Thinking AloudEnglish Blog

I’ve just cracked open The Vegetarian. And then I stopped writing and carried on reading. That was my day yesterday.

Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus is uncomfortably relevant. An intelligent man - a scholar, no less - trades his soul for limitless knowledge and twenty-four years of supremacy. In our world, the Mephistophelean pact isn’t written in blood but coded in algorithms.

Somewhere between the fourth bramble and the fifth step, my golden retriever puppy decided that she had experienced quite enough of coastal walks, thank you very much.  With the quiet dignity of a small Victorian child in a Dickens novel, she stopped dead in her tracks, sat down and gazed at me with the expression of one forced to walk barefoot to the workhouse. Reader, I carried her.

Changing your surroundings can change your thinking - and never more so than for A Level and IB students getting ahead of the game with their NEAs, HLEs or EEs.  (And if those acronyms mean nothing to you, enjoy your summer.  Coursework-free!)

What do you get when you cross Beckett with pop culture’s most laid-back duo? Potentially, something powerful.

If you (or your teenager) are studying Edexcel A Level after the summer, you might be tackling the full Romantics selection - or just Keats.  For AQA, OCR, or IB, one or more of these revolutionary poets are likely to appear.  These long holidays offer the perfect opportunity to deepen understanding without cracking open another anthology... just yet.

Welcome to the strange twilight zone that is mid-May - the middle of exam season.  You may be starting to feel like you live with a ghost who only emerges for snacks, sighs a lot, and occasionally mutters something about "how many exams are left?".   Days are counted in exam papers.  Life is looking endlessly bleak.  Hurrah, it’s the mid-point moan: the bit where adrenaline has worn off, motivation is flagging, and no one’s quite sure what day it is (without looking at an exa

While much of Hong Kong enjoys the serenity of Buddha’s Birthday, lotus lanterns, temple visits, maybe even a rare moment of peace, parents of exam-taking students are more likely lighting incense in the vague hope it will cleanse the air of teenage angst and essay-induced doom.

I was working with one of my lovely A Level students the other day, and we were deep into our discussion of Hamlet - when it happened.  I got it. I got Hamlet.

Easter is nearly upon us, hurrah, up to three weeks for your child to revise for their exams.  Are you ready?  Are they? 

Rejection: the gut-punch every writer faces.  History is full of books dismissed before becoming literary classics. 

Fear not.  Be it GCSE, IB, or A Level English Language and/or Literature, here are a few survival strategies... chocolate is involved.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that an English student in possession of a novel must be in want of the right answer.

While Western culture often casts snakes in a sinister light (looking at you, Bible), the Chinese interpretation is far more nuanced...

If I Am, I Am, I Am is about the individual’s fight for survival, Hamnet is about the collective weight of loss. 

There’s nothing quite like a Francis Bacon exhibition to remind you that life is equal parts grotesque, tragic, and utterly captivating. 

Because here’s the thing: good literature essays demand a belief in your argument.

Let’s be honest - securing those top grades at A Level or IB English Lit isn’t about your child nodding earnestly at Hamlet.

Tuition. That golden ticket to better grades, fewer exam jitters, and the occasional boast at the school gates. 

Here’s the secret: with a solid plan, your child will breeze through their English essay faster and with fewer bumps along the way.