The Student Room Group

Edexcel English language A level.

help does anyone here do or has done Edexcel English language a level or even knows someone who has and can offer any help, I genuinely feel like no one apart from my school studies Edexcel!!

And I would really benefit from some help is anyone on here getting Bs or above!
Hey! I am doing Edexcel a-level English Language right now and I am predicted A*... I still struggle myself and am terrified for Paper 3! What do you need help with? I'm not guaranteeing I can help but you never know x
Reply 2
Original post by maisiegraces23
Hey! I am doing Edexcel a-level English Language right now and I am predicted A*... I still struggle myself and am terrified for Paper 3! What do you need help with? I'm not guaranteeing I can help but you never know x


Omg yesss!! I need sm help with CLA & individual variation I legit never know how to structure my answers:frown:
Original post by 8rubya
Omg yesss!! I need sm help with CLA & individual variation I legit never know how to structure my answers:frown:

With structuring my essays I find that looking at the mark scheme for past papers and using the different features they suggest (for example in individual variation, the mark scheme has suggestions for Lexis and semantics, phonology, discourse and syntax, so I usually aim to write 4 paragraphs based on those 4 things along with a simple conclusion and of course a detailed introduction talking about the mode, purpose and audience etc..) So i tend to split my paragraphs by feature and just write as many for as many features I can find in the texts!

CLA is roughly the same in terms of essay structure, I split my paragraphs into features - so for spoken CLA I usually go for pragmatics, morphology, lexis, phonology and syntax. If it was written CLA, I try to split my paragraphs into graphology, orthography, lexis, syntax and discourse. I think this also helps the examiner because it means each of the general features you find are split up into clear and concise paragraphs so it is easier to mark against the suggested mark scheme.

For CLA, I really recommend looking at Quizlet for theorists, there's many different decks to chose from.. I also recommend looking at https://aggslanguage.wordpress.com/child-language-acquisition-revision/ for different stages and trends in CLA. https://www.studysmarter.co.uk/explanations/english/language-acquisition/language-acquisition-in-children/ is a really helpful website too.

I would really recommend looking at Examiners Reports from the Pearson website and reading what they examiners do/ do not recommend plus reading through and taking notes from the example answers they supply!

Hope this helps, I know its quite wordy lol! x
https://www.studysmarter.co.uk/explanations/english/language-acquisition/language-acquisition-in-children/
https://aggslanguage.wordpress.com/child-language-acquisition-revision/
Reply 4
Original post by maisiegraces23
with structuring my essays i find that looking at the mark scheme for past papers and using the different features they suggest (for example in individual variation, the mark scheme has suggestions for lexis and semantics, phonology, discourse and syntax, so i usually aim to write 4 paragraphs based on those 4 things along with a simple conclusion and of course a detailed introduction talking about the mode, purpose and audience etc..) so i tend to split my paragraphs by feature and just write as many for as many features i can find in the texts!
Cla is roughly the same in terms of essay structure, i split my paragraphs into features - so for spoken cla i usually go for pragmatics, morphology, lexis, phonology and syntax. If it was written cla, i try to split my paragraphs into graphology, orthography, lexis, syntax and discourse. I think this also helps the examiner because it means each of the general features you find are split up into clear and concise paragraphs so it is easier to mark against the suggested mark scheme.
For cla, i really recommend looking at quizlet for theorists, there's many different decks to chose from.. I also recommend looking at https://aggslanguage.wordpress.com/child-language-acquisition-revision/ for different stages and trends in cla. https://www.studysmarter.co.uk/explanations/english/language-acquisition/language-acquisition-in-children/ is a really helpful website too.
I would really recommend looking at examiners reports from the pearson website and reading what they examiners do/ do not recommend plus reading through and taking notes from the example answers they supply!
Hope this helps, i know its quite wordy lol! X
https://www.studysmarter.co.uk/explanations/english/language-acquisition/language-acquisition-in-children/
https://aggslanguage.wordpress.com/child-language-acquisition-revision/


omg ur the best ever!!! Honestly cannot thank u enough ur so sweet🥹
Reply 5
Original post by maisiegraces23
With structuring my essays I find that looking at the mark scheme for past papers and using the different features they suggest (for example in individual variation, the mark scheme has suggestions for Lexis and semantics, phonology, discourse and syntax, so I usually aim to write 4 paragraphs based on those 4 things along with a simple conclusion and of course a detailed introduction talking about the mode, purpose and audience etc..) So i tend to split my paragraphs by feature and just write as many for as many features I can find in the texts!
CLA is roughly the same in terms of essay structure, I split my paragraphs into features - so for spoken CLA I usually go for pragmatics, morphology, lexis, phonology and syntax. If it was written CLA, I try to split my paragraphs into graphology, orthography, lexis, syntax and discourse. I think this also helps the examiner because it means each of the general features you find are split up into clear and concise paragraphs so it is easier to mark against the suggested mark scheme.
For CLA, I really recommend looking at Quizlet for theorists, there's many different decks to chose from.. I also recommend looking at https://aggslanguage.wordpress.com/child-language-acquisition-revision/ for different stages and trends in CLA. https://www.studysmarter.co.uk/explanations/english/language-acquisition/language-acquisition-in-children/ is a really helpful website too.
I would really recommend looking at Examiners Reports from the Pearson website and reading what they examiners do/ do not recommend plus reading through and taking notes from the example answers they supply!
Hope this helps, I know its quite wordy lol! x
https://www.studysmarter.co.uk/explanations/english/language-acquisition/language-acquisition-in-children/
https://aggslanguage.wordpress.com/child-language-acquisition-revision/
This is so helpful thank you! Does anyone have any predictions on whether it will be a written or spoken text for paper 2 tomorrow?
Original post by Ngrbesa
This is so helpful thank you! Does anyone have any predictions on whether it will be a written or spoken text for paper 2 tomorrow?

