My main goal for English this year is essentially to pick up from where I left off last year, since I can almost certainly say I learnt more in English last year than I did in all my previous years of schooling combined. Everything just seemed to click last year, be it essay writing, micro-analysis, or language itself, mostly courtesy of Ms. Levy’s amazing teaching. Academically, my English skills improved drastically last year, and I don’t intend on stopping. 

I suppose if I were to be a bit more specific with my goals, my primary goal would be to incorporate my learnings from the English classroom into the outside world, instinctively. At the moment, I’m good at applying English classroom skills within the classroom, but once class is over, I mentally shelve my English toolbox until the next class, when I bring it back out again. What I’m looking to develop is the instinct to apply my classroom knowledge into non-classroom situations, such as my pleasure reading. When I’m reading a book, I shouldn’t just be reading to follow the plot; I should be trying to get into the author’s head and trying to understand why they made certain choices and what those choices mean. I should be conducting micro-analyses not because I have an essay to write about the book later, but because that’s what a good English student does; they are always in classroom mode.

The same applies for the language section of this course, which is something I’ve always found intriguing. After years of solely studying literature and getting a taster of language last year, I knew that this was right for me not only because I enjoyed it, but also because of the inter transferable skills it provides. I love politics and am taking Global Politics as one of my HL subjects. Understanding a politician’s policies is one thing, but understanding their language is just as important, and the linguistic aspect of the course will hopefully equip me with the necessary skills to do so. The spontaneous nature of it appeals to me, and the idea that a politician could give a speech one day only for us to analyse it in class the next day is something that I look forward to.

I briefly touched on an experience that I feel the course would have helped me understand better, and that is being more aware and using more of my English toolbox when reading novels, particularly classic novels. Ever since I started reading, I’ve read quite a few ‘classic’ novels, including 1984, The Catcher in the Rye, Lord of the Flies, Fahrenheit 451, and Catch-22, and I absolutely loved all of them (except Fahrenheit 451, which I believe is sensationally overrated). However, in hindsight I wish I’d read them with a bit more awareness and as I mentioned previously, attempted to get inside the author’s head and question the choices he/she made. This would’ve definitely led to a deeper understanding of the book and would have informed me of what warrants its ‘classic’ status. I hope that the course will prepare me for this, and I shall approach every book I read henceforth with this mentality, maybe even re-reading the aforementioned classics some time in the future with this firmly in my mind.