IB MYP- Language & Literature

All IB programmes value language as central to the development of critical thinking, which is essential for cultivating intercultural understanding and responsible membership in local, national and global communities.

Language is integral to exploring and sustaining personal development and cultural identity, and provides an intellectual framework that supports the construction of conceptual understanding.

MYP language and literature courses include a balanced study of genres and literary texts, including a world literature component. Students’ interactions with texts generate moral, social, economic, political, cultural and environmental insights. Through their studies, students learn how to form opinions, make decisions, and engage in ethical reasoning.

MYP language and literature courses equip students with linguistic, analytical and communicative skills that help to develop interdisciplinary understanding.

The six skill areas are-

• Listening
• Speaking
• Reading
• Writing
• Viewing
• Presenting

Aims of the Course

The aims of MYP language and literature, according to the official subject briefs are to encourage and enable students to-

• Use language as a vehicle for thought, creativity, reflection, learning, self-expression, analysis and social interaction
• Develop the skills involved in listening, speaking, reading, writing, viewing and presenting in a variety of contexts
• Develop critical, creative and personal approaches to studying and analysing literary and non-literary texts
• Engage with text from different historical periods and a variety of cultures
• Explore and analyse aspects of personal, host and other cultures through literary and non-literary texts
• Explore language through a variety of media and modes
• Develop a lifelong interest in reading
• Apply linguistic and literary concepts and skills in a variety of authentic contexts.

Curriculum Overview

The MYP promotes sustained inquiry in language and literature by developing conceptual understanding in global contexts.
Key concepts such as communication, connections, creativity and perspective broadly frame the MYP curriculum.
Related concepts promote deeper learning grounded in specific disciplines. Examples of related concepts in MYP language and literature include genre, purpose, context and style.

Students explore key and related concepts through MYP global contexts.
• Identities and relationships
• Orientation in space and time
• Personal and cultural expression
• Scientific and technical innovation
• Globalization and sustainability
• Fairness and development

The MYP curriculum framework offers schools flexibility to determine engaging, relevant, challenging and significant content that meets local and national curriculum requirements. This inquiry-based curriculum explores factual, conceptual and debatable questions in the study of language and literature.

The MYP requires at least 50 hours of teaching time for each subject area in each year of the programme. For students participating in MYP eAssessment, the IB recommends 70 hours of guided learning each year in MYP years 4 and 5.

Assessment Criteria

Each language and literature objective corresponds to one of four equally weighted assessment criteria. Each criterion has eight possible achievement levels (1–8), divided into four bands with unique descriptors that teachers use to make judgments about students’ work.

1. Criterion A: Analysing
Students demonstrate an understanding of the creator’s choices, the relationship between the various components of a text and between texts, and make inferences about audience responses and creators’ purposes. Students use the text to support their own responses and reflect on different perspectives and interpretations.

2. Criterion B: Organizing
Students understand and organize their ideas and opinions using a range of appropriate conventions for different forms and purposes of communication. Students recognize the importance of maintaining academic honesty, respecting intellectual property rights and referencing all sources accurately.

3. Criterion C: Producing text
Students produce written and spoken text, focusing on the creative process itself and on the understanding of the connection between the creator and his or her audience. Students make choices aimed at producing texts that affect both the creator and the audience.

4. Criterion D: Using language
Students develop, organize and express themselves and communicate thoughts, ideas and information. They use accurate and varied language that is appropriate to the context and intention.

eAssessment

Students seeking IB MYP course results or the IB MYP Certificate must demonstrate their achievement of the subject group’s objectives by completing an end-of-course on-screen examination.

Ideas and issues explored in MYP language and literature include-
• Identity, heritage, culture, diversity
• Communities, globalization, migration, displacement
• Social history, civilizations, journeys
• Media and mass communication
• Childhood, adolescence, youth, rebellion, innocence and experience, human sexuality
• Families, friendships, relationships
• Systems, power and protest, justice, peace and conflict, freedom and independence
• Health and well-being, environment, lifestyle
• Social roles, norms and expectations, gender, inclusion, minorities, class
• Utopias, dystopias, survival
• Religion, faith, values, ritual, spirituality, taboos
• Allegiance, betrayal, revenge, atonement, forgiveness.

Examination blueprints define the structure of tasks that simulate, replicate and sample formative internal assessments. In MYP language and literature courses, on-screen examinations comprise two tasks.

These tasks are-

1. Analysis
Assesses students’ ability to analyse, compare and contrast two text extracts giving opinions and justifications, organize their work in a coherent and logical manner, and produce language demonstrating a high degree of linguistic and grammatical accuracy.
(criteria A, B and D)
Marks- 50

2. Creative writing
Assesses students’ ability to organize their work in a coherent and logical manner (criterion B), produce text that demonstrates engagement with the creative process
and an awareness of impact on audience, and produce language demonstrating a high degree of linguistic and grammatical accuracy (criteria C and D).
Marks- 70

Examination blueprints define the structure of tasks that simulate, replicate and sample formative internal assessments. In MYP language and literature courses, on-screen examinations comprise two tasks.

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