Are English Language essays hard to write?

[swampman]

This questions sounds silly, i know, but could someone please elaborate on this? Ive been looking at living lingo and essays from vcaa and past students,  and i have no idea what each essay is talking about nor understanding or absorbing the content of the textbook. Englang to me sounds like a lot of work, research and time to for me to comprehend...i read english essays from vcaa and i understood what the writer was writing about, would i be more suoted to english? But my school said that all englosh classes were full, and i want to get a head start on my english study too.

Btw, for year 11, i got D+ for end of year exam essay, even after talking to teacher how how to write them, practising writing and giving it to thh teacher to correct, etc.

Should i just really concentrate on englang, or start to email the school about seriously changing to english?

[#1procrastinator]

Did you do English or EL this year?

If you take EL, then you'll learn all that. I thought the 'Living Lingo' text was pretty difficult to follow too...the other one (sorry, dont recall the title) is a bit easier but not
 as detailed...they are like the Essential and Math Quest of EL imo, haha.

EL is subject that, IMO, is difficult to learn on your own. you gotta go to class and listen to discussions, different ideas and all that.

with regards to essay writing, it's something you just gotta keep practising. you dont have to limit to schoolwork, just practising expressing yourself if that is what you are struggling with.

[swampman]

I took English Language this year. I emailed the school about it, they said that I could only wait till school starts to see if another student drops out of English or if a English teacher agrees to teach a class with one extra person, then they said that because industrial action (strike) is happening, the possibility of that is near 0-.-

[Azerel]

English Language is quite different in essay writing because within each and every essay, you must incorporate metalanguage in your answers, that is: subsystems, prisodic features, paralinguistics, etc.
You must know the English Language jargon/registers if you want to score well.

I'd say people would get lower marks in English Language essays because:

1. They did not include metalanguage,
2. their essays were not concise and structured; thus, making it hard to read (this includes handwriting and grammar),
3. they did not know what they were talking about; exclusion of stimulus material,
4. they asked questions in their essay ie. "Why does language change?" or "Is this for the better?" you shouldn't include questions in an EL essay, and
5. they did not use sophisticated language (essential if you want to score high).

To answer your question swampman, here is how my teacher taught my cohort to write English Language essays:

1. An introduction must include an outline of your main arguments,
2. must include metalanguage - mention subsystems and use terms in your textbook specific to English Language,
3. must include stimulus material - you cannot simply quote the whole stimulus and stimulus must be embedded into your own words,
4. use of formal sophisticated language and proper grammar/syntax,
5. conclusion (similar to english) should include the summary of your ideas and stance, and
6. last but not least: use of contemporary media examples, this is a deadly weapon in EL essays which you should make use of, such as: articles from herald sun, the age papers, television, etc. Anything related to language change.

English Language is quite different from the mainstream English because of the contemporary examples that we use, I like to think of reading these articles as a substitute for reading books contained within English and Literature.

If you want to continue with English Language, I suggest that over the holidays you should learn and memorize the subsystems and learn more jargon relevant to English Language, reading some articles or books from Kate Burridge would also help, and maybe if you have time - try and write a couple of essays over summer and give them to your teacher to mark and show that you are keen on improving. You can find themes/topics to write about all over the interwebs.

Either way, if you move to English: you're still going to have to put in effort and work to get marks because this is something in common with all VCE subjects.
However, this is your decision, you should ensure that you select the subjects that you have a passion for - the subjects that you can derive a good score.

Good luck!
 

[#1procrastinator]

I took English Language this year. I emailed the school about it, they said that I could only wait till school starts to see if another student drops out of English or if a English teacher agrees to teach a class with one extra person, then they said that because industrial action (strike) is happening, the possibility of that is near 0-.-

That sucks man. I didn't take Yr 11 EL so I don't know how different that is to Units 3/4 but did you struggle in Yr 11 to understand the subject? Or, again, was it the communication of your ideas that you found difficult? If it's the latter, then if you don't keep working at it, you'll struggle in English as well.

When you say you read English VCAA essays and you understand what the writer's saying, but not so with EL essays, it's cause you gotta understand all the metalanguage and stuff in the subject for EL (again, not sure how much of this you learnt in YR 11 though). Whereas with English essays...it's aimed at a more 'general'l audience.....am I making sense? lol

Also, John1995 mentioned something super important that I completely forgot - that you DO have to do research and find up-to-date examples to use in your essays...I dropped out before we got deep into all that though :p But that's cause I was lazy and had already done English. If I hadn't, then I definitely would've stuck with EL and would prefer to do EL just cause I think it's more interesting and way more useful than English

[swampman]

Good points! But yeah, I really hate researching stuff, and I did struggle to understand the Year 11 course...

[swampman]

Are the examples and quotes hard to research?

[#1procrastinator]

I guess you gotta decide whether you're interested enough to continue with English Language (even if you might struggle). It does require more work than English in my opinion, but English is not as interesting (unless you like the text you're writing about).

Again, I think it's a difficult subject to learn on your own. Even going to class might not be enough - my teacher kept trying to get me to discuss it with other people and that definitely would've helped.

Anyway, I think I'm just repeating myself haha.

EDIT: I remember dying to find examples for some task + writing something about it (sorry, memory very fuzzy!). Was a bloody nightmare! But that was for a specific assignment/homework task where i had to find something very specific (I tend to over think on these things though). I imagine finding examples to incorporate into your essays would be easier (read the 'news'paper or watch TV...my teacher encouraged us to watch a LOT of TV, lol).

[Bhootnike]

Theyre not hard if you practice

Are the examples and quotes hard to research?

No! you can keep a media file throughout the year to help you, however I just remembered about 10 examples for each topic and yeah, all set for my exam and sacs

I suggest you buy something like the derrick ha english language essay guide, its really helpful.
Also the john gargolis guide on essays
Read some sample ones in the ENL board too

enl essays just require you to demonstrate your knowledge of the course on a given topic, using recent (2009 onwards, but favourably 2012 for this year, 2013 for when you sit the exam), examples.