Mini-Individual Oral Practice Texts - Round 3
Thursday 27 June 2024
We sometimes get questions about mock Individual Orals, practicing the Individual Oral in class, and questions surrounding what is allowed and what isn’t allowed in relation to the Individual Oral.
What the IB Says:
In their Frequently Asked Questions publication (updated May 2023), they state this: “Practising the individual oral with works or works and bodies of work that will be available for the final oral increases the possibility that part of that practice may actually end up being tantamount to a rehearsal” (page 8).
They go on to state three recommendations for how to conduct a “practice” Individual Oral. They include:
- use, for the practice individual oral, texts studied in the years previous to their first DP year.
- let students choose for their practice individual oral a work and a body of work that have not been, and will not be, studied in class, and that they may have read or come across outside class.
- wherever possible, and if time allows, introduce and teach two mini-works (for example, a mini-work consisting of two or three poems, or two or three short stories) and a mini body of work (two or three advertisements or two or three opinion columns) specifically for the purpose of individual oral practice, and not eligible for the real individual oral (page 8).
This week, we are publishing two new pages on the site - found here and here - that are a modification of the third recommendation. There is no “mini-work” or “mini-body of work” as there are just two extracts to use. It is absolutely true that students who follow this process will not get the practice in analyzing the wider work and wider body of work. If that concerns you, pick one of the other recommendations given by the IB, if you want.
But this option and process we are publishing does allow students to feel the time constraints, understand the assessment criteria better, and just practice doing this type of oral work without it being a full and complete IO. In other words, it gives students a feel for the assessment without running afoul of the rules.
If you don’t like these sets of texts, you can find other “Mini-Individual Oral” texts here, here, here, and here.
Best,
Tim and David