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There is a myth that A-level English Language is an easy option and is not taken particularly seriously by employers. Do not be fooled. If you want to stand out from the crowd, read on!

Similar to other A-level subjects, English Language is nothing like its GCSE or IGCSE precursor. It is challenging, requires knowledge of specific terminology and involves analysis of a variety of texts from diverse genres and subjects – and not only written texts. Some of the questions it raises are for example, why do people speak in a particular way in different situations? Do men and women speak differently? What makes a good communicator? With questions such as these, A-level English Language offers students the opportunity to learn a great deal about language while actively engage with it.

For many students and their parents, the choice of what to study is linked to beliefs about university admission procedures and employment options after graduation. Studying English Language enables students to pursue opportunities linked not only to language, but also those within areas such as human-computer interface design, business communication, marketing or advertising. Moreover, with its strong focus on analysis, reasoning and communication, A-level English Language is also particularly valuable for law and the business world.

A-level English Language fosters the intellectual abilities and related skills sought by universities and employers. Business and law schools consistently indicate a preference for students with skills related to written and oral communication, critical thinking, problem solving, international perspectives and creativity.

For students who decide that the scientific study of language (linguistics) is the university course for them, they can opt to study linguistics with subjects such as psychology, journalism, social sciences, translation or education. Alternatively, they can choose to specialise in linguistics and its related areas. For linguistic graduates, employment opportunities are wide as there is a shortage of prospective employees with a background in linguistics. Indeed when Professor Stanley Peters of Stanford University, was asked if there a demand for people with a linguistics background, he replied, ‘You bet there is,’ and noted that the supply of such people was ‘extremely limited.’

So to return to A-level English Language, what does this course of study involve?

The course of study is divided into four units in the same way that other A-levels are, and so there are AS and A2 levels. The entire course considers a wide range of spoken, written and multi-modal texts, thereby providing the inspiration to learn about spoken and written language from real and imaginary worlds, as well as to engage in the craft of creating one’s own texts.

The AS-level provides a focus on the familiar and engaging area of everyday language. It has a practical emphasis on finding out about written and spoken language and using it effectively. It also looks at how language choices reflect identity and context variation, while also looking at the writing process used to generate different genres for different audiences.

A2, on the other hand, focuses on the origins of and variations and changes to the English language over time, moving on to the present use of English as a global language. Other topics studied include the development of children’s spoken and written language, and Unit 4 of A2 provides students with the opportunity to choose a topic from the course for investigation and subsequent presentation of an internally assessed project of 2,500 – 3,000 words – a real research project!

So is English Language A Level is an easy option? Absolutely not – it’s the gateway to many different degree and subsequent career options.

Sean Martin

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Last weekend, Hong Kong’s Lyric Theatre played host to the Bridge Project’s version of Shakespeare’s Richard III, with the eponymous (the character named in the play’s title) king played by top American actor, Kevin Spacey.

The play tells the story of King Richard’s murder of his brother, his nephews (otherwise known as the Princes in the Tower), his wife, and many noblemen who would or might have opposed him in his bloody quest to become King of England.

Shakespeare’s version of Richard’s rise to power was, and still is, controversial. It is sometimes said to be a work of Tudor propaganda that transformed Richard from a reputable king into one of the blackest villains in English history.

King Richard was defeated by Richmond at the Battle of Bosworth Field, and Richmond went on to become King Henry VII. Henry VII was the founder of the Tudor dynasty, and he was Henry VIII’s father and Elizabeth I’s grandfather. As Shakespeare wrote the play in 1597 during the reign of Elizabeth I, he would have been unlikely to portray Richmond’s succession to the throne in a negative light.

