tovahstutoringcomp
- Aug 3, 2023
- 2 min read

Everything you need to know about NCEA English assessments from an expert teacher (part 3)

Everything you need to know about NCEA English

So, you can now call yourself an NCEA student, yet do you need a bit of a head's up on your NCEA English assessments? – Well, you've come to the right person, because I'm an NCEA English expert!

Here are the ins and outs of NCEA English! Part three! Check out part one about NCEA English exams, and part two about the NCEA English creative assessments if you haven't already.

This blog will cover the NCEA English assessment under: Making Connections Across Texts.

anxious students coming together for NCEA English assessments. — Supporting anxious students sitting NCEA English assessments matters to me.

Making connections across texts will require NCEA students to know that there are common trends in the texts they are reading and responding to this year.

A brief introduction about me and Tovah's Tutoring Company Ltd.

Here's another brief introduction about my business and who I am. Tovah's Tutoring Company Ltd has been available to New Zealand high school learners since February 2022. My team and I are experienced teachers, one of our wonderful NCEA Physics teachers has over 42 years' experience teaching. When I mean that we are experts, I meant it! For me, I have been teaching for over 12 years and have taught NCEA English, NCEA Drama and/or NCEA Dance in a variety of Waikato/Waipa/Auckland high schools.

So, I can say with confidence that I am an expert in these subjects and know the ins and outs of each NCEA assessment.

Here is the one NCEA English assessment I will be covering in this blog:

#1: NCEA ENGLISH Connections essay

There's only one assessment in this area of NCEA English. It requires a lot of planning and comparing. So, my biggest advice for this assessment is to make a chart of different theme topics (e.g., bullying, sacrifice, resistance, knowledge is power, don't judge a book by its cover, minority representation) and then see which texts have the same ideas. Once you've done that, write at least one example of when you have seen this occur in the text.

This should set you up for linking texts within your NCEA English connections essay.

It will help you develop your ideas within an essay. Without it, you might struggle with finding significant connections.

What do you need to do for this essay?

You are required to write an essay, and, in each paragraph, you will be comparing two or more texts and how they are similar or contrasted based on similar themes. E.g., you might discuss the tone of two texts which have the end result, or the main character learns the same life lesson, however it is told through a drama and a comedy. So, your essay will talk about this while also linking to examples and evidence from each text.

If you'd like support with this, I can help through our NCEA group tutorials - I am a qualified NCEA English teacher with confidence teaching NCEA English and supporting students with NCEA English exams.

See you in one of my NCEA English group tutorials!