Feedback concerning the November 2021 exams has raised a couple of interesting issues, specifically about the English B HL Paper 1, but with more general application.

The first concerns the area of text types: what are we actually doing when we teach and assess the handling of the required text types? In the HL Paper 1, the text type ‘Social media posting’ appeared in two tasks, once as the ‘appropriate’ option and once as ‘generally appropriate’. Feedback comments from teachers expressed concern that they did not really know what was required as good handling of a social media posting, nor the exact reasons for considering it ‘appropriate’. Examiners commented that there was something unreal in expecting a social media posting to run to 400-650 words, when real postings rarely reach 100; and also that most responses ended up reading like a blog or a speech, even if they were apparently supposed to be some sort of ‘posting’.

So what can be done to clarify the expectations for this text type? In my view, it is always helpful to consider what thinking skill is required for each text type. In the page Specific text type skills , I offer a list of such skills for each text type, and here is what I suggest for the Social media posting:

Social media posting / online forums

express opinions concisely yet clearly

respond succinctly to other points of views

use colloquial language - but use it clearly

The key element here is ‘concisely’: the ability to use language to be short, sharp and clear. I would stand by this, as a significant linguistic skill – but how does that square with the exam rule about 400-650 words? The same doubt would apply to emails, since how many emails in the real world run to more than 400 words, formally organised? Also, what about the skill of ‘responding to other points of view’? Social media postings almost always form part of a dialogue, arguing ideas back and forth – but the IB’s label is ‘Social media posting’ (i.e. singular), which appears to rule out a string of related postings, which is what one sees in normal social media threads.

I have no clear answer to these doubts. One response is to consider that all exams are artificial, and so one simply instructs students to play the game by the required rules (e.g. ‘write 400 + words’), whether or not these are ‘real’. Slightly cynical, yes, but true, I submit. However, that clashes with the IB’s rationale for choosing the text types – that they are real text types which students should learn how to handle correctly. My only suggestion would be that the English B paper-setters should not include ‘Social media posting’ until the expectations for the text type have been made clear.

(See the page  Social media posting / online forums  for a fuller discussion of all of these issues ... and also the follow-up page  Social media sample  which provides an example of actual thread of postings, analysed)

The second issue that emerged relates to the Themes. There were a number of comments from teachers along the lines of ‘my students have studied aspects of the Themes in depth, but had no opportunity to display their knowledge in this exam’. This view seems to me to misunderstand the function of the Themes in the English B programme. The Themes should be seen as means, not ends. In other words, the Themes are what students should be discussing so as to learn how to use the language skilfully. The distinction between ‘what’ and ‘how’ is vital – the fundamental purpose of the Language B programme is to develop students’ ability to handle the language in as skilful and effective a way as possible, and such language skills can be developed through talking about many different subject areas. Indeed, one vital ingredient of language competence is precisely that the language skills are transferable: they can be applied to whatever subject or context comes up.

Accordingly, the assessment of Language B is focused on the ‘how’ and not the ‘what’ – not on what they know about, say, social class in Britain, but on how effectively they can use their language resources to express whatever knowledge they have available. In addition, there is the evident practical problem of setting papers: if teachers have the freedom to choose whatever they like within the very broad Themes, how could a single exam paper respond to that colossal range of possible subjects? It is certainly true that the Subject Guide’s description of Paper 1 states “Each task is based on a different theme from the syllabus” (p.36)… but I can only see this is a pious fiction. It is vague to the point of being meaningless – what does ‘based on’ actually mean?... and given that the Themes are so vast, you could write practically any task, and claim that it at least refers to ‘Experiences’ and/or ‘Human ingenuity’ and/or ‘Sharing the planet’.

In short, the Themes are there to support teaching in the classroom: so that students should be engaged in discussing real and important ideas, and thus expand and develop their language skills. These language skills are what the students then take to the exam room – the ability to discuss and express, and what they have discussed and expressed in class may at best be of use as background knowledge. It may be that students have gained some real and useful knowledge in the classroom discussions (indeed, one hopes so), but that knowledge is definitely not the point or purpose of the assessment, in any of the components.