The Individual Oral (IO)

There has been a significant change in the internal assessment (IA). Like all other IAs, the literature internal assessment is a requirement for both HL and SL students. Students deliver a well prepared 10-minute oral presentation; this is followed by 5 minutes of follow-up questions from your teacher–all concerning a global issue present in two works.

In the Literature course, one of these literary works needs to have been written originally in the Language A; the second literary work is in translation. In the Language and Literature course, one of the works is a literary work originally written in the Language A; the second work is a non-literary body of work by a single author/brand/agency. It is essential that you study the two works you choose for this assessment in your class before you begin your preparation. The entire 15-minute exam session will be audio recorded. In the Literature course, students must choose the equivalent of 40 lines of text from each work, and they can bring these excerpts to the recording session but with no highlights or annotations. In the Language and Literature course, students must choose the equivalent of 40 lines from the literary work and samples from the non-literary body of work, and they can bring these excerpts to the recording sessions but with no highlights or annotations.

In both courses, students will need to bring hard/paper copies of the two excerpts to the recording and supply digital versions to their teacher for e-submission to the IB along with the complete, unedited mp3 audio recording.

Authenticity is a critical aspect of the IO, and it starts with selecting a global issue. Instructors play a crucial role in ensuring the authenticity of the student's work. Support is necessary for the entire duration of the internal assessment. Teachers should ensure that students know the individual oral requirements, the academic honesty standards, and the assessment criteria. A conducive environment and proper teacher-student relationship fosters communication between the instructors and students, allowing the students to benefit from advice, guidance, and information. Guidance extends to selecting the assessment topic and the appropriate works and excerpts that can support the scope of the chosen global issue. Periodic feedback also enlightens the students on areas of improvement that will help fulfill the assessment criteria. This same level of preparation applies to other IB assessments like the Extended Essay and Theory of Knowledge (TOK).

Understanding the IO assessment criteria's scope is paramount, considering they are similar for SL and HL students. Your teacher will assess your IO and supply the marks for each criterion to the IB; these scores will then be moderated by an external examiner based on a sample from among the entire class's work. Each criterion has multiple descriptors to consider during the assessment. Teachers should note that a student's work may not fit all the descriptors. Therefore, the assessment takes the best-fit approach, which entails looking for the descriptor that best explains the student's achievement level for each criterion.