I’m really hoping it’s spoken tbh. I’m not sure what the 2023 paper was unfortunately but I feel like there’s been more written ones over time…
Reply 7
My teachers said it's been written for the last two years, so they're expecting spoken, but they also said the exam board might do written again just to throw us off😭😭
Reply 8
Original post by arantxa.38
My teachers said it's been written for the last two years, so they're expecting spoken, but they also said the exam board might do written again just to throw us off😭😭

yehh im really hoping its spoken bc thats what id expect from the pattern theyve done through the years. i rlly hope theyre nice and its not written bc i hate it sm
Reply 9
Original post by arantxa.38
My teachers said it's been written for the last two years, so they're expecting spoken, but they also said the exam board might do written again just to throw us off😭😭

yeah but last time they did written it was 3 times in a row ☹️ (2017,18,19)
Reply 10
How did people find it?!
Original post by Acron1
How did people find it?!

I thought it was a really good transcript with plenty to talk about, but unfortunately there was so much to talk about I felt very rushed for time and therefore I’m doubting the quality of my work - definitely too rushed but overall a good question :/
Reply 12
Original post by maisiegraces23
I thought it was a really good transcript with plenty to talk about, but unfortunately there was so much to talk about I felt very rushed for time and therefore I’m doubting the quality of my work - definitely too rushed but overall a good question :/

Yess exactly same !! Im so glad people are in the same boat - I literally spent half an hour annotating because there was so much to say which is brilliant, but I was so short on time and wasn't able to cover much at all. That is my own fault for managing timings haha but it was so tricky. So glad it was spoken too :smile:
Original post by Acron1
How did people find it?!

I really liked it!! There was so much to say I’m so glad I have ET though 1 hour 15 for that much info wouldnt have been enough for me there was so much!!!!
What is everyone doing for Paper 3? My teacher has chosen for us to do Language and Gender - which is Drag Queens - and I have to be honest, I am quite lost with what data to use and feel like I know nothing!!
Reply 15
Original post by maisiegraces23
What is everyone doing for Paper 3? My teacher has chosen for us to do Language and Gender - which is Drag Queens - and I have to be honest, I am quite lost with what data to use and feel like I know nothing!!

yes me too im really stuck as well, definitely look into ru pauls drag race for q7 if you havent got any data yet, question 2 is just about typicality and what is typical of drag queen language
Reply 16
Original post by maisiegraces23
What is everyone doing for Paper 3? My teacher has chosen for us to do Language and Gender - which is Drag Queens - and I have to be honest, I am quite lost with what data to use and feel like I know nothing!!

I'm doing Drag Queens!! It is so tough - for the 30 marker, I feel like it has to be a question loosely linked to how drag blurs gender boundaries through speech, or maybe it could be a quotation where they'll ask how much we agree disagree i.e like ‘Drag Queen language continues to sustain/challenge well-worn stereotypes about gender…’

I'd say look through your data sets and pull a few key points from each one that link to features of Drag speech, it might help to organise points by framework and memorise important ones. Try to secure some context on the origins of drag and some key theorists you want to use - lmk if you need any <3

For section A aswell, try to memorise some features of the language of Drag Queens so you can try to spot those features in the unseen text, or use them again to structure your 30 marker response.
I'll put some features you could identify here, grouped by framework :smile: Hope it's helpful !! Good luck everyone <3 xx

Discourse Structure: Turn-taking, topic management, topic selection (emotive over financial), interruptions, tag questions, hedges (non-fluency feature), discourse marker, style shifts, contrastive pairs (‘now and then’ ‘us and them’), length of utterance
Lexis and Semantics: Drag slang (unique meanings, catchphrases, camp talk), specialist language (specific colour terms, sewing, make up), formal or informal, colloquial, idioms, collocations, puns, empty adjectives (‘flawless, ‘fierce’, ‘fabulous’, women’s language or camp language), taboo language and curse words, naming/addressing (adopting a ‘House’ name), semantic field of parenthood/sisterhood, pronoun use (gender inversion, shifts, collective pronouns), patterns of connections between words (‘drag family’), frequency and context of adjective use (‘supportive’, ‘chosen’
‘love’), intensive (‘so’), ambiguity, non-standard language, connotations
Grammar: Hypercorrect grammar (Lakoff), clauses, sentence types and moods
Pragmatics: Politeness, taboo language, curse words, humour, idiolect, sociolect (valleyspeak), audience design, referee design, performance, puns, implicature and euphemism, insults
Reply 17
How did people find paper 3 today!! I do language and gender, personally I rlly liked the section B question and liked the text for S but didn’t leave myself enough time to properly answer A - haha idk if I’ll get more than half marks for section A but hopefully my response for B will even it back out :smile: ❤️
So proud of us all for having finished eng <3
Hope people found it alright x
Original post by Acron1
How did people find paper 3 today!! I do language and gender, personally I rlly liked the section B question and liked the text for S but didn’t leave myself enough time to properly answer A - haha idk if I’ll get more than half marks for section A but hopefully my response for B will even it back out :smile: ❤️
So proud of us all for having finished eng <3
Hope people found it alright x
Aww well done!! How many pages did you write forsection B and what were the main things you wrote aboutfor the drag queen question?? 🙂 Thanks! 🫶

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