Individual Oral

The individual oral submitted for internal assessment must be your own work. However, it is not the intention that you should decide upon a topic and be left to work on the internal assessment component without any further support from the teacher. The teacher should play an important role during both the planning stage and the period when you are working on the internally assessed work. It is the responsibility of the teacher to ensure that you are familiar with:

• ​The requirements of the individual oral

• The standards for academic honesty

• The assessment criteria.

Authenticity may be checked by discussion with the student on the content of the work, and scrutiny of one or more of the following:

• Your initial proposal

• the usual quality of your work.

The same material cannot be submitted to meet the requirements of both the internal assessment and the extended essay. The texts used in the internal assessment must be different from those used in other assessment components (e.g., you cannot analyse the same novel for your IO as you do in your Paper 2).

The individual oral addresses the following prompt. THIS PROMPT IS MANDATORY FOR ALL STUDENTS ON THIS ASSESSMENT.

“Examine the ways in which the global issue of your choice is presented through the content and

form of one of the [literary] works and one of the [non-literary works] you have studied.”

The individual oral is based on the exploration the you have carried out in the learner portfolio. During this exploration process, you will have investigated a series of non-literary and literary works and a variety of global issues. In the lead up to the individual oral, you must make a decision about which global issue and which text and work will be explored in the task. One literary work and one non-literary work must be selected. An extract of no more than forty lines should be selected from each which is representative of the presence of the global issue in it. In forms or text types where the number of lines may not be applicable, teachers should be guided by the volume of text that can be discussed in sufficient depth in the time available.

Once preparation for the Individual Oral begins in class, you will be asked to submit a proposal form. Your teacher will read through this proposal thoroughly, and you will discuss it with them in a one-on-one conference. Your teacher must approve of your extract choices before you can proceed with the assessment.

The IB provides a form that you should use to create an outline of your presentation. You have the opportunity, in advance of your oral, to write out a maximum of ten bullet points. These bullet points should be brief, and you should not read directly from your outline. At least one week prior to the individual oral, you must share the extracts you intend to use in your individual oral with your teacher. You bring both the outline and the unmarked extracts to the examination. Your teacher will also have a copy of these extracts during the examination.

The work and text selected must have a clear connection with the global issue. The individual oral should be a well-supported argument about the ways in which both represent and explore the global issue. You must select two extracts, one literary and one non-literary, that clearly show significant moments when this global issue is being focused on. Normally these extracts should not exceed 40 lines or present an unmanageable amount of material to be analysed. As the you bring unannotated copies of these extracts to the individual oral, extracts which are too lengthy may hinder your ability to effectively expand the discussion to the text or work as a whole. An extract may be a complete text in itself, for example a whole poem or an advertisement.

If the extract is from a literary text which is part of a larger work studied, such as a short story, or if it is a complete text which is part of a work studied, such as a poem, you should discuss relevant aspects of the broader work as a whole in your individual oral.

If the extract is a complete non-literary text, you should discuss relevant aspects of the broader body of work of the author of the text. In the case of a photograph, for example, the broader discussion should refer to other photographs by the same photographer. If identifying the single author of a non-literary text is not possible, you should use an ampler definition of authorship to broaden your discussion of the global issue. In the case of an advertisement, for example, you could refer to the other advertisements or commercials belonging to the same campaign, to other campaigns of the same brand or to other work produced by the advertising agency. In the case of an article, you could refer either to other articles by the same author or to the general editorial line of the medium in which the article was published. In cases such as the latter two, you should make explicit what constitutes your definition of authorship.

The extracts are meant to help you focus your responses, remove the need to learn quotations and enable them to explore more precise issues, such as style, specific devices and other distinct techniques used by authors to present the global issue. The choice of extracts should show your understanding of the relevance of the part to the whole and enable coverage of larger and smaller choices made by the writers to shape your perspectives on the global issue.

