HL English - Language and Literature

Internal Assessments

Hi Everyone!

What's the difference between an FOA and an IOC?

They are both done as internal assessments in English class. Both HL and SL complete them. Both are oral presentations. However, they're not the same thing!

FOA stands for Further Oral Activity. During this assignment you are allowed to be in a group or work separately. It's a very open-ended task: you can analyze a text, have a discussion on a topic, break down the main themes of a movie, explore a controversial issue... Each person must speak 10-15 minutes each, unfortunately. In class, we just completed one about the "Basic" stereotype. It really helps to first write a proposal and ask whether or not it's a good idea.

IOC stands for Individual Oral Commentary. You're all alone for this one! This is done in class. What happens is you are given one 40 line page from a novel you have studied in class. You have 15 minutes to organize your thoughts and what you what to say during the Commentary. I suggest you read it thoroughly once while noting down important parts. Then think about the themes of the novel and how they apply to the excerpt. Take a few minutes at the end or your allotted 15 minutes to figure out how you are going to arrange your ideas. After this, you speak for 8-10 minutes and your teacher asks questions about the text for the next 5.

Hope this helps!

- Giselle D.