Understanding your syllabus
Natasha Thomas-Francis, Contributor

Hello, students! I hope that by now you have had a look at the English A syllabus and you are now ready to embark upon your journey to the examination. But, just in case you have not yet gone through the syllabus, I am going to highlight a few things which I think would be beneficial to you.

The aims

Before you engage yourself in the lessons over this school year, it is wise that you understand the aims of the syllabus so that you can appreciate what will be taught.

The syllabus aims to:

• Develop the ability to use language with precision, clarity and grammatical correctness.
• Develop the ability to give articulation to experience (real or imagined).
• Promote a willingness and ability in students to inform themselves about and to contribute reasoned opinions on social issues.
• Promote a lasting appreciation of the diversity of purposes for which language varieties are used.
• Develop a critical awareness of the language devices used to persuade.
• Develop knowledge of the various sources of information and a desire to use these for their own enlightenment.
• Promote an understanding and appreciation of the place and value of the varieties of English and of the dialects and creoles of the Caribbean and other regions in different social and cultural contexts.

The skills and abilities to be assessed

The aims above can only be attained if your language skills are developed. For English, the skills are categorised under two broad headings: Understanding and Expression. For those of you who have done the exam in the past and have received your results, you would have noticed that you were given letter grades for these two profile dimensions beside the numeric grade.

What do these categories mean? Well, understanding means the decoding of messages through the analysis of the language structures and devices used in any given context; in other words, your ability to understand what you read. Expression means the conveying of meaning through the selection of language structures and devices appropriate to each specific context.

For candidates doing the general proficiency examination, greater emphasis is placed on expression than on understanding. The weighting of the examination under the profiles is 60 per cent for expression and 40 per cent for understanding. It is very important that you understand the implication of this weighting as, even though you may do very well on the comprehension aspect of the examination, if you do poorly on the tasks that require you to use language creatively and persuasively it is unlikely that you will receive a good grade.

The examination

Finally, let's take a look at the make-up of the English A examination. You are expected to complete two examination papers: Paper 01 (1 hour 30 minutes) and Paper 02 (2 hours 30 minutes). Paper 1 consists of 60 compulsory multiple-choice items arranged in two sections. The first section contains 20 items related to grammar and word choice and section two contains 40 reading comprehension items based on four or five passages with at least one passage being poetry. Paper 02 is divided into four sections:

• Section one consists of one compulsory question which tests your ability to communicate factual information clearly, concisely and adequately in reports and summaries.
• Section two consists of two compulsory short-answer reading comprehension questions which test your ability to understand meaning conveyed in reading.
• Section three consists of three questions, at least one of which must be a short story and one descriptive. Candidates must attempt only one question. This section tests your ability to use language creatively and imaginatively.
• Section four consists of two argumentative essay questions. Candidates must attempt only one question. This section tests your ability to use language which effectively persuades or dissuades.

So, now that you have a better understanding of what is required of you to be successful in the subject of English, I expect that you will equip yourself with the necessary textbooks and supplemental materials which will help you achieve this end. Remember also that your Youthlink lessons are extremely important and you should try not to miss any of them.

I want to wish you all the best this academic year. May God guide you in your preparations.

Be good until we meet next week!

It was a western clean sweep for the top-three positions at the MJW 2009 Sports Track Competition. Showing their athletic skills were Annalee Williams, second place; Calee Scharschmdt, winner of the MJW Fast Track Sports Competition, and tying for third place spot Gillian Chen and Samantha Shaw. The competition took place at Spartan Health Club on Wednesday, August 12.