It’s important to remember that global issues have the following attributes:

1. They have significance on a wide/large scale;

2. They are transnational;

3. The impact is felt in everyday contexts.

You may look into one or more of the following fields of inquiry for guidance on how to decide on a global issue to focus your oral on. These topics are not exhaustive and are intended as helpful starting points for you to generate ideas and derive a more specific global issue on which to base your individual oral. It should also be noted that there is the potential for significant overlap between the areas.

• Culture, identity, and community: You might focus on the way in which texts explore aspects of family, class, race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, gender and sexuality, and the way these impact on individuals and societies. They might also focus on issues concerning migration, colonialism and nationalism.

• Beliefs, values, and education: You might focus on the way in which texts explore the beliefs and values nurtured in particular societies and the ways they shape individuals, communities and educational systems. They might also explore the tensions that arise when there are conflicts of beliefs and values, and ethics.

• Politics, power and justice: You might focus on the ways in which texts explore aspects of rights and responsibilities, the workings and structures of governments and institutions. They might also investigate hierarchies of power, the distribution of wealth and resources, the limits of justice and the law, equality and inequality, human rights and peace and conflict.

• Art, creativity, and the imagination: You might focus on the ways in which texts explore aspects of aesthetic inspiration, creation, craft, and beauty. They might also focus on the shaping and challenging of perceptions through art, and the function, value and effects of art in society.

• Science, technology, and the environment: You might focus on the ways in which texts explore the relationship between humans and the environment and the implications of technology and media for society. They might also consider the idea of scientific development and progress. In selecting the global issue for your oral, you must be careful not simply to select from the broad fields of inquiry above, but to determine a specific issue for discussion that can be reasonably explored in the timeframe specified.

For example, within the field of culture, identity, and community, the theme of gender in itself might be unsuitably broad for an individual oral. Students interested in this theme might explore instead how gender bias manifests itself in different contexts; how this can be evidenced in many ways in texts of different sorts; how different authorial choices will determine what is meant by gender bias; whether bias should be viewed positively or negatively, allowing the students to evaluate the writer’s choices and the impact they might have on the different readers’ or viewers’ understanding.

The oral itself will only be concerned with the aspects of the global issue relevant to the two texts chosen. You should ensure the oral offers a balanced approach, giving approximately equal attention to both texts. Thus, it is important that the you select extracts/texts that offer equally sufficient material for the discussion.

The learner portfolio is an important place for you to explore and reflect upon your work in relation to global issues.

In relation to the preparation of the individual oral, the learner portfolio provides an opportunity for you to:

• Keep an ongoing record of the different global issues that could be related to each of the texts they read

• Explore links that could be established between different texts on the basis of common global issues they address

• Explore how key passages in the texts they have studied represent different or similar perspectives on one global issue through both form and content

• Trace the evolution of your thinking and planning in connection with the global issue and how its cultural value, its definition and application to the texts they read have changed through your inquiry

• Reflect on the challenges that the internal assessment poses for them as individual learners.

The full criteria can be viewed here.

As stated above, the IO is worth 45% of your final mark in the SL Language and Literature course.

Criterion A: Knowledge, understanding and interpretation

• How well does the candidate demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the extracts, and of the work and body of work from which they were taken?

• To what extent does the candidate make use of knowledge and understanding of the extracts and the work and body of work to draw conclusions in relation to the global issue?

• How well are ideas supported by references to the extracts, and to the work and body of work?

Criterion B: Analysis and evaluation

• How well does the candidate use his or her knowledge and understanding of each of the extracts and their associated work and body of work to analyse and evaluate the ways in which authorial choices present the global issue?

Criterion C: Focus and organization

• How well does the candidate deliver a structured, well-balanced and focused oral?

• How well does the candidate connect ideas in a cohesive manner?

Criterion D: Language

• How clear, accurate and effective is the language?

The individual oral is internally assessed. That is, your teacher will mark it. The IB externally moderates the oral. The IB will select a specific sample for moderation based on class scores submitted by your teacher. These samples will then be moderated by an IB examiner to ensure your teachers' marks are in line with IB assessment criteria and expectations. If the moderator's marks differ from your teacher's, the class marks may be adjusted.