thesis statement english io

How to Master Your IB English Individual Oral (IO)

Updated: Oct 20, 2023

The IB English Individual Oral (IO) is an important assessment in the IB English curriculum, accounting for 30% at SL and 20% in HL of your final English A grade. To help you, our team wrote this guide to help you regardless of where you are in the process!

Understanding the Assessment Criteria

The first step to any assessment is understanding the assessment criteria, for the English individual oral in particular, one must understand what the examiners are looking out for. Below are the criteria used in the IB English IO, use it to find a clear direction in your preparation, and keep it in mind when writing your IO up.

Crafting a Compelling Global Issue

Crafting a strong global issue statement forms the backbone of your presentation. Your global issue should be concise, focused, and reflect the main theme or argument you aim to explore. For instance, a thesis statement could be something along the lines of: "The consequences of government-sanctioned violence on individual morality." Keep in mind, that these global issues should be present both locally and globally, while also being particularly relevant in the present day.

Here are some topics we think might be helpful:

The Palestine-Israel conflict

The Russia-Ukraine conflict

The passing of loved ones

Religious conflicts

Differences in political values and their effect

While it isn't mandatory as of 2021, we still do recommend our students to centre their global issues around one of the following 5 themes:

Culture, identity and community

Beliefs, values and education

Politics, power and justice

Art, creativity and the imagination

Science, technology and the environment

Selecting the Right Text

While this arguably should go before writing your global issue, we’ve found that it's better to take a look at a lot of texts, decide your global issue, and then choose which text fits your global issue best. Opt for texts that resonate with you and align with your global issue, selecting texts with rich literary techniques and themes will provide you with ample material for analysis, remember, you’re going to be looking at these for a while!

Balancing Close and Wide Analysis

To demonstrate your analytical prowess, strive for a balance between close and wide analysis techniques, close analysis involves examining specific passages or literary devices in detail, allowing you to delve into the intricacies of the text. For instance, analyzing the use of imagery in a poem to convey a certain mood or emotion. Wide analysis, on the other hand, explores broader themes, and historical context, focusing on connections to other texts in the body of work (BOW - refers to the collection or book that the extract was taken from). This could involve discussing the socio-political climate during the time the text was written. By incorporating both approaches, you demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of the text and its wider implications.

Structuring your Presentation

Your English IO should remain balanced between both texts of choice, we recommend the following structure: 1 minute - Introduction, 4 minutes - Text 1, 4 minutes - Text 2, 1 minute - Conclusion, after which your teacher will question you for approximately 5 minutes. Under each of your text segments, you should "zoom in" and "zoom out" in a structured manner, using either 2 minutes for each segment going from one to the other or do it in 4 separate 1-minute points, with 2 points allocated for each perspective.

Practice and Rehearse

Practice makes perfect, and this holds for your IO presentation. Dedicate ample time to practice and rehearse your presentation, we recommend something along tinge lines of 30-45 minutes a day for 2 weeks leading up to the IO. Remember, familiarizing yourself with the content, working on your delivery, and paying attention to your body language and timing are necessary if you are aiming for a high score. Consider recording yourself while practising in front of a friend or family member who can provide constructive feedback, also helping you experience what it will be like when you give your final presentation. Look back on the recordings and work on anything you may notice.

Engaging with the Examiner

The interactive questioning phase is an opportunity to showcase your critical thinking skills and engage in meaningful discussions. Actively listen to the examiner's questions, take a moment to reflect, and respond thoughtfully. Support your responses with evidence and examples from your texts, and be open to different interpretations and perspectives. Additionally, remember to connect with the examiner through eye contact, confident body language, and clear and articulate delivery.

Seeking Feedback and Continuous Improvement

Feedback is invaluable in refining your presentation. Seek feedback from your teacher, peers, or mentors who can provide fresh insights and suggestions for improvement. Embrace constructive criticism and make the necessary revisions to enhance the quality of your presentation. Additionally, work on incorporating feedback into your practice sessions to continuously improve your skills.

