Every spring, Grade 12 Diploma Programme students in Higher Level English take a 40-minute oral examination that is sent off and evaluated by the International Baccalaureate Organization (IB). This oral examination (or Individual Oral Commentary, as the IB refers to it) requires that students spend twenty minutes preparing for and presenting an eight-minute oral commentary on a poem they studied in the fall.
The seniors must be prepared to analyze a variety of poems. This past fall, they focused their studies on the poetry of Robert Frost. When each student arrived in the exam room at his or her designated time, they were given an excerpt from a piece of poetry and a prompt to address by English teacher, Gretchen Arguedas. They had 20 minutes to prepare their response, and then were expected to speak for eight minutes while presenting their response and analysis. They also responded to questions about the poem posed by their teacher. Finally, students were asked questions about either A Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood or Shakespeare’s MacBeth for another 10 minutes.
Senior Alex P wrote, “The English oral exams have helped me learn to think on my feet under pressure and come up with a strong argument under time constraints. They have also helped me learn to infer certain ideas and themes from a text and how they can affect the way it reads.”
Given that students only have one chance to prepare and record this oral, and the teacher is not allowed to interrupt the recording, this assessment is often the most stressful portions of the Diploma Programme exams for many students. Students are required to have a strong command of a wide range of material and must think and communicate effectively under pressure.
Well done, Class of 2014!
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