“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.”

— Shakespeare

Coming in strong today with a Shakespeare quote that dovetails with some of my personal reflections about life.

We should never allow our familiarity with the language to mask our own capability. 

Why am I saying this? There are many people who have the misinformed sense that English is something they can wing. Having spoken it at home every single day from the liminal moments of beginning, when they said their first goo goos and ga gas, the world was English – Growing up in that environment, it is easy for someone to conclude that because it is something they have known their entire life, this is their element:

Surely they are experts and they do not need to know anything additional? 

How very wrong that is, but how very understandable it is that they would react that way.

People who began with the English language are like fish that have lived in water their entire lives. Try to talk to the fish about the concept of water, and it may not even have an awareness of what it is or how it behaves, because it is normal for the fish to simply exist in the water, move in it, and do all sorts of maneuvers to escape from predators.

For a speaker of English as a first language, it might be natural to have consumed an entire diet of cartoons, books, or TikTok videos in English. In both cases, telling either the English speaker or the fish to question its environment might seem strange. After all, the subject of the question is their own backyard. What wouldn’t they know about their backyard? As it turns out, quite a fair bit.

I will not go into the subject of racing fish, but I will go into the subject of the English-immersed student. Having experienced the English language or communicated in it does not mean that a student will be aware of the effects of words. It does not mean that they would be thinking about how to analyze words. These things might seem easy because they are the same stuff that the student has worked with and used for their entire lives. I have seen time and time again how students in entire classrooms who spoke English at home differ from one another, and how those who get better results are those who prepare, learn specific techniques, and get feedback over and over again.

I have also seen how, within the very same group of students, there are those who neglect that preparation, expecting to do well just because they feel entitled to do well on account of talking to their parents and friends. They never consider that perhaps there might be specific things that they might need to integrate into their daily preparations. 

In other words, they overestimate themselves.

In practice, what I have seen is this: it is entirely possible for those of you out there who didn’t have English as your first language to learn and utilize the English language effectively for the purpose of your examination goals far more effectively than people who assume that they already have what it takes to do well. If you just get tailored and focused practice and guidance.

Of course, that is one limited context, but what I’ve also seen is that people can go beyond that limited context into being able to articulate themselves to use English beyond just an exam context, to use it to be able to fully and authentically appreciate the English language, not just because it is needed for another A*, but instead because it was intrinsically interesting to procure mastery on that front.

The TL;DR?

If you are a native English speaker, someone can outperform you if they work hard enough. Don’t get complacent, practice, and don’t get caught up in a vision of your own greatness, because there is a good chance that there are many other things that you must learn if you want the result that you want. You have yet to learn by extension.

This also offers some comfort. Whether you are a first-language English speaker or English is your second or even third language, you may have a real disadvantage from a lack of exposure in your environment. The catch is that you can outperform someone with effort, willpower, and a desire to improve.

I know thousands of students around the world know this, and even those who were not fortunate enough to be able to take the course are motivated to come to this page to learn how to do well in this particular and unique exam. Still, you are probably reading this for a reason, and in your having read this, I hope that you will thrive and achieve your goals.

Thank you for reading, and join us in the members section for more tips, courses, publications, and examples to ease your IGCSE 0500 First Language English exams – thank you for supporting this work!