The complex historical background to the play and the large number of characters present on stage can make Richard III a difficult play to understand and/or appreciate. However, Sam Mendes, the director of this production, assisted the audience by projecting the name(s) of the key character(s) in each scene onto the set.
The play was performed in modern dress, but the periods from which the styles of dress were taken varied from scene to scene. In some scenes, the actors’ costumes suggested pre-World War II Britain, with Richard dressed like Hitler or Mussolini; at other times, Richard was dressed like a military dictator with his uniform covered in gold tassels and decorations. This mixture of historical periods unfortunately did not have the effect the director may have wanted, if that was to encourage the audience to think about tyrannical rulers in modern times.
The costumes were not the only confusing factor in the play. Spacey’s performance as King Richard did not reflect the play’s portrayal of him as an evil monster. Spacey drew more on the play’s humour than on Richard’s ruthless ambition and loathing for himself and all those around him. By making the play more ‘accessible’, Richard’s unscrupulous viciousness and nihilistic sense of humour were missing, and these are key to his character and the play.

Some scenes, particularly those involving Haydn Gwynne’s wonderful portrayal of Queen Elizabeth, capture the very essence of this play. However, scenes such as these need to be seen in contrast to scenes such as when Buckingham persuades the citizens of London to support Richard’s claim to the throne. Unfortunately, Spacey’s focus on humour meant that the sense of menace that should have been built up simply collapsed. An example of this was when the audience laughed at Richard’s declaration to Buckingham – ‘I wish the bastards dead’, the ‘bastards’ referring to the princes in the tower. It was quite sad that the play was changed in this way from an exploration of tyranny, dark ambition and murder into a semi-comic tale.
The production was not without its merits though. Spacey’s performance was impressively physical, and he captured the exaggerated acting style of a British theatrical actor perfectly. But the real high points of the play were delivered by the female actors, especially Gwynne. My lasting memory of this production will be of a raw and authentic Act IV, Scene IV in which her naturalistic and emotion-drawing performance captured the true spirit of Richard III.

To conclude, the true lesson of Richard III is that an absolute lust for power by someone with an immoral, asocial, and unrepentant nature can twist the world around them with tragic consequences. Surely this is not something in which there is much humour.

Matthew Wisbey

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When I first moved to Hong Kong, I was bemused by the advertisements for tuition services that I saw on posters, billboards, buses and television. After finding work as a tutor, I became even more confused. How could tuition companies possibly have the budget to pay for such extensive advertising? I thought the tutors in the ads must be quite amazing to have their images plastered all over the city, and more importantly, I wondered when my name would be up in lights.

A colleague recently sent me a link to an article entitled Meet the Glamorous Celebrity Tutors of Hong Kong from a US website, Slate.com (http://www.slate.com/id/2302695/), which provided the answers to my questions.

The Slate article reveals that some tuition schools can afford to spend in excess of US$1 million per year on advertising, including slots on prime time television, because of the huge number of students that they teach. Beacon College, one of the oldest and most famous tuition companies in Hong Kong, has about 60 tutors and more than 25,000 students. This is a ratio of 417 students to a tutor. The article depicts such tutors as being more like pop stars than teachers; and according to writer Hillary Brenhouse, tutors can’t wear the same outfit twice in case their ‘fans’ notice, won’t disclose that they are married in case it diminishes their popularity, and can have earnings of more than US$1 million dollars a year. The faces of these tutors are so widely recognised that they have, in effect, become brands in their own rights. Even I can name two or three of them, having seen their posters and bold claims of success on the way to work each day.
So why don’t ITS’ tutors have their faces on posters on the MTR or on the side of buses?

The answer lies in a culinary analogy – food comparison – that the Slate article notes. The article quotes Professor Mark Bray of the University of Hong Kong as saying that, ‘Hong Kong cram schools are like the McDonald’s of education: they have a product, they mass produce it, it’s relatively cheap, it’s probably not very nutritious, but it fills your stomach.’
I have already mentioned the tutor to student ratio at Beacon. At ITS, we have around 50 tutors working with approximately 600 students at any one time; this is a ratio of 12 students to each tutor. We are more like a Michelin-starred restaurant than a McDonalds fast food restaurant: we take immense pride in creating a product that is made to order and which is, in knowledge terms, highly nutritious.

