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AQA A2 English Language B: Child Language Acquisition - Mark Scheme Comparisons

Hi,

With the A2 English Language exam for Language Acquisition approaching, I thought it best to analyse the mark schemes over the past three years to see if there were any connections regarding the content within the exams. It is meticulous analysis however was hoping that there would be some link between the mark schemes from 2012, 2013 and 2014. Luckily, my assumption was correct in that there have been some common linguistic and contextual features/factors that have been on the mark schemes for the past few exams, therefore I am assuming that some could possibly be present in the 2015 paper. I have identified the common features within AO1, AO2 and AO3 in different sections.

I have tried to be as accurate as possible and hope that some of the features I have been able to identify do turn up on the exam. Although this is not precise, hopefully it can give us some ideas as to what we might expect on the upcoming exam this June.

Hope you're all feeling confident and Good Luck! :smile:

The Mark Scheme Comparison sheet is attached as a JPEG Image - apologies for my poor handwriting! :biggrin:

P.S. - I appear to have listed pragmatics twice under the AO1 similarities - sorry.

(edited 8 years ago)

AQA A2 English Language B - Mark Scheme Comparison (For 2015 Exam).jpg393.1KB

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Reply 1

cheriemanake

Hey can you help me out with Paper 3?

Reply 2

JJ97

Original post by cheriemanake

Hey can you help me out with Paper 3?

Sure thing, I'll have a try - what do you need help with?

Reply 3

cheriemanake

I really need a sample essay for p4 so I know how to structure it.

Reply 4

JJ97

Original post by cheriemanake

I really need a sample essay for p4 so I know how to structure it.

Do you mean the question for Language Change?

Yes.

I'm actually still studying Language Change and haven't fully completed that part of the course (cutting it quite close!). Basically our teacher has given us a structure that we have been told to use for both essays, Acquisition and Language Change. We've been told to follow this structure.

Identify the difference - Point
Elaborate and explain what the point means/is
Evidence - Use clusters of examples of the feature you have identified. Clusters of your evidence are better, at least 3
Context - Consistently refer to context of the piece. For example, consider the date that it was published and whether or not it was before/after standardisation, or other key events that may have influenced language change.

At the minute that's all the help I'm able to give because we haven't fully finished that side of the course - sorry. Hope that this is of some use and that the exam goes well :smile:

Reply 7

cheriemanake

Yes, that's fine. Thank you and good luck :smile:

Reply 8

cheriemanake

Also, how do you structure everything for English as a global language. Any tips?

Reply 9

JJ97

You'd most likely refer to invasions and explorations across the world and other ways in which English may have become prevalent globally. I think that you would talk about this in the context section of your essay. Hopefully that helps.

Reply 10

yasminnnp23

For the A2 exam and the language acquisition question, will there definitely be a question on children's speech and one on reading and writing? because speech is my strongest section and I don't know whether to focus my revision there

Reply 11

JJ97

From all of the past questions that I've looked at and all the papers that I have analysed, there is always a question based on Speech and Writing. Consider acquisition as having two units, one being speech and the other being written development. My class and I have only done the spoken language and that is always question one :smile:

Reply 12

yasminnnp23

Original post by JJ97

Ah thank you :smile:

Reply 13

kirsty11111

Original post by JJ97

What about reading? can i just learn speech on its own? or do i need to know reading/writing? ahh!

Reply 14

JJ97

Original post by kirsty11111

What about reading? can i just learn speech on its own? or do i need to know reading/writing? ahh!

You can do either speech on its own (as it has its own question that comes up indefinitely) while the question underneath switches between reading and writing. So technically you could learn any of the two with acquisition and if your question on the other topic doesn't come up then you could just do acquisition!

Reply 15

heatherjaynee

Original post by kirsty11111

What about reading? can i just learn speech on its own? or do i need to know reading/writing? ahh!

Sometimes they combine speech with reading, but it's most likely to be a question asking for spoken language analysis so you won't need to analyse it using reading theories, but you could drop some in too :smile:

Reply 16

kirsty11111

Anyone have a basic structure? Eg the frameworks? Does anyone have points which they can use pretty much in each essay so you can go in with something at least? Thanks !

Reply 17

heatherjaynee

Original post by kirsty11111

Anyone have a basic structure? Eg the frameworks? Does anyone have points which they can use pretty much in each essay so you can go in with something at least? Thanks !

For spoken language?
The ones I usually focus on are

-Grammar
-Phonology
-Lexis/Semantics
-Pragmatics
-Power (not always the case, but for some CLA spoken texts you can use this to base a paragraph on, e.g. interruptions etc)
-CDS (child-directed speech)

Also look out for language and gender, i.e. if there's a boy and girl interacting

You can use a lot of them for writing too, not phonology or CDS though, but I'm not as sure about a definite structure for writing. Include discourse/register perhaps.

For reading:

-The book (features of the book, it may not be provided but you can discuss them from what the child/parent reads out)
-The caregiver (how they aid the child)
-The child - look at phonology (do they use the phonics method as well to help them?), what cues they use to help them understand the book, fluency with reading (Jeanne Chall's stages can then be brought in)

For LC:
The ones I tend to look for are

-Grammar
-Lexis/Semantics
-Pragmatics
-Orthography
-Graphology (sometimes, if appropriate)

And again looking out for power and gender.

Not sure if that helps, and these are very broad and generic outlines, but I hope it helps a bit!