N4 English

Why?

This course will allow candidates to encounter and engage with a range of texts across literature, language, and the media. The course enables candidates to communicate, to think critically, and to be thoughtful and creative. Candidates will be encouraged to reflect on, and to build an understanding of, their own experiences, environment, and culture, and the experiences, environments and cultures of others.

assessment

The National 4 English course has a range of units which pupils must pass. Firstly, there is a spoken language unit which assess pupils’ abilities in listening and talking. 

In addition to this, there are assessments of reading and writing. For the first of these you will be asked to read a short passage and answer questions on it. If these are sufficiently accurate you will pass the reading unit. The writing unit involves writing a short piece which fulfils the assessment criteria - these will be shared by the teacher (e.g. word count, style of writing etc.)

Finally, the most challenging unit assessment in the National 4 English course is called the Added Value Unit or AVU. For this, you will be required to source two articles on the same topic and examine them in some detail. The AVU requires a written critical essay of approximately 600–800 words, or an oral presentation of about 5 minutes. This assignment demonstrates skills in reading, analysis, and evaluation by investigating your selected texts. It is internally assessed as a pass/fail component.