So when am I going to have my name lit up in lights as one of Hong Kong’s celebrity tutors? Well, Hong Kong can breathe a sigh of relief as this is exceedingly unlikely to happen! I want to be known for my well-prepared ‘meals’ that have been created with care and attention, and I want to be part of the ITS team of ‘chefs’ that each day feels a sense of pride and pleasure in the quality of their ingredients, their preparation techniques and their delivery of nutritious meals.

Matt Wisbey is a Director at ITS Global Education Limited. ITS Global Education’s mission is to help students from Hong Kong, China and Singapore to fulfill their potential by taking advantage of the best educational opportunities that the world has to offer. We advise parents on how their children can access the best schools, colleges, universities, vacation courses and summer camps available globally. Contact us now for a free, no-obligation consultation.

Profile:           http://mattwisbey.brandyourself.com/

Telephone     +852 2116 3916
Email:           global@tuition.edu.hk
Website:       http://www.tuition.com.hk
Twitter:          @ITSEducation

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Return to: ITS Tutorial School Home Page

On 6 September 2011, the inventor of the eBook (the electronic book) and founder of Project Gutenberg passed away. Michael S Hart created the first eBook in 1971, long before the advent of the Internet or the availability of cheap, high-capacity storage devices and portable computers.

Hart dreamt of making books available to everyone via computers. From this dream, he founded Project Gutenberg (www.gutenberg.org) and invented eBooks. His remarkable website, Project Gutenberg, is named after Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg (c. 1398 – 1468), the first European to use movable type, and the inventor of the printing press. The invention of the printing press enabled the mass production and distribution of books for the first time in history.

Dr Gregory Newby’s obituary for Michael S Hart (http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Michael_S._Hart) quotes Hart as once saying, ‘One thing about eBooks that most people haven’t thought much (about) is that eBooks are the very first thing that we’re all able to have as much as we want other than air. Think about that for a moment and you realize we are in the right job.’ Indeed, Hart’s invention of the eBook represents the greatest revolution in the distribution of text since Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press, with the name Project Gutenberg therefore being entirely appropriate.
Anyone with access to a computer and the Internet can now gain access to more than 36,000 free eBooks in sixty different languages from Project Gutenberg. Moreover, the website offers many eBook titles that are difficult, if not impossible, to get hold of by any other means. Because of Project Gutenberg, books can now be easily downloaded onto a desktop or laptop computer. However, it is much easier to read them if they are then copied to an eReader (eBook Reader), with the two most common e-Readers in Hong Kong being Amazon’s Kindle and Apple’s iPad.
The Kindle and the iPad eReaders are quite different. The Kindle is a single-purpose device dedicated to the reading of eBooks. It comes in two sizes, the smaller of which – the Kindle 3 – is about the same size as a paperback book. The larger – the Kindle DX – is of a similar size to an iPad. The iPad is a multi-purpose device which allows users to download Apps (applications) such as iBooks or Kindle, which can then be used to read eBooks.

As eBooks come in a variety of different formats, the use of an eBook management programme such as Calibre (http://calibre-ebook.com/) is recommended. This freeware allows people to manage their collections and to convert eBooks into the correct format for their e-Reader.

Free eBook services such as those provided by Project Gutenberg and also the University of Adelaide (http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/) are only allowed to distribute books whose copyright has expired in the USA or Australia respectively. This means that readers outside of the USA or Australia should check whether the book they would like to download is subject to copyright laws in their country of residence. In addition, as these two suppliers of eBooks only offer out of copyright books, readers should not expect to find the latest releases available on either of these websites. However, the majority of new titles are usually available from eBook shops such as Amazon (www.amazon.com/) or Barnes & Noble (http://www.barnesandnoble.com/).

It’s clear to see how the technological advances pioneered by the remarkable Michael S Hart have created a literary legacy from which all readers will continue to benefit. Where eBooks and eReaders will take readers next is unknown, but without the forward-thinking Michael S Hart, we may not have had the chance to even speculate on this.

