IB English Individual Oral: Complete Guide (2025)

By Michael Thompson · Former IB Diploma Programme coordinator; 10 years at Bromsgrove School · Published 4 September 2026

The IB English individual oral is a 15-minute internally assessed exam that counts for 20-30% of your final Language A grade. You speak for 10 minutes about how a global issue of your choosing is presented across two texts, then answer your teacher's questions for 5 minutes. The format sounds straightforward, but most marks are lost through three predictable mistakes: retelling the plot, ignoring one text, and failing to build a clear line of argument. This guide covers exactly how the assessment works, what the four criteria reward, and how to spend those 10 minutes effectively.

Key Takeaways

In This Article

  1. What Is the IB English Individual Oral and When Does It Happen
  2. The Individual Oral Format and What You Bring In
  3. The Four IB English Individual Oral Criteria Explained
  4. Choosing Your Global Issue and Selecting Extracts
  5. How to Structure the 10-Minute Individual Oral Response
  6. What the Individual Oral Mark Scheme Rewards and Penalises
  7. Language and Literature vs Literature: Key Differences for the IO
  8. What to Do Next

1. What Is the IB English Individual Oral and When Does It Happen

The IB English Individual Oral (IO) is an internally assessed component of two Language A courses in the IB Diploma Programme: Language A: Language and Literature and Language A: Literature. It was introduced with first assessment in 2021 and replaces the previous individual oral commentary format. The IO is worth 30% of your final grade at SL and 20% at HL for both course options.

The session itself runs 15 minutes: a 10-minute prepared response followed by a 5-minute teacher-led discussion. Your school records the full session and submits a sample to the IB for external moderation. Your teacher sets the exact date within windows the IB specifies, so the IO typically takes place during your second year of the Diploma Programme, though some schools schedule it earlier.

The two main course options differ in the text types you must discuss:

One detail that catches students out: using two literary works in Language and Literature, or two non-literary works, scores zero in Criterion A. The text-type pairing is not a stylistic preference, it is a hard rule.

2. The Individual Oral Format and What You Bring In

The IO runs for 15 minutes in total: a 10-minute prepared response followed by a 5-minute teacher-led discussion, and the whole thing is audio-recorded for moderation by the IB. Per English Collaborative, you bring two things into the room and nothing else:

The official prompt, as confirmed by English Collaborative, is:

> "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 bodies of work that you have studied."

A practical point worth noting: LitLearn confirms that comparison between your two texts is not a requirement. You must discuss both, but you are not being asked to contrast them directly. Many students waste time building explicit links between texts when the mark scheme does not reward that structure.

The no-annotations rule has a less obvious implication. Because your extract copies must be clean, any close reading of specific lines has to live in your memory or your 10 bullet points. Plan your extract selection with that constraint in mind.

3. The Four IB English Individual Oral Criteria Explained

The IB English Individual Oral is marked out of 40 across four criteria, each worth 10 marks, using a best-fit approach where examiners select the band that most closely matches the overall quality of the response rather than checking off a rigid list of requirements. Understanding each criterion separately is the fastest way to see where marks are lost.

Criterion A: Knowledge, understanding, and interpretation rewards close reading of the chosen extract and what it reveals about the global issue. The examiner is looking for genuine insight into how the passage works, not a retelling of plot or context. This criterion is also where the most severe penalty sits: discussing more than one global issue, or pairing two literary or two non-literary works in Language and Literature, results in a score of zero.

Criterion B: Analysis and evaluation of the author's choices focuses on stylistic and formal decisions: structure, syntax, imagery, tone, register, and genre conventions. The question examiners ask is whether you can connect those choices to meaning and effect, not simply name them. Identifying a metaphor without explaining what it does earns partial credit at best.

Criterion C: Focus and organisation rewards a clear, sustained line of argument that connects the global issue across both texts throughout the ten minutes. A response that handles each text in isolation, without threading them together, struggles here even if the individual analysis is strong.

Criterion D: Language covers accuracy, register, and clarity of spoken expression. Formal spoken register is expected. Repeated hesitation, imprecise vocabulary, or slipping into informal speech pulls this mark down independently of how good the ideas are.

One counter-intuitive point: Criterion B and Criterion A can diverge sharply. A student can show genuine knowledge of a text (Criterion A) while describing authorial choices without evaluating their effect (Criterion B). Treat them as separate tasks.

4. Choosing Your Global Issue and Selecting Extracts

A global issue is not a theme. Per TutorChase, a valid global issue must meet three criteria: significance at wide scale, transnational impact, and observable effects in everyday local contexts. "War" or "identity" fail the third test because they are too abstract to show up concretely in a passage's stylistic choices.

The IB offers two starting frameworks for finding an issue: the five theme categories and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The five categories, listed in both TutorChase and LitLearn, are:

These are entry points, not answers. Your actual global issue sits inside one of these categories but is far more specific. As TutorChase notes, "gender" is too broad. A workable issue looks more like: "how gender bias shapes self-expression in public discourse." That version is transnational, observable in local moments, and gives you something to trace through an author's formal choices.

Selecting your extracts is where most preparation mistakes happen. Each extract is capped at 40 lines, per LitLearn and English Collaborative. The counter-intuitive rule: pick a passage that shows the global issue through form and style, not just subject matter. An extract can be entirely "about" your issue thematically and still earn poor marks on Criterion B if there is nothing distinctive to say about structure, voice, syntax, or imagery. Test each candidate extract by asking: what is the author doing formally here, and why does it matter? If you cannot answer that in two or three specific observations, find a different passage.

