The individual oral is a 10-minute oral followed by five minutes of teacher questions.  It is worth 20% of the student’s final mark at HL and 30% at SL. 

The individual oral addresses the following prompt: “Examine the ways in which the global issue of your choice is presented through the content and form of one of the works and one of the texts you have studied.”

The individual oral is based on the work students have carried out in their learner portfolios. Students investigate literary works, non-literary texts, and global issues during their course. For the individual oral, students select one extract each from a literary work and from a non-literary text that are representative of the global issue they have chosen. Each extract should not normally exceed 40 lines. Extracts may be complete texts. Students bring unannotated copies of their extracts to the individual oral.

The individual oral should be in the form of an argument that explores the global issue through the ways the extracts and entire text/work show and represent the issue. That is, students need to demonstrate the relationship between the textual construction of ideas and the global issue. Students should give roughly equal attention to both of their chosen extracts and text/work as a whole.  That is why a body of work is necessary in the study of non-literary texts. 

It’s important to remember that global issues have the following attributes: (a) they have significance on a wide/large scale; (b) they are transnational; (c) the impact is felt in everyday contexts.

In conducting the individual oral, students should be allowed to choose any of the texts and works they have studied on their course. They should also choose their own global issue. You should monitor and advise students in these choices. Remember, students may not use texts and works that are intended for any other assessment component. To be successful, students will need to have studied a significant number of texts and extracts. Therefore, the end of the first year of study or the beginning of the second year of study is quite probably a good time to conduct individual orals. When you have decided where and when individual orals are to take place, you should ensure students are given good notice of this.

The IB will provide a form that students should use to create an outline of their presentation. Students have the opportunity, in advance of their oral, to write out a maximum of ten bullet points. These bullet points should be brief, and students should not read directly from their outline. The student brings both the outline and the unmarked extracts to the examination.

At least one week prior to the individual oral, you should ask to receive the extracts that students will use in their individual oral. You need to give approval to the student’s choice. You should have the student’s extracts in the examination, and you may use these as the basis for your five minutes of follow-up questions.

The individual oral is internally assessed. That is, you mark it. The IB externally moderates the oral. That is, once all orals are complete, you have marked them, and submitted your scores for every student to the IB, the IB will select the specific sample for moderation that you must sent to them. In the sample, you must include all extracts and complete oral recordings of the sample students. Therefore, you must record all orals, in a quiet environment, and you must keep all recordings and documentation from all of your students.