hello and welcome to IGCSE success if you are new to this channel hello please do hit the subscribe button I'll give this video a big thumbs up and this channel is primarily dedicated to English language i GC se however there may also be times where I just decide to hop on here and just rant and to just talk about boring teaching related stuff whatever your reason for stumbling onto my channel I hope today's video Prue's useful now today's video it's not going to be the most exciting guys but the number one question I get asked from students and indeed parents is how can I best prepare myself or my son or daughter for the IGCSE English language exam and with this video I'm going to give you a number of tips to ensure that you are best prepared for your I G CSE English language exam now obviously in light of what's happened around the world this video probably won't be that useful for current year 11s but if you are in year 10 and you are currently looking at the IDs to see English language cause or maybe even year 9 this video may well be useful for you so I've been teaching English for about eight years and I now teach internationally and I still hear the same things from my students at the international school that I teach at and that is I do not need to revise for English because it's such a subjective topic you know they're worried because they don't get that kind of instant gratification in lesson as they do in say math or science where perhaps there is a a right or wrong answer what I will say is that the journey to get to that end point if one ever does get to that end point in English it's it's quite a challenging journey and some students never quite know if they've reached that journey or they are at the stage that they need to be at in terms of succeeding with their IGCSE English language or even English literature however despite these initial apprehensions that I hear there are certainly steps that students need to take in order to succeed at IGCSE level so before I start let's dispel that myth of I don't need to revise for English you absolutely do and English is just like math and science there are passed papers you can be doing there are certain skills that you need to show particularly if you want to get those top grades so in this video I'm going to give you five top tips to ensure you are well prepared for the first language a GCSE Cambridge exam now number one and I'm sure if you are a student watching there's and you've done the whole parents evening thing you've been sat there with your mum and dad and then you hear those words uttered from your teacher your son or daughter they have to read what I will say is that I think if teachers we do we do not just say that for the sake of saying it there is so much weight to when we say you need to read more there is clear evidence to suggest that you know these prolific readers those more confident readers excel particularly with the IGCC English language example it is so important guys that you are confident readers Cambridge are notorious and I say this to my students all the time they are notorious for picking you know quite challenging and arguably quite bizarre text okay and within the text that you have to read there are quite challenging words that if you do not understand me that the meaning of these words said quite often you don't sort of get the underlying themes the sort of deep meaning that the writer is trying to convey I mean especially for the writers effect question where you are directed to two different paragraphs nine times out of ten there will be some challenging words in either paragraph all both paragraphs and if you are not able to understand what those words mean straight away it's going to be limiting the marks that you are able to get because if you don't understand those words you are not going to be able to write an effective response to what the writer is trying to achieve and of course I don't mean you need to be glued to a book 24/7 but you should be actively reading each night even if that is 15 to 20 minutes before you go to bed and also you should be actively wanting to look for words which are perhaps unfamiliar to you and then making a glossary of these words and what they mean so when you next hear your English teacher saying your son daughter that needs read more it is really important guys if you are not confident Regis you are going to struggle with the IGCC first language exam my second tip is practice your non-fiction writing guys that is so so important and it's worth a lot of my heart there is absolutely no point attempting past paper questions if and you don't know the approaches and be you can't write a formal letter away from an exampie so you can't write this journal entry or a newspaper report or a formal report the first thing you want to do is practice writing in each of the text types that you are required to know and understand and be able to write in so in terms of preparation that's absolutely nothing stopping you from writing a persuasive article trying to get your your classmates to live healthier lives alternatively there's nothing stopping you from right a journal entry about a holiday holiday that you've just been on I think in terms of the directive writing question what Cambridge look for is someone who has a good grasp of the English language a good grasp of how to construct effective paragraphs sentences etc but most importantly how to write with a clear and engaging voice and of course the voice that you would adopt for a formal report versus an informal letter for example they are going to be very different things so definitely practice nonfiction writing number three guys is accuracy with your writing okay gosh and if I had a pound for every time a student comment spliced in my class I probably wouldn't be teaching there are a few unforgivable mistakes which Cambridge hate okay students who cannot use commas correctly is probably one of the most important things okay if you are a prolific comma splice err okay if you use a comma in between two independent clauses for example you are not going to get a top mark if you are someone who messes up their tenses you are probably not going to get a top marks poor spelling as well and missing a posture of apostrophes these basic things which Cambridge expect you to have mastered come year 11 you need to get them sorted particularly if you're aiming for a top grade number four kind of links back to my first point guys and that's all about the vocabulary choices that you choose to use in I guess especially the directed writing question if you are aiming for a top grade Cambridge like to see students who can you and Bish's vocabulary okay so not just mono syllabic words this is especially true for the directed writing question where you quite often have to assume the role of the character they want to see sentence structures for effect they want to see ambitious vocabulary which will allow you to essentially create this convincing voice and this convincing character as per what you have just read in the text so that pretty old question how do you improve your vocabulary well as I said it kind of links back to my first point you have to read and I don't just mean passively read a book if you stumble across a word which you don't understand what it means define that word add it to a glossary and it's more likely another word is gonna stay out there now number five my last tip is to do practice papers once you have honed or mastered all of the skills needed to succeed that first language English there's no reason why you can't hop onto the Cambridge website and download a plethora of past papers just like maths and science you know there's other important subjects yes I know you're probably sitting there thinking well Cambridge you know they change the paper they made it ten times more difficult there's only one 2020 paper however that shouldn't matter too much because there's plenty of pass papers where you can practice the core skills summarise in directing writing and the writers effect question and of course if you do attempt to practice paper or pass paper be sure to download the mark scheme as well and all of these resource can be found on the cambridge website for example if you are wanting to attempt a writer defect question have a go and then look at the mark scheme and see if your points marry up with what Cambridge suggests students should be exploring so there you have it guys my five top tip to prepare you for the first language I GCSE exam as always if you have any questions please do leave them below and thank you for all of your support so far again give this video a thumbs up or even subscribe if you want to and I promise you that I will try and reply but I'm pretty busy until next time bye bye