Which English?

Hey, I've just finished my GCSEs and am thinking of what type of English would be the best to do at A Level.

Either:

1. English Language and Literature
2. English Literature

I do know that universities prefer English Literature, and do not really like English Language. Yet, English Lang/Lit is becoming more accepted and seems like a better course (as it has best of both English's in one subject).

I would like to hear thoughts and experiences about these two English subjects and which one should I do??

For interest I am thinking of taking: History, Economics, French, an English subject (and Maths).

Thankx loads,

Rudy!

Reply 1

joshdajoker

English Literature without a doubt. But if you feel you can get a better grade in combined then go for that instead.

Reply 2

glitterxsparkle

I did English Language and English literature separate. I enjoyed English Language a lot more! I just thought English Language was so much more interesting and completely different to GCSE English. Do the combined English definitely!

Reply 3

undiscovered

Take English Literature if you don't like Language, because Language is pretty dull at AS and there's no point doing a subject you don't really like anyway. :smile:

Reply 4

Don Corleone

Universities prefer English Literature from what I've heard.

Reply 5

Lady_Darkness

I'd say English Lit, as I took it and really enjoyed the course... the combined option seems to involve a lot of self-assessment and stuff, which I personally would have found dull as hell...

Reply 6

mousey

The cobined course involves:

Analysing two novels to study change over time in language and literature
Working through an anthology of poetry, withlinguistic texts in too, for example transcripts
Creating your own original writing for coursework. For AS i wrote a persuasive speech on the effects of ecstasy

The A2 involves some Shakespeare (we did Othello) and analysing how Shakespeare crafts speech for dramatic effect

It also involves being able to analyse transcripts and plays/novels and stating how the authors of the fiction managed to replicate spoken language features.

The coursework for A2 is to take one text and transform it into another form. I took Jules Verne's 'A Journey to the Centre of the Earth' and made it into a play.

I loved this course and would thoroughly recommend it if you are interested by language also. The main swaying factor for me was being taught how to produce texts through your own creative writing. xx

Reply 7

kellywood_5

http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/t125780.html

I'm doing English lit at the moment, and to be honest, I don't enjoy it anwhere near as much as I did at GCSE, but that has a lot to do with my class and the way it's taught. In terms of the actual work, I've found it interesting and not that much harder than GCSE. If you want to do English at uni, lit would probably be better, but as you said, some unis will now accept the combined course and if you're more interested in that, take it.

Reply 8

mousey

Actually pretty much nearly every uni accepts combined. The only one that i found that didn't in my research was Warwick.

That's not to say that literary based courses wouldn't prefer candidates to have lit though. xx

Reply 9

all red and ermine

Can I say Thank you for all your advice!!!! It's been very very useful! Thankx for the comments, and btw the creative writing side of the course (combined anglais) is what is attracting me. but english lit's rep at uni's is another factor......

Thanks anyway, more comments would be very useful,

Rudy!

Reply 10

mousey

Do you think you want to do English at university? Because if you do then you might have to think about that, but if not then i don't think it will be a problem at all if you're doing combined. Sam, another member on here also does combined and got many offers. I didn't get so many, but i was still able to apply to places like Cambridge with combined for English. If you're a good student, you get good references and you write an enthusiastic personal statement i doubt doing combined will be too much of a problem. I know many people who do combined with a range of offers from a variety of universities for English. xx

Reply 11

soulsussed

I am also experiencing the same dilenma, english lit or combined, I think my english language result will be deciding factor, if I don't do as well in lang I will take lit, but if I do well I will take the combined course, its interesting to see how lit has a good rep with uni's as well.

Reply 12

all red and ermine

i know!!!! totally agree with u there.

Reply 13

all red and ermine

good thinking, by relying on the lang result. but i always here the lit is the same but on a slightly higher scale. also, i really like creative writing - but don't mind essays cos they're one of my fortes.

Reply 14

camilla16

in my experience nearly everyone gets a higher lang than lit gcse (mine a for lit a* for lang when i was much better at literature)
i went to a private sch for a term and a bit (long story) and when i asked about language they said something along the lines of "we dont do that subject as it is not academically challenging enough) in other words i truly believe it is easier
if you want to study linguistics speech therapy advertising or slightly more irrelevant aspects of english go for language
with literature you do the proper stuff

Reply 15

mousey

He's not considering language...combined or literature. Combined is completely different to language. xx

Reply 16

feeling good

I just finished the combined course AS Level, maybe just because of the teachers it seemed a bit dull at first. Does get better as the year goes on- my class got to study Harry Potter/ Tom Brown's schooldays in the change over time module :biggrin:

Also the creative writing coursework is a lot of fun as Mousey suggests above. I did a TV Friends script for the listening piece and a newspaper article on GM Crops for the reading piece (got 56/60). So I would definately suggest looking at this course and seeing if you would benefit from it before making a decision :wink:

Reply 17

hypomania

Lit ruuuules :p:

except Shakespeare (in my opinion)!

Reply 18

~Raven~

Make sure you enjoy all forms of lit before taking it alone - I'm not keen on poetry as a rule and because I don't like it I struggled though those parts of the course to be interested enough to work. And it was a big chunk of the course.
The novels and drama made up for it though :biggrin:

but I found myself constantly trying to drag up the energy to study poetry and then drag up my grades to counteract my not-so-good poetry ones. So think carefully!