hi! you are doing very similar a-levels to what i intend on taking (english language, german and latin), and i was just wondering if you could talk about the subjects individually and how they fit together as a combination? thanks
hi there anon! first off - I might be biased, but those are some great subjects you’ve chosen ;) my experience may vary from yours, depending on which boards you’ve chosen and how the syllabus changes slightly from year to year, but I should think most of the content will be pretty similar.
I find that the combination of eng lang, an mfl and an ancient language overlaps surprisingly often, especially in the english unit covering language change because latin has such a strong influence over english as well as other european languages like french, spanish, and, of course, german. it’s not that you’ll be studying the same things in each - the three subjects require different skillsets, which i’ll discuss in a minute - but you’ll definitely notice links between them. a great example is latin - because i’d studied grammar in such an in-depth manner for several years, when we covered complex grammar ideas in english and french it was so much easier to comprehend because the terminology was almost identical (minus gender and noun declension/case for english ofc). and the great thing is, you’ll be able to quote relevant examples (part of Assessment Objective 1) of latin and german in your english essays for the language change unit (if you’re studying AQA like me).
english language is probably my most enjoyable subject at the moment, and has been pretty consistently throughout the rest of my a-level course. obviously there isn’t much memorisation of texts involved because the literature element is gone, but you’re expected to learn further linguistic terminology (again, AO1) and theories of relevant linguists (AO2) for each exam. each student in my class has found something different about the course to be their favourite - for me, it was learning how children learn to talk and write, but for my friend, who disliked the “scientific” element behind that unit, studying how language can be used to represent people and ideas was much more interesting. you also get a chance to produce two pieces of coursework, one of which I’ve completed. the first is a piece of creative writing designed to inform, entertain, or persuade - or combinations of those, if suitable. this can include anything from an editorial article to a short story, though at our school were were advised away from writing poetry or anything that wouldn’t exhibit the range of our skills. alongside this is a 750 word commentary to describe your thought process behind the piece and comparing it to a “style model” (an example of a text in a similar genre for you to draw upon similarities and differences between the two).the second piece of coursework is a “language investigation” in which you choose your own hypothesis (on any area of language that interests you, not just the a-level topics!) and conduct research based on this. I obviously haven’t done this yet but if you want to know how it went check back with me in a couple of months.
latin is a lot of memorisation. a lot. memorising english translations of literature texts, memorising vocabulary, grammar, and how to put those together to both decipher complex texts and to translate from english into latin (known as prose composition). i’m studying OCR’s course which involved studying extracts from the following literature texts:
love elegies from propertius, tibullus and ovid
my teachers took different approaches to teaching me this - two took me through each passage and we translated together, and one gave me a translation to begin with and we compared it with the original latin. i’d recommend the first method because it means you have to think much harder about the text. i’d advise you not to worry about making stupid mistakes - it’s what your teacher is there for and any guess is better than no guess at all. read up on the kind of literature devices roman orators, historians and poets would have used, because they tend to differ from english due to the structure of the language. a good resource for this is The Latin Library, or if you can find your text specifically, classics tuition could also be helpful (especially if you ever decide to take up greek like i did).
as far as language goes, make sure you solidify your grammar knowledge (if you can do so before the september term, even better). you’re going to have hundreds of ablative absolutes and indirect statements thrown at you in your first term, and it helps to be able to spot them with relative ease. also, vocab learning is so important. please learn your vocab. use quizlet. cover and write. anything that helps. you’ll kick yourself if you don’t do it.
with regards to german, i don’t have experience in that area specifically, but as an mfl student i’d say a lot of my course has required me to be very independent in research. the german, french and spanish courses at my school are all similarly structured as they expect you to study a wide array of artistic culture and social issues, as well as media like literature and film. for the speaking exam, being able to provide a range of examples from german speaking culture when answering questions should definitely score you points (for example, in french we may be asked about music, so we might talk about french speaking musicians that we listen to). vocabulary and grammar are, again, very important. if you’d like more about german specifically, my friend @jasperstudies is an excellent source!
lastly, for general advice:
plan your time. you have less of it than you think (sorry, that sounds ominous, but it’s true)
if you have frees, get your work done in them! they aren’t for napping, sadly
scrutinise the syllabus for each subject. pull it apart by the sentence if you have to. the better you know the inside of the examiner’s head, the better your chance of scoring well.
stay organised! nothing is worse than trying to find a piece of work only to have lost it or left it at home. write down all your homework the moment you get it, and file all your work in its appropriate folder.
you will use more lever arch files than you think. buy two for each subject, and one to bring to and from school. it’ll save you time and stress, i promise
you will use so. much. paper. this is following on from the organisation thing, really. i’d recommend minimising what paper you do use as much as possible using microsoft onenote. it’s basically a big digital folder, but it’s soooo helpful to be able to find exactly what you need, any time, anywhere on multiple devices. the best part is you never have to worry about losing your work if your device crashes, because everything is backed up to the cloud (that mystical legend).
set yourself days to review what you’ve learned so far. you never know when your teacher might spring a test on you.
best of luck, anon. let me know how you settle into sixth form, and if you ever need help with your subjects, give me a buzz, yeah?
