IGCSE REVISION with Norman Bernard

COURSE DURATION: 10 hours

Dates:

Day 1:  Saturday, September 2nd, 2023  – two 2-hour sessions, morning and afternoon.

Day 2:  Saturday, September 9th, 2023 – two 2-hour sessions, morning and afternoon

Day 3:  Saturday, September 16th, 2023 – one two-hour session in the morning.

Times:  

Sessions run from 10:00 am-12:00 pm and 2:00 pm-4:00 pm respectively,

Price:  R2,000

OVERVIEW

IGCSE English Language students have to write two examinations, a Reading Paper and a Writing/Composition Paper. The Reading Paper has both textual analysis and directed writing tasks, thus introducing material that will be expanded on at AS levels. It also contains factual and vocabulary questions as well as summary questions of a kind that are intended to develop the ability to read both for fine detail and main points. All this will be touched on in this revision course.

Paper 2, the Writing/Composition Paper, contains a directed writing task as Question 1 and for Question 2 students have to write either a narrative or descriptive piece. As directed writing is of pivotal importance in both papers it follows that more time will be spent on the Reading Paper as any work done on directed writing is also preparation for Question 1 of Paper 2. It is also worth spending a bit of time on the skill of textual analysis when dealing with the Reading Paper as this task poses difficulties for all but the strongest students.

In the light of the above more detailed course contents for each paper appear below.

PAPER 1 READING PAPER

1. Analyse two passages from a past IGCSE Reading Paper in order to introduce both directed writing and textual analysis tasks.
2. Go over several sample student answers to the above questions so that students gain some idea of what examiners wish to see and what kind of response gets what grade. This also presents an opportunity to speak briefly about assessment criteria.
3. Analysis of an extract from a 19^th century novel to give students a taste of the most demanding kind of textual analysis passage that could occur at IGCSE level.
4. Use of a past paper reflecting the post-2019 format of the IGCSE Reading Paper to look at sample factual, vocabulary and summary questions as well as providing further textual analysis practice.
5. Brief examination of the marking rubrics for the above paper.

PAPER 2 WRITING/COMPOSITION PAPER

1. Go over a Writing/Composition Paper reflecting the post-2019 exam format to provide further concentration on directed writing as the directed writing question constituting Paper 2 Question 1 accounts for half the student’s marks.
2. Brief examination of marking rubrics for the above paper.
3. A brief examination of both narrative and descriptive writing tasks followed by analysis of sample student answers to questions of both kinds taken from past exam papers.

Sophia Carlyle’s testimony of her experience of studying IGCSE English with Norman Bernard.

“I started IGCSE English Language with Norman Bernard towards the end of July 2022, with the aim of writing my exams in the middle of October 2022. Needless to say, Norman and I had a very short amount of time to prepare. However, he never put pressure on me, though our syllabus and time were very concentrated. In fact, he made an effort to relieve as much pressure as possible. If he ever felt stressed about how little time we had to achieve my goal, he never let it show.

He is gracious, generous, considerate and sensitive, among so many other great things. He also has a great sense of humour which appeared in most of our lessons, making them fun and something to look forward to. The majority of my lessons took place online but I also opted to go to Norman’s house when loadshedding got in the way.

Either way, I always felt completely welcome in the space that Norman held. He listened respectfully to my personal story when we first met and was considerate, in light of this, all the way through our time together.

There is almost never a question that Norman cannot answer – he is truly one of the most knowledgeable people I have ever met. Norman chooses interesting excerpts to study together from all sorts of different kinds of texts which makes the learning experience even more enriching. He is incredibly dedicated to his work and wants to help in any way he can. If there is a memo/model answer missing for an exercise you’ve been set and you feel you’d like one, he is more than happy to add the task to his heavy workload.

I went on to achieve an A* for my English exams, under Norman’s tutelage, so I truly could go on and on about what an extraordinary teacher and mentor Norman Bernard is but I’m afraid this is already too long.”