First languages: Finnish and English

Good morning fellow IB students!!

As you may know by now one third of the Diploma is language oriented. This basically means that you have to study at least two languages which may include English and some other language like the language spoken in the country where you are right now. Of course, if you are a keen linguist like our Nelli here, you can opt for a third language resulting in a 50% language component.

Today we will start by talking a bit about the language spoken in Finland which is.. any guesses? Yes, you know it. Finnish!! Unfortunately, only two out of four Musketeers study this mentioned and by all means, pleasant subject.

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We, Heidi and Nelli, chose Finnish as one of our subjects because we only read books and do essays on them. So no grammar taught anymore. If you like reading consider choosing First Language option. But if you are not keen on reading then this is not a subject for you. For Higher Level there are 13 books to read and for Standard Level there are 10 books. And these books are divided into four categories: Translated Literature, Literary Genres, Novels and finally, Themes. We don't have an actual IA on this subject but we do have a similar writing task.

Let's start with Translated Literature. This is 25% of your final grade. Higher Level students read three books and Standard Level students only have to read two.  Some of our books are actually easy to read and interesting unlike the English books which you will read about soon. Of course this is only our opinion, you make your own later. One of our books was The Kite Runner. The writing task we mentioned is on the Translated Literature and it is 1200-1500 words. This is less than the IA word limit which is around 2000 words. We had to do  two short analyses on each book we read.

The next category, Literary Genres, include 3 literary pieces for Higher Level and 2 for Standard Level exactly like with Translated Literature. These pieces will consist of a novel, poem and a play. Standard level students only have two of the mentioned pieces, so your teacher will most likely choose the ones you will have to do. Unfortunately, you cannot choose. Additionally, out of one, or even all of these pieces - if it truly is what you want - you will be obliged to do an oral test (it is like a discussion analyzing one or more of the pieces) which will be recorded and sent to the IBO. We bet that the recording part of the whole process sounds the most scary to you, but don’t worry!  You’ll have had a but-load of practice discussions in class. This recorded oral test will sum up to be 15% of your grade, which isn't too bad. We imagine this will be just about the same in your school, whatever country you are in at the moment.

The third and the most important category is the Novels- category. Now if ever is the time to pay attention.. Higher Level students have the honor of reading four novels and Standard Level students have to settle for a lousy three novels. Your final exam essay question will be based on these books. So it’s advisable for you to buy at least these books for yourself if not the others. One of our novel in this category is a Finnish classic: The Unknown Soldier by Väinö Linna. You should check it out if you are into Finnish... culture... or something. This category sums up to 25% of the final grade so do remember to read up your books. 

The picture is quite accurate, representing us in the battle against the IA’s and EE’s.. ;-) 

For the last but certainly not the least will be the Themes category. Both Higher and Standard Level students will have three books on which you will have to do a presentation. Again. Not too much else to say about this than that it will affect your grade by 15%.

In the subject of IB Finnish, we have to keep a reading notebook and we do advise you to get one too if you are planning to study Finnish or some other language your school provides. In these notebooks, we make notes on the books we read, so that when the time comes to start studying for the final exams, instead of reading all the books again and again, we can just revise by reading our notes. It may consume some time from hanging out with your friends, but we assure you, when it is final exam time you will not be sorry. That is why we recommend putting a lot of effort into making proper notes that you can still read after a year's time, since they will really pay off when you are studying. 

So we get to the lovely topic of the final exams in IB Finnish. The exams include two pieces of writing: one of them is a comparative essay on the books from group three, the second piece of writing is a long 'comment' on a text that you will get when the exam begins, so there will be no time to prepare for that one. The long comment will come up to be about 20% of your final grade. Also, you will have to write as much as you can in the given time for there is NO WORD LIMIT. Bummer.

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Now, its English time, which all of us are indeed studying and are obliged to study. Well, who wouldn't in the IB? As you know, English is THE most important language that one needs in IB - or maybe even around the globe - and the main reason why so many students attend this programme! This is a mandatory subject in the IB either at Standard Level or at Higher Level. All of us Four Musketeers and pretty much our entire class has HIGHER LEVEL English because we are just cool like that. Just kidding.. Or are we?

Jokes aside, English consists of a lot of  reading, analyzing, writing tasks as well as presentations. Right now we are preparing our FOAs - which stands for Further Oral Assessment - where we are allowed to choose between a debate or a presentation on language in a cultural context. Every students has to speak for five to seven minutes which means that a group of three would have a fifteen to twenty minute presentation approximately. We are not allowed to go over seven minutes per person and will only be assessed for that time. We will have two of these FOAs during the entire two year programme, the first one will not be recorded but the second one will and will be sent to the IBO. Additionally, we will also have to do our own individual oral presentations... Scary, huh?

By now, we have finished one written task on a fictional novel (do not call these books, this is prohibited in the IB!) called 'The Great Gatsby'. It was a fun and an easy-going experience all in all, we got to release our creative side and write a fictional piece continuing the story or just writing an article on the events that occurred in the novel. Of course, you'll probably not be studying this novel or the novels/plays we are about to read because they vary from school to school since the teachers get to choose the what will be read and what will not. We actually won't be having Internal Assessments on this subject due to the fact that we FOAs and written tasks so, these compensate for them quite nicely.

In test conditions we will have two papers in Higher and Standard Level; in Standard Level, Paper 1 consists of a comment on one of two texts within one and a half hours and in Higher Level, a compare and contrast text on one of two pairs of texts within two hours is required. In Higher and Standard Level, passages for analysis may be complete pieces of writing or extracts from larger works. There is also the possibility of commenting on a visual text or an extract from a longer piece. Possible text types for analysis include: advertisements, opinion columns, brochures, extracts from memoirs, or travel writing.

For Paper 2 in Standard and Higher Level, you will have to answer 1 out of 6 questions, Standard and Higher Level students will receive the same six questions. Easy enough? We think so too. In Standard Level exams, you will have 1.5 hours to complete Paper 2 and in Higher Level exams you will receive an extra half an hour to complete. Each paper will count for 25% of the final grade, which doesn't sound too harsh. So the test score will be only 50% of your actual grade. Don't worry about it too much! Another good tip for good exam results in Paper 2 is to remember quotes!! According to our teacher, you cannot receive a top grade unless you have explained a few quotes in your text/analysis.

Well, that's something for you to process for the day and we sure do hope you learned something. Next time we will be discussing the Arts and B languages like French, German and self-taught. We will be looking forward to it!