One constraint that shapes your text selection from the start: English Collaborative confirms that at SL, the literary work you use in the IO cannot also be used for Paper 2. At HL, neither work can appear in Paper 2 or the HL Essay. Plan your reading list with this in mind before you commit to any texts.

5. How to Structure the 10-Minute Individual Oral Response

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The official IO prompt asks you to examine how your global issue is presented "through the content and form" of both texts. The 10-minute presentation is your answer to that question. A workable time split looks like this:

PhaseSuggested timePurpose
Framing introduction~1 minuteState global issue, name texts and authors, deliver interpretive claim
Text one analysis~4 minutesWork through extract: content, then form
Text two analysis~4 minutesSame method; connect back to global issue
Concluding statement~1 minuteRestate claim in light of what the analysis showed

The introduction: claim first, not intention

The opener should name the global issue precisely, name both texts and authors, and land a clear interpretive claim. The distinction matters: "I will discuss how power is shown in both texts" tells the examiner nothing. "Both texts present political silencing as a mechanism that reinforces social hierarchy, achieved through contrasting structural choices" gives them something to assess from the first sentence.

Text analysis sections: content, then form

Move from what the extract says to how it says it. Name the specific device (free indirect discourse, anaphora, juxtaposition), explain what effect it produces, and connect that effect directly back to the global issue. Returning to the global issue at each device, not just at the start and end, is the non-obvious move most students miss.

What your bullet-point notes should contain

Per the IB assessment guidelines, you may bring a maximum of 10 bullet points into the room. Use them for:

Full sentences written out to be read aloud defeat the purpose. Examiners can hear when a student is reading rather than speaking.

The 5-minute teacher-question phase

LitLearn notes that the teacher-led discussion follows the presentation. Expect questions on three things: your definition of the global issue, your reasoning for choosing those specific extracts, and any moment in your 10 minutes where you introduced an idea but did not develop it. That last category is worth preparing for deliberately: if you name a device and move on without explaining its effect, the teacher will go back to it.

Common mistakes to avoid

The time split is a guide, not a rule, but significant imbalance between the two text sections tends to signal a lack of preparation for one of them.

6. What the Individual Oral Mark Scheme Rewards and Penalises

The individual oral mark scheme works on mark bands with descriptors, not a checklist. Examiners read your performance holistically and award the band that best fits the whole response. A single strong moment will not rescue a weak overall argument.

What high bands reward:

What low bands typically reflect:

One counter-intuitive point: a vague global issue hurts you even if your close reading is otherwise sharp. The issue shapes the lens; without a precise lens, the analysis drifts.

The 40-mark total is moderated externally: teachers submit a sample of recordings to the IB, and the moderator can shift the whole school's marks up or down. Your teacher's grade reflects IB standards as they understand them, but the moderator has the final word. A strong internal mark is a good sign, not a guarantee.

7. Language and Literature vs Literature: Key Differences for the IO

The analytical prompt is identical across both courses, but what you bring to the table differs significantly depending on which English A pathway you are taking.

FeatureLanguage and LiteratureLiterature
Text 1One literary workOne literary work (Language A)
Text 2One non-literary body of workOne literary work in translation
Extract sourceSelected from within the body of workSelected from the literary text

For Language and Literature, the non-literary body of work is assessed as a coherent whole, not as a standalone text. A collection of journalism, a podcast series, or a set of advertisements counts as one body of work, and you select your extract from within it. The gotcha here: using two literary works in a Language and Literature IO results in zero marks for Criterion A, regardless of the quality of your analysis.

For Literature, one of the two works must be a work in translation. The translation requirement is non-negotiable and cannot be substituted with a work originally written in English.

Students taking Language A: Literature and Performance (SL only) should note that the IO sits within a different combined internal assessment structure worth 40%, which also includes a transformative performance. The oral format runs to the same 15-minute length, but the surrounding requirements differ. Check the specific IB subject guide for that pathway rather than applying the standard IO rules directly.

8. What to Do Next

The most common mistake students make is choosing a text they like and then hunting for a global issue to fit it. That gets the logic backwards. The issue should drive everything, including which extract best exposes it.

This week, confirm with your teacher which texts are assigned to your specific course. Then draft your global issue as a single, precise sentence and test it against three questions: does it cross national boundaries, does it show up in your local or personal context too, and is it specific enough that someone could disagree with your framing? If the answer to any of those is no, revise before your next class.

Getting this right early matters because once your issue is sharp, your extract choices almost select themselves. Nail the sentence first. Everything else follows from it.

FAQ

How long is the IB English individual oral?

The IO is 15 minutes in total: a 10-minute prepared student response followed by a 5-minute question-and-answer session with the teacher.

What global issues can I use for the IB English individual oral?

Any issue that is transnational in scope and visible in local everyday contexts qualifies; the IB's five theme categories and the UN SDGs are starting frameworks, but the issue must be specific - 'gender bias in public discourse' rather than 'gender'.

Can I use notes in the IB English individual oral?

Yes - you may bring blank, unannotated copies of your chosen extracts and a maximum of 10 bullet-pointed notes; no other materials are permitted.

How is the IB English individual oral marked?

The IO is marked out of 40 across four criteria covering knowledge and interpretation, analysis of authorial choices, focus and organisation, and language; your teacher marks it internally and the IB moderates a sample of recordings from your school.

What texts do I need for the IB Language and Literature individual oral?

Language and Literature students must use one literary work and one non-literary body of work; using two literary or two non-literary works results in a zero for Criterion A.

How much is the individual oral worth in IB English?

The IO counts for 30% of the final grade at SL and 20% at HL for both Language and Literature and Literature courses.

References