- What Is the English A IA?
- How the IA Fits Into Your English A Grade
- Literature or Language and Literature: What Changes in the IA
- Choosing Your Global Issue and Works
- Choosing Your Two Extracts
- How the English A IA Is Marked and Moderated
- English A IA Timeline: From Choosing Works to the Recording
- HL Students: The HL Essay Is Not the IA
- What a Strong IO Looks Like on the Day
- Common English A IA Mistakes
Quick Answer
The IB English A IA is the individual oral (IO), in both Literature and Language and Literature. You speak for 10 minutes on how one global issue is presented in two works you studied, then answer 5 minutes of questions from your teacher. Your teacher marks it out of 40, the IB moderates a sample, and it counts for 30% of your grade at SL and 20% at HL.
What You'll Learn
- The English A IA is the individual oral: a 10-minute prepared response followed by 5 minutes of teacher questions
- It is marked out of 40 and counts for 30% of your grade at SL and 20% at HL
- Your teacher marks it; the IB re-marks a sample of recordings and can adjust your school's marks up or down
- The HL essay is coursework but not the IA: IB examiners mark it, and it counts for 20% at HL
- Plan the IO, Paper 2 and the HL essay together, because each work can be used in only one of them
What Is the English A IA?
An internal assessment (IA) is the part of an IB subject that your teacher marks and the IB moderates. In IB English A, the IA is the individual oral, usually called the IO. It is the only internally assessed component in both English A courses, Language A: literature and Language A: language and literature, at SL and HL. You choose a global issue and two works from your course, select an extract of up to 40 lines from each, and give a 10-minute prepared response on how the issue is presented through the content and form of both works. Your teacher then asks you questions for 5 minutes. Unlike a science or humanities IA, there is no written report: the recording is what gets marked.
- Format: a 10-minute prepared response, then 5 minutes of teacher questions, 15 minutes in total
- Marks: 40, from four criteria worth 10 marks each
- Weighting: 30% of your final grade at SL, 20% at HL
- What you take in: clean, unannotated copies of your two extracts and an outline of no more than 10 bullet points
- Who marks it: your teacher, with a sample of recordings moderated by the IB
- The same task exists in every Language A, so the German A or French A IO works the same way in that language
Pro Tip
Searching for 'English IA'? If you take English B, the course for students learning English as an additional language, your IA is a different oral with a different rubric. The English B IA guide in the related articles covers it.
How the IA Fits Into Your English A Grade
The IO is one of three components at SL and one of four at HL. Both English A courses use the same weightings and timings; the difference is that Paper 1 uses literary passages in Literature and non-literary passages in Language and literature.
- Paper 1, guided analysis of unseen passages: 35% at SL (1 hour 15 minutes) and 35% at HL (2 hours 15 minutes)
- Paper 2, comparative essay on two literary works you studied: 35% at SL and 25% at HL (1 hour 45 minutes at both levels)
- HL essay, 1,200 to 1,500 words on one work you studied (HL only): 20%, marked by IB examiners
- Individual oral, the IA: 30% at SL and 20% at HL
Pro Tip
At SL the IO is worth almost as much as each exam paper. It is also the only component you can prepare in full before the day, so the marks you earn here are some of the most controllable in the course.
Literature or Language and Literature: What Changes in the IA
The task, timing, criteria and weighting of the IO are identical in both English A courses. What changes is the pair of works you are allowed to bring together, and so the kind of extract you take in.
- Language A: literature: one work originally written in English and one work you studied in translation
- Language A: language and literature: one literary work and one non-literary body of work, meaning a set of related non-literary texts studied as a group, such as adverts, speeches, photographs or opinion columns
- For a body of work, the extract is usually one complete short text, or a self-contained part of one, of up to 40 lines
- In both courses, both works must be works you studied in the course, not your own wider reading
Watch Out
Check that your two works meet your course's pairing rule before you start planning. Two works originally written in English do not make a valid pair in the Literature course, however well they fit your issue.
Choosing Your Global Issue and Works
Choose the works and the issue together. The IB describes a global issue as one that has significance on a wide scale, crosses national borders and has an impact felt in everyday local contexts. The five fields of inquiry are a useful place to start: culture, identity and community; beliefs, values and education; politics, power and justice; art, creativity and the imagination; and science, technology and the environment. Your issue does not have to name one of them. A simple process:
- 1List every work your class has studied that fits your course's pairing rule
- 2For each possible pair, write down two or three issues that both works genuinely explore, not just mention
- 3Phrase each issue as an arguable statement, such as 'how a person's worth is reduced to economic usefulness', rather than a topic like 'work'
- 4Keep the pair where you can name at least three specific authorial choices in each work that present the issue
- 5Test it aloud: if you cannot talk about the issue in each work for four minutes, change the issue or the pair
Pro Tip
For example, a Literature student might pair Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, originally written in English, with Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis, studied in translation. Both show a family that values a man only while he earns, so the issue above is precise and present in both. The global issue guide in the related articles has 30 more worked examples.
