A Level English is essentially the study of how language works; how we acquire language and how it is used in a wide variety of other contexts, as well as considering how the power of language can be harnessed to communicate different messages. You will be looking at all kinds of writing from advertisements through to fiction extracts and political speeches. Studying English Language at A Level, thus, really helps develop your analytical skills and your problem-solving skills. The focus of lessons will always be analytical – helping you develop your interpretation of the unseen texts and linguistic data you are studying. However, Sixth Form lessons tend to have a more informal atmosphere, due to smaller class sizes, and the onus is very much on your response. From group work investigations to individual presentations, to whole class discussions, you will be offered a range of different activities and approaches to enhance your understanding of language use in both spoken and written modes. Inevitably, the nature of A Level study requires you to consolidate work completed in class with significant independent reading. Therefore, you will need to be prepared to spend time reading and researching everything about the way language works from the importance of grammar to the impact of text messaging on the development of the English Language. You will be set roughly one hour and 30 minutes to two hours homework a week, per topic studied, and you usually study two topics concurrently.