Matt Wisbey is a Director at ITS Global Education Limited. ITS Global Education’s mission is to help students from Hong Kong, China and Singapore to fulfill their potential by taking advantage of the best educational opportunities that the world has to offer. We advise parents on how their children can access the best schools, colleges, universities, vacation courses and summer camps available globally. Contact us now for a free, no-obligation consultation.

Profile:           http://mattwisbey.brandyourself.com/

Telephone     +852 2116 3916
Email:           global@tuition.edu.hk
Website:       http://www.tuition.com.hk
Twitter:          @ITSEducation

Return to: ITS Tutorial School Home Page

Return to: ITS Tutorial School Home Page

ITS was recently invited to give a presentation to more than fifty high-flying HKDSE students from top Hong Kong schools, who are interested in applying for the universities of Oxford and Cambridge or for Medical degrees at UK universities, as well as a number of careers and guidance masters from their schools. The event was organised by the Hong Kong Association of Careers Masters and Guidance Masters (www.hkacmgm.org/), with assistance from the British Council (www.britishcouncil.org/) and the Education Bureau (www.edb.gov.hk/). After opening addresses by Flora Yau of HKACMGM and Sophia Chan-Combrink of the British Council, the ITS team presented its advice. ITS has a long track record of giving students helpful advice on writing personal statements for their Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (‘UCAS’) applications; we have helped hundreds of students to gain places at their preferred universities since 2006. As recognised experts in the area, we were delighted to have the opportunity to be able to help some of Hong Kong’s very best students.

Sue Smith, Director of Exam Services, gave a presentation on the process of applying to UK universities via UCAS. Sue gave detailed guidance on the on-line UCAS application process and reminded students and counsellors of the key deadlines. Danny Harrington, co-owner of ITS, spoke about the critically important issue of personal statement writing. All UCAS applications must include a personal statement of no more than whichever is fewer of 4,000 characters (including spaces) or 47 lines. Danny explained that this statement, which is sent to all five of the universities for which the student has applied, should focus on demonstrating the student’s intellectual curiosity and their reasons for wanting to study a particular subject at university level. Matt Wisbey, Director of Studies, finished the presentation by giving the counsellors advice on how they should help students with their personal statement writing and what they consider when preparing references.

Once the main presentations were completed, the group split into three for breakout sessions: Danny worked with those students interested in Oxford and Cambridge; Sue ran a workshop for students interested in medical degrees; while Matt gave advice to the careers and guidance masters in attendance. All those who attended seemed to find the seminar very useful and we at ITS are delighted to have been able to assist the students and counsellors in this way. Flora Yau commented that “The workshop was indeed an impressive one as the top students in Hong Kong gained the most up-to-date information of UCAS and also the valuable advice on how to write inspiring personal statement to gain better chance to get into the universities”. We at ITS are, of course, always delighted to help students to navigate the complexity of the UCAS application process. If we can help you or your child, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us.

To book a personal statement writing lesson with Sue, Danny, Matt, or one of our other expert tutors, please email us at info@tuition.com.hk. Please note that applications for entry to Oxford, Cambridge, medicine, dentistry and veterinary science in 2012 must be submitted to UCAS by 15 October 2011; applications for all other universities and courses must be submitted by 15 January 2012.

Matt Wisbey is a Director at ITS Global Education Limited. ITS Global Education’s mission is to help students from Hong Kong, China and Singapore to fulfill their potential by taking advantage of the best educational opportunities that the world has to offer. We advise parents on how their children can access the best schools, colleges, universities, vacation courses and summer camps available globally. Contact us now for a free, no-obligation consultation.

Profile:           http://mattwisbey.brandyourself.com/

Telephone     +852 2116 3916
Email:           global@tuition.edu.hk
Website:       http://www.tuition.com.hk
Twitter:          @ITSEducation

Return to: ITS Tutorial School Home Page