Hello, teachers of English A: language and literature.

My name is Alison Whitehurst. I will soon be joining David McIntyre to help out with the maintenance of this InThinking resources website. I'd like to start in traditional fashion by briefly introducing myself here on the blog.

For the last decade, I have spent my time teaching, examining, researching, developing, and generally obsessing about the IB Diploma Programme language and literature courses. Back in 2003 I started my IB career working at a Finnish high school, Oulun Lyseon lukio, as a teacher of English A2 (the course which was the predecessor of today’s English A: language and literature). Subsequently, I also taught English A1, English B, and theatre studies in schools in Finland and the UK, and I moderated English A1 orals for the IB. Recently, I spent some time working at the IB Global Centre in The Hague as Curriculum Manager for the Group 1 (now ‘Studies in language and literature’) courses: language A: language and literature, language A: literature and literature and performance.

I hope to be able to use my wide experience of the DP group 1 courses to play a part in the continued success of this site, which I know has been a great support to teachers around the world.