IB & IGCSE English Tutors in Hong Kong

Language and Literature / Literature

The assessments reward analysis of how a text works, not what it is about. Students who summarise plot or paraphrase an argument have already capped their mark, however well written the essay is.

• Paper 1 guided analysis — reading an unseen text quickly for its techniques, and building a line of argument in the time available.
• Paper 2 comparative essay — a comparison structure that holds up under exam pressure instead of alternating between two texts paragraph by paragraph.
• The Individual Oral — global issue selection, extract choice and rehearsal, which students consistently leave too late.
• The HL Essay — a line of inquiry narrow enough to sustain 1,500 words of genuine analysis.

English B

For students taking English as an acquired language, the demands are different again: productive skills, text types with their own conventions, and the oral. We teach the text-type conventions explicitly because they are easy marks that students routinely give away.

Choosing between First and Second Language English matters, and schools do not always advise on it well. First Language is more demanding and better regarded by universities; Second Language may produce a higher grade for a student who is genuinely working in an additional language. We will give you a straight assessment after the trial lesson.

• Reading passages — the comprehension and summary questions, where marks are lost to imprecise lifting from the text.
• Directed writing — audience, form and register, which carry marks in their own right.
• Composition — narrative and descriptive writing, and the vocabulary range that lifts a competent piece into the top band.
• Coursework where your school follows that route.

For families applying to US or UK boarding schools, or to Hong Kong international schools at entry points, we prepare students for the English components of the SSAT and the ISEB Common Pre-Test — vocabulary, reading comprehension under time, and the writing sample. This work is usually coordinated with our admissions consultants, since the testing timeline and the application timeline have to line up.

Every session includes writing to time. Students who only ever write untimed essays are practising a different skill from the one the exam tests, and the gap shows up in the mock results.

We mark against the actual assessment criteria and hand the criteria to the student, because a student who can see why a paragraph earned a 5 rather than a 7 can fix it. Reading is set between lessons — usually short, deliberately chosen extracts rather than volume for its own sake.