Hey there! I always found the subject selection process soooo fun and sooo exciting! It's excellent to see that you are taking the opportunity to ask others about their experiences, and getting outside opinions! Your course will be tailored to your learning style and interests more that way! Go you!
Year 11 English Language and Year 12 English Language are wildly different. However, both are super interesting and provide good historical and contextual information regarding how we stumbled upon the English(es) of 2019!
The Year 11 Course is roughly as follows...
Unit 1: Basic linguistics terminology, how to describe the language that we see and hear everyday! Unit 1 sets you up very nicely for Year 12 English Language, so I would really recommend paying attention for the first couple of months in Year 11! After this, you learn about Child Language Acquisition, and the various theories about how humans learn to communicate.
Unit 2: We learn about the development of English across time, which ye olde languages influenced English, as well as reading through and analysing texts from as long ago as 500 ACE! It's so fun to see what English used to look like, and how we progressed to Modern English today! Then, we finish with looking at International Englishes, such as our English speaking friends in Jamaica, Singapore, South Africa, and more! We talk about accents, different words that people use, and how all of these variations came to exist!
From speaking with other past and current Lang students, generally Year 11 SACs are assessed through short answer questions, as well as perhaps one or two essays throughout the year. As far as English subjects go, pretty low effort in regards to SAC prep and answering SAC questions effectively. So I'm sure you would smash it!
Then on to Year 12 (which I found so so interesting and exciting! If you think the year 11 course sounded glamorous, just you wait)...
Unit 3: Unit 3 is all about informality and formality. Why do we speak more informally to some people, but more formally to others? How does our degree of formality affect other people? We get to read texts from all over Australia, from Facebook pages to podcasts, newspaper clippings to conversations between friends. All of it is relevant and all of it is exciting!
Unit 4: Unit 4 is all about Australian English and our cultural identity. We debate about the Australian accent, Australia's history, as well as look to the future of our national identity. Then, we talk about personal identity, and ask questions like: How does language reflect who I am? How does the language I use reflect my interests, friends, family, cultural background, my gender, etc.? If you like any humanities subjects or Psychology, Eng Lang would work for you perfectly (- with that being said, of course you don't have to do those subjects to still enjoy and do well in Eng Lang)!
I think that Eng Lang is the most practical English subject to do in VCE - I graduated 10 months ago and I still implement my skills from English Language on an everyday basis! Further, it is so interesting hearing other people's ideas and uses of language. You learn so much about Australia as an English speaking country, and I think that it really opens your eyes to why language is so so important to our society. I learnt that language can genuinely influence our values and morals, and I think that something that carries that much weight deserves a whole subject dedicated to it!
I hope that that has convinced you to give Eng Lang a shot! Eng Lang was definitely one of my favourite subjects and I want everyone else to enjoy it too!
Good luck with subject selection and I hope that this has helped!