. Doing this loses marks because it is irrelevant and unfocused.
Quote from the extract in your presentation; doing so will ensure that you stay focused.
Make sure you have a clear introductory sentence, and a clear concluding sentence. With these, even if the main body of your presentation isn’t entirely well organised, you will gain marks in criterion C because you are thinking about structure.
Continue your IB English A Language & Literature revision
The above article provides some strategies and tips for successfully completing your IB English A Language and Literature IOC. Bookmark this page so you can refer back to the advice throughout your preparation process. You undoubtedly will have your own techniques and methods, which will hopefully combine nicely with the guidance shared here. Use all of the tools you have to help you develop your strategy and successfully complete your IOC. Visit our Language A resource page for more IB English A: Language & Literature articles and advice.