IB Group 1 subjects

This article is part of a series on the International Baccalaureate

IB programmes: Primary Years Programme (PYP) Middle Years Programme (MYP) Diploma Programme (DP)

Institutions: International Baccalaureate (formerly IBO) United World Colleges

Lists: IB people

IBDP curriculum: Group 1: Language A1 Group 2: Second language Group 3: Individuals and societies Group 4: Experimental sciences Group 5: Mathematics and computer science Group 6: The arts Extended essay (EE) Theory of knowledge (TOK) Creativity, action, service (CAS)

The Group 1 subjects of the IB Diploma Programme refer to the student's "Language A1," which is the student's native language or otherwise best language, taken at either Standard Level (SL) or Higher Level (HL). The course focuses on developing oral and written communication skills and performing literary analysis of works of literature produced in that language. Students who take two languages A1, or one language A1 and one language A2, are eligible to be awarded a bilingual IB Diploma.

Languages available

More than 80 languages have been offered as a language A1, with 45 being readily available for examination at both SL and HL. A candidate whose language is not covered may petition for an examination, provided that the language in question has a sufficient amount of written literature and the request is made well in advance of the examination. Examinations given in the past include:

Afrikaans Albanian Amharic Arabic Belarusian Bengali Bosnian Bulgarian Burmese Catalan Chichewa Chinese

Croatian Czech Danish Dhivehi Dutch Dzongkha English Estonian Finnish French Georgian German

Greek Gujarati Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Indonesian Italian Japanese Kannada Korean Latvian

Lithuanian Macedonian Malay Marathi Mongolian Nepali Norwegian Persian Polish Portuguese Romanian Russian

Serbian Sesotho Shona Sinhala Slovak Slovene Spanish Swahili Swati Swedish Tamil Telugu

Thai Tibetan Tigrigna Tswana Turkish Ukrainian Urdu Uzbek Vietnamese Welsh Yorùbá

There is also a transdisciplinary pilot course, Text and Performance SL, which is available at schools participating in the pilot program. It is intended to foster interdisciplinary learning and satisfies the IB Diploma requirements for both Group 1 and Group 6.

Curriculum

Higher Level

• Total number of works: 15
  • Part 1: World Literature - 3 works
  • Part 2: Detailed Study - 4 works
  • Part 3: Groups of Works - 4 works
  • Part 4: School's Free Choice - 4 works

Standard Level

• Total number of works: 11
  • Part 1: World Literature - 2 works
  • Part 2: Detailed Study - 2 works
  • Part 3: Groups of Works - 3 works
  • Part 4: School's Free Choice - 3 works

Assessment

The Assessment of A1 Languages is based on a variation of external and internal assessments. These consist of:

External Assessment

• Examination Papers
  • Paper 1: Commentary on an unseen passage or poem - 25%
    • Candidates are presented with both a poem and a passage (both unseen) from which to choose to write a commentary during the exam period.
  • Paper 2: Comparative essay - 25%
• World Literature
  • Two essays are expected for HL (1000-1500 words), each worth 10%.
  • One essay is expected for SL, worth 20%.

Internal Assessment

• Individual Oral Commentary (15 minute audio tape) (15%)
• Individual Oral Presentation (15%)

Self-study of a Language A1

The Group 1 syllabus makes allowance for 'self-taught students' – autodidactic Group 1 study. They are responsible for reading all the required texts and doing all the assignments, largely on their own time and effort. All of the work for these students is externally assessed. The World Literature component is still taught by a teacher in the language of instruction of the school. Self-taught Group 1 candidates are common at international schools, but almost nonexistent at governmentally funded schools elsewhere. Self-taught candidates may only do their Group 1 at the standard level.

Internal Assessment consists of an oral presentation on a topic of the student's choice and a final 'oral exam' – a taped oral commentary on a text that the student doesn't know beforehand (it is taken from one of the books studied, though). In addition, students write two (one at Standard Level) World Literature papers on two or three works of translated foreign literature. The final exams have analysis of an unseen passage of text, as well as an essay on a set topic about at least two of the literary works studied. All of these have a different set of books involved, chosen by the teacher from a wide range of authors put forth by the IB.

References

• Diploma Programme, Text and Performance draft subject guide 2008. Geneva, Switzerland: International Baccalaureate Organization. (2008). 
• Schools' Guide to the Diploma Programme. Geneva, Switzerland: International Baccalaureate Organization. (2002). http://www.ibo.org/diploma/documents/schools_guide_diploma.pdf. Retrieved 3 Jul 2009.