AICE English Language 1 AS

Course Description

For more information about this Cambridge course, visit the curriculum page of the Cambridge Assessment International Education website. 

The key concepts for Cambridge International AS & A Level English Language are:

• Text and context: A text can be defined as a single, coherent unit of language, from the briefest spoken utterance to a book published across several volumes. However, no text exists without context; students of the English language must always consider how a text’s meaning is informed by the circumstances not only of its production, but also of its communication and reception.
• Meaning and style: The study of English language involves developing a range of strategies for exploring the complex ways in which different linguistic elements come together to create meaning. Whether producing their own texts or analyzing texts produced by others, students of the English language must consider how choices regarding form, structure and language also interact to create a distinctive style.
• Audience: Students of English language must learn to identify and analyze the strategies writers and speakers use to communicate with their intended audience(s). Likewise, they must be able to predict, recognise and analyze the various responses these strategies might elicit.
• Creativity: Whether writing artfully for a specified purpose and audience, reading deeply between the lines of a challenging text, or developing strategies for acquiring the language in the first place, users of the English language must demonstrate creativity in a range of forms and contexts.
• Diversity: Constantly subject to a range of influences – whether personal, social, geographical or otherwise – the English language exists in a range of competing and overlapping forms at any given moment. This extraordinary diversity offers a rich opportunity for analysis, comparison and exploration.
• Change: The phonological, morphological, semantic, syntactic and other aspects of the English language are liable to change over time. Students of the English language must analyze these changes and explore in detail the factors that drive them.

Additional Information

Students must sit for the AICE Exam, which may occur after the end of the school year.