Choosing Your Two Extracts
Each extract is up to 40 lines and goes into the room as a clean copy with no annotations. A strong extract is not just an important scene. It is a passage where the global issue is visible on the page, dense with choices you can analyse, and easy to connect to the rest of the work.
- Choose a passage that shows the issue directly, not one that needs a long plot summary to explain
- Look for density of choices: imagery, narrative voice, dialogue, structure, stage directions, layout or visual features
- Prefer a pivotal moment you can link backwards and forwards in the work, because Criterion A rewards knowledge of the work as a whole
- For a non-literary body of work, choose the single text that shows the methods of the whole body of work most clearly
- Look for clear links between the two extracts, such as opposite perspectives or different methods. The IO criteria do not require a formal comparison, but links help your focus
- Prepare a clean copy early and rehearse with it, so you are not relying on annotations you will not have
How the English A IA Is Marked and Moderated
Your teacher marks the recording against four criteria worth 10 marks each: A, knowledge, understanding and interpretation; B, analysis and evaluation; C, focus and organisation; and D, language. Each criterion is marked by best fit to its level descriptors. The IO guide in the related articles explains what each criterion rewards. After marking, the process runs like this:
- 1You give the IO with your teacher, and it is recorded; only an audio recording is needed
- 2Your teacher marks the recording against the four criteria
- 3Your school enters the marks for every student, and the IB selects a sample of students
- 4The recordings for that sample are uploaded, and an IB moderator re-marks them
- 5If your teacher's marks are consistently higher or lower than the moderator's, the IB adjusts the marks of every student in the group, up or down
Watch Out
Any IO mark you hear before results day is provisional, because moderation can change it. Treat it as an estimate, not a final score.
English A IA Timeline: From Choosing Works to the Recording
The IB does not set the date of the IO; your teacher does. It is normally towards the end of the first year of the Diploma Programme or at some point in the second year. The IB's deadline for schools to submit IA marks and samples for May exams is 20 April, and school deadlines come well before that. Working back from your IO date:
- 1While you study each work: note the global issues it explores and the passages that show them, so you have real options later
- 2About two months before: agree with your teacher which works go to the IO, Paper 2 and, at HL, the HL essay
- 3Four to six weeks before: fix the issue, choose and copy your two extracts, and write your line of argument in one sentence
- 4Three to four weeks before: draft your 10-bullet outline and talk through each section aloud
- 5Final two to three weeks: timed, recorded run-throughs, then full mock IOs with unseen questions
- 6On the day: take in the clean extracts and outline, speak for about 10 minutes, then answer the questions
- 7Afterwards: your teacher submits marks, and if you are in the sample, the IB moderates your recording
Pro Tip
The IO guide in the related articles has a week-by-week rehearsal plan for the final month.
HL Students: The HL Essay Is Not the IA
At HL you also write the HL essay, a 1,200 to 1,500 word essay on one work you studied, worth 20% of your grade. Because it is coursework, students often call it an IA, but it is externally assessed: IB examiners mark it, not your teacher. In Language and literature it can be on a literary work or a non-literary body of work; in Literature it is on a literary work.
- A work you use in the IO cannot be used again in the HL essay or in Paper 2
- Together, the IO and the HL essay make up 40% of an HL grade, so plan them as a pair
- Spread your strongest works across the three components rather than spending them all on the IO
What a Strong IO Looks Like on the Day
There is no required structure, but Criterion C rewards a focused, balanced oral. A reliable plan gives about 1 minute to the introduction, around 4 minutes to each work (the extract first, then the work as a whole), and about 1 minute to the conclusion. In each part, name an authorial choice, explain its effect, and link it to your issue. The teacher questions that follow let you extend points you only touched on. The IO structure guide and the teacher questions guide in the related articles go through each part in detail.
Common English A IA Mistakes
These problems hold back more English A IAs than any lack of knowledge. An IB English A tutor can run practice orals with you on other extracts and give feedback on how clearly a global issue comes through.
- Pairing two works that break your course's rule, such as two works originally written in English in the Literature course
- Choosing the global issue first and forcing two works to fit it
- Choosing extracts for their importance in the plot rather than for the choices you can analyse
- Using a work in the IO that you needed for Paper 2 or the HL essay
- Summarising content instead of analysing how authorial choices present the issue
- Talking only about the extracts and never about the works as a whole
- Writing a script into the outline and reading it aloud
- Leaving rehearsal to the last few days: the IO is a spoken task and needs spoken practice
- Treating the teacher's questions as a separate test rather than a chance to add evidence