A level English Language AND A level English Literature???

[Wuldric]

DD is just working out her choices for A level and making applications now. She thinks she might like to do both Englishes. Back sometime in prehistory, I did an English degree but I have no experience of anyone doing A level English Language. It simply was not taught.

What would a university admissions tutor say to someone applying to read English if they did both Englishes at A level? Would it be viewed negatively? Because if so then she probably shouldn't do both. Do you have any insight on this?

that only applies to Eng Lit degrees though, I think? for anything else the combined one is fine

I just think it's an unhappy compromise.

But it must have benefits, or they wouldn't still offer it?

Creative Writing ranks the same as Eng Lang in the Trinity, Cambridge list...(mind you combined Lit/Lang isn't there at all. So either it counts between the 2, or it doesn't count at all )

It got DD2 into Leeds to do Linguistics anyway so was useful for her. When she opted for it at 16 she had no idea what she wanted to do at uni, but during 6th form found she much preferred Lang to Lit.

Now she is a brilliant teacher, of both, for KS3 & 4, so it has been wonderful for her - not an unhappy compromise at all

Interestingly, it was the language I thought suffered in the combination.

I was told not to and am still annoyed about it as they are totally different! Language is my first love so I did Lang and went on to do a Linguistics degree, but I ended up as an English teacher and had to work my arse off to get my Lit knowledge up to scratch.

I would say do Lit unless particularly interested in Language.

I did A level lit and lang, did loads books in both also summary writing and a few short stories

only did crazy Eng lang stuff in my Eng lit & lang degree, then lang gets V difficult split up beyond phonemes, for example

not in her case - it was the linguistics part of Lang that made her want to do the degree! She enjoyed the Lang much more than the Lit

If she had had to choose one or the other (this was 1998, so no AS levels with one to drop at A2) I don't know which she would have gone for. Her others were History & Politics.

Maybe the syllabus has changed now?

Theone, yes I was talking about Eng Lit degrees only.

It certainly has changed since 98. Then the combined course was literally a selection of papers from each of the single courses. A much better proposal than what the spec involves now, in my opinion.

ah

what is it like now?

DD did both and found it an advantage. She studied English Lit at Exeter, and found the ability to dissect language an advantage. She did not find two English A levels disadvantaged her when applying. I am an English teacher and would have found it useful to have an A level in English language. (I have an A level and degree in English literature)

My experience of the joined version was that linguistics was an afterthought and merely consisted of some language change between two literary texts (without an interesting length between them. Poe to Chandler) and a bit of non-literary analysis.
I enjoyed studying language change (old English to modern slang), sociolinguistics. psycholinguistics and child language acquisition at A level in the separate course. Our coursework brief was to do a research project on something languagey! Such freedom

It depends where she wants to go to study English lit, OP.

I have a DD studying English at an RG uni right now so have ju led through that admissions hoop. And 3 or 4 of her friends jumped through the same hoop at the same time.

As oths have said, to read English lit at uni she should have an English lit A 2. She wouldn't get a place at an RG uni without it.

Would doing English Lang at AS disadvantage her? Possibly, yes. If you're looking at Oxford or Bristol for instance, there is evidence ( on their pages) of the subjects they see as helpful - history and MFL being the examples that I recall ( my DD had neither of those, mind - but then Oxford and Bristol both rejected her!).

If it were my DD and she was choosing A level subjects again, I'd be suggesting a language and history to maximise those chances.

When I was doing my A Levels 15 years ago I was advised not to do this and to choose English Literature as it is a more respected qualification than English Language and on reflection I feel my teacher gave the right advice.

dn is now at Bristol and took Eng Lang A Level. So clearly they don't necessarily care.

Thanks for the advice all and for sharing your experience. It is really very much appreciated.

DH keeps telling me not to hark back to my time applying to university to read English because it was such a long time ago ... :) True enough.

DD will be doing History but not a language. It's funny but her languages are weak. Partly she doesn't have the same aptitude and also she's been badly taught. The French teaching at her current school has been very mixed (17 different teachers over 4 years and counting) and generally poor so it will be a struggle for her even to get an A/A* at GCSE and A level is out of the question.

Is her degree English Lit, Iain?

DD (who did Lit and Lang at A level) did French at AS and, due to staffing issues, got a D, despite A* at GCSE. This seriously affected her offers. Unless your DD has an aptitude for languages, I would say avoid them. There are lots of other academic subjects- history etc that will stand her in good stead. In many cases, grades count more than subject choices.

I definitely agree with greyvix and should have said in my own post - an A in most things is better than a B in a language. My DD's offers were all (2 years ago) 3 As so that's the most important thing.

I teach both A levels: whilst I must confess to preferring the literature A level, there are some interesting elements in the Eng Lang A level too.

I teach the AQA syllabus which covers modules on language development, language change (seeing how speech and writing has altered across the ages) and my favourite unit which is language and power/gender/technology.

As an A level it's a pretty steep learning curve for those who know nothing of grammar,but it's also helpful if you are closely analysing subtext and rhetorical impact and that sort of thing.

"As oths have said, to read English lit at uni she should have an English lit A 2. She wouldn't get a place at an RG uni without it." One of DS's friends on the combined Lit/Lang A level course read English Lit at Warwick, so this isn't necessarily so.

What I seem to have gleaned from checking half a dozen university admission pages, is that Eng Lit courses require either Eng Lit at A2 OR A2 in combined Lit/Lang.

May I hijack a little regarding Eng Lit-there is an independent secondary school we are interested in for DD but they have a different approach to most schools in that they don't do eng lit gcse but instead go straight to AS lit and spend two years on that. We worry that this might cause problems later on, if everyone else has the gcse.