Dealing with Nerves

Presenting in front of an examiner can be nerve-wracking, especially for students who may not have much experience with public speaking. To manage nerves, try deep breathing exercises or visualization techniques before your presentation, and remind yourself of your preparation and expertise in the subject matter. Also, remember that nerves can sometimes be a sign of excitement, so channel that energy positively into your presentation.

How Can We Help?

By implementing these strategies, you can approach your IB English Individual Oral with confidence and increase your chances of success. The IB English IO will, of course, seem daunting to most, so if you need additional help, consider us at AceMinds Education, starting with a free aptitude test and 1-hour session, we’ll provide you with any help you may need with our one-on-one tutoring and

IB Tips and Guides

How to Write a Bullet-proof Thesis for Paper 1

Learn the two main ingredients that make or break a thesis statement for IB English Paper 1.

If you have deconstructed a text successfully, as explained step-by-step in the previous lesson, you will now have three things:

several main ideas
annotations of techniques
the writer's overall purpose

Now we need to summarise these three things in a single sentence called the thesis. At this point, we still haven't started writing the essay yet. We are still in the planning phase. By doing all of this planning, the writing process will be much easier.

What is a thesis?

The thesis is a single sentence in the introduction of the essay that states how the writer achieves his overall purpose. (Also make sure your thesis answers the guiding question and uses the same keywords to show the examiner you're answering the guiding question.)

This sentence—this thesis—is also the main argument that you are trying to prove in your essay. The examiner can usually judge the strength of your analytical skills just from your thesis alone, so it needs to be well-written.

How to write a strong thesis

A good thesis must tick two boxes:

clear and concise
conveys writer's intention

Be clear and concise

Students often write a long, winding sentence for their thesis. This is bad because the marker cannot easily distinguish your thesis from the rest of your introduction. This is particularly bad when you realise that a marker spends only a couple of minutes reading through each essay (ain't nobody got time for dat).

As such, you should always write a clear and concise thesis that is no longer than ~30 words.

“In the story, the author looks at how the main character is sad and how he always fights with his parents when he returns home from school.” (27 words)

This is a bad thesis:

The language isn't clear. In particular, the verb “looks” is too vague and informal. The word “how” is also informal.
The sentence isn't concise. The thesis should focus only on the main ideas: sadness and familial conflict. The contextual detail of “coming home from school” is distracting. Avoid excess information in the thesis.

A better thesis looks like this:

“In the prose extract, the author conveys the sadness of the protagonist through the portrayal of his frequent conflict with his parents.” (21 words)

The language is clearer and more sophisticated. Notice how instead of writing “In the story”, we can write “In the prose extract”.
The sentence is also more concise. The language in “conveys” is much better than “looks at”.

Another great thesis might look like this:

“In the prose extract, the author characterises the protagonist as a sad teenager who suffers frequent conflict with his parents.”

Here, the thesis is explicit about the literary focus of the essay by including the term “characterization.”
In the poem/prose extract/article, (author X) explores/ criticizes/ ridicules/ portrays/ highlights/ illustrates the (subject) in order to (purpose).

In general, use this formula for clear and concise thesiss.

In the poem / play / prose extract / article ( genre ), the writer explores / criticises / ridicules/ portrays / highlights / illustrates ( some verb ) _________ ( idea, effect, or meaning ).

Our thesis is now clear and concise, but there's one problem. It feels too simplistic. There's no depth. The reason is because we're missing something essential.

Sprinkle the writer's purpose

At the moment, our thesis is simply saying: “In the text, the writer does this.” But that's only half the picture. We need to add the writer's purpose. The thesis needs to say:

“The writer does this, this and that in order to achieve a purpose.”

By explaining not just what the writer does but also why the writer does it, the thesis immediately becomes deeper and more complete.

