English tutoring

Home Language (HL) is the more demanding level: its Paper 1 carries more weight on subtle language analysis and its literature essays expect deeper critical argument. FAL covers the same three-paper structure but with more accessible texts and language questions. Universities publish entry requirements for both, though some competitive programmes specify HL, so check before switching levels.

For the current NSC cycle (November 2025 to June 2027 exams), English HL schools choose from Life of Pi, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Hamlet, Othello and The Crucible, plus a prescribed poetry anthology. English FAL schools choose from Cry, the Beloved Country, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Macbeth and My Children! My Africa!. Your school selects which combination it teaches, so confirm your child's specific titles with the school.

Three written papers plus orals. Paper 1 covers comprehension, summary and language in context; Paper 2 covers the prescribed literature (poetry, novel and drama); Paper 3 covers writing — an essay plus transactional texts. Oral tasks done during the year contribute 12.5% of the final mark.

Plan before you write: choose a topic you can sustain, mind-map three to four solid points, and commit to a clear structure with an introduction, linked body paragraphs and a purposeful conclusion. Then get regular feedback — essay marks improve fastest when someone marks your drafts against the official rubric and shows you exactly where content, structure and language marks are leaking. This is one of the highest-impact things a tutor does.

Yes. Oral assessment tasks — prepared and unprepared speaking, reading aloud and listening — are completed during the school year and count 12.5% of the final NSC mark for both HL and FAL. Because they finish before the final exams, weak oral marks can't be rescued in November, so they're worth taking seriously from term one.

Very often, yes — this is the most common English tutoring request we see. Comprehension papers test technique: reading the questions before the passage, matching answer length to mark allocation, distinguishing fact from opinion, and inferring rather than copying. These are trainable skills, and one-on-one practice on past papers usually shifts marks within a term.

Most universities accept either, but the required achievement level can differ — some degrees ask for a higher mark in FAL than in HL, and a few programmes require HL specifically. A strong mark in the right level beats a weak mark in the harder one, so base the decision on your child's actual performance and the published entry requirements of the courses they're targeting.