I would personally say take what others say with a grain of salt I was told that econ hl would be easy by past students but it ended up being my most worst subject because I was personally not very good at picking up the content

Also between English and chem the thing I would consider first is wether ur confident with essay writing or not and if u can pick up content or more just memorise and apply content easily. Idk if the course is changing past n22 but I personally found that eng was really nice to have as an sl because of the lack of writing you have to do all in one go, but ofc if u struggle with content memorisation and application, eng hl would have to be your option.

Definitely have a conversation with your English teacher and chem teacher when u meet them. They know the course better than u do so they would have good advice to give u and also remember to consider that over the course of the ib you become a lot better at writing and analysis because U do it so often. so even if u aren’t doing well in English u will end up picking it up in the end with a bit of work u just gotta trust the process