For example:

“In the prose extract, the author characterises the protagonist as a sad teenager who experiences frequent conflict with his parents in order to highlight the harsh estrangement of adolescence .”

where the bolded part of the thesis expresses the intention (why) behind the writer's use of characterisation (what).

The thesis sounds even better if we move the author's intention to the beginning of the sentence:

“ In order to highlight the harsh estrangement of adolescence , the author characterizes the protagonist as a sad teenager who suffers frequent conflict with his parents.”

Or, we can be a little less explicit about the purpose by expressing it as a theme: .

“In the prose extract, the author explores the distressed emotional landscape of adolescence through the portrayal of the teenage protagonist's constant melancholy and familial conflict.”

Here the writer's message is expressed instead as a central theme: the distressed emotional landscape of adolescence.

We now have a new template for writing strong thesiss that have both clarity and depth.

In the poem / play / prose extract / article ( some genre ), the writer explores / criticises / ridicules/ portrays / highlights / illustrates ( some verb ) _________ ( idea, effect, or meaning ) in order to __________ ( some purpose ).

After you get used to using this template, it will start to feel formulaic and boring. At that stage, feel free to do away with the training wheels and express your thesis however you like, as long as it is clear, concise and conveys the writer's intention.

Improving a real thesis by a real student

Student's version “Banville utilises situational irony created by the characterisation of the parents, and the situational irony of the narrator's depressing holiday to express a bittersweet tone by the narrator.” ( 28 words )

One of my lovely students (in real life) wrote this thesis for a Higher Level Paper 1 essay. We are going to identify what's wrong with it, and then we will improve on it.

First, the thesis is not concise . Situational irony is mentioned too many times, and the overall idea of the narrator's depressing memories can be conveyed more succinctly.
Second, there's an issue with the purpose . The student has made the bittersweet tone the writer's core purpose. But tone is never the purpose. Ever. Tone is a technique used as a means, a vehicle, a way to achieve a purpose. So the purpose needs to change.

Fixed version “Banville ironically constructs the narrator's depressing memories of her childhood holidays in order to portray the fractured relationships within her family.” (21 words)

This version is clearer and more concise. It's seven words shorter. The two uses of situational irony have been replaced by just one use of “ironically”. The reason for doing so is because situational irony is distracting detail that is irrelevant in the thesis but can be mentioned later in the introduction or in the points of the essay.
Also, the purpose is now an actual purpose. The message of the story was really about the horrible relationship between the narrator and her parents, and this purpose is now adequately summarised in the phrase, “fractured relationships within her family.” Notice how an accurate understanding of the writer's purpose is starting to become important just in the introduction; make sure you've deconstructed a text well before you even attempt to write the thesis, because otherwise your interpretation will be wrong and your Knowledge and Understanding Criterion will go down.
Also, I removed the reference to tone from the thesis. The reason why tone is removed entirely from the thesis is because, like situational irony, tone is a distracting detail that is not important at the Big Picture level and should instead be mentioned later in the introduction and body paragraphs.
Depth can kill

A common question that students ask me is this, and you might have wondered about it many times before. The question is this: “Does the thesis (or thesis, or argument) have to be really deep ?”

In other words, does the writer's purpose need to be highly philosophical message about things like, “What is the meaning of life?”

The answer is a definite “No.” Don't try to make up some deep message that doesn't exist in the text. It might sound impressive, but it won't help you at all. In your thesis, simply write down what the writer's purpose is, and as accurately as you can. If you have genuinely interpreted the writer's purpose to be a deep message, like “the meaning of life”, then great. But if the writer's purpose is clearly just characterisation, then simply use that as the purpose and don't make up some corny, cheesy message that doesn't even represent the text at all.

Accuracy is what you should be worrying about, and you should not be worrying about whether the purpose in your thesis sounds intellectual or philosophical.

How to Master Your IB English Individual Oral (IO)

Recent Posts

How to Write a Bullet-proof Thesis for Paper 1

Be clear and concise

Sprinkle the writer's purpose