Mumsnet Talk

DD is in year 9 and has to do Spanish GCSE this year; the first exam, the speaking one is next week. DD is dyslexic (mild/moderate) and finds languages almost impossible to learn so has had a tutor since last Spring.

Her teacher's method of teaching (at least for DD) for the exam appears to be more or less parrot fashion. She has several paragraphs to learn for the exam and has so far learned about 10% of it, she just cannot do it. She understands most of the individual words but her grasp of grammar is not sophisticated enough to form sentences. The tutor has tried to help her with her pronunciation and even recorded it for her to listen to but cannot seem to do much more.

I think I only have the option of pulling her out all together or telling the teacher she just cannot do it and to aim for a low grade by learning just a few sentences. WWYD.

If this is AQA then there is no lower grade option available for coursework (ie Higher/Foundation as there is in the exam element).

She just needs to learn as much as she can as the work will be graded according to how much she does. This speaking exam probably accounts for 15% of the total GCSE grade so it is significant.

The recording sounds a good idea - could she not play it endlessly on her iPod till she can recite it?

BTW most students will have been given several paragraphs to learn, we don't expect them to speak for 4 mins off the cuff in another language.

Good luck to her.

DD1 and I are both dyslexic, we can't get our heads round languages at all. We both refused to do O'level/gcse.
I got straight A's in everything else, even English, languages I simply can't do.

No helpful advice just a whole lot of sympathy for your DD.

Try singing it!

Whyever is she doing this gcse in year 9? This sounds mad to me - especially if she is dyslexic. It is almost as if the school want to put her off modern foreign languages.

My daughter has recently done the Spanish oral and today has the French (fingers crossed) both aqa year 11. Although it was a huge amount of rote learning (and I was very sceptical - and bored of listening to it) I do think that her speaking confidence and familiarity with relatively complex verb construction has grown as a result.

Thank you all for your comments. She eventually rewrote quite a lot of it to make it easier to remember. The teacher said that if her mark was really bad, she might be able to retake this speaking exam at Easter.

Unfortunately the exam was cancelled today as the teacher was taken ill - not her fault obviously - but more stress. I hope she will still be able to do it later in the week.

Wish she had never started tbh - tutor is costing £25 a session, though she is lovely and DD has made a lot of progress...

Sparrows - the school stagger the GCSEs over 3 years and they do all the option subjects as one year courses (all optional subjects apart from the chosen GCSEs are dropped in year 9 two this year). It was recommended to do the language in year 9 as she was taught it in year 7 and 8 and otherwise she would have to pick it up later on after a break. I thought at the time it must be useful for uni entrance, but as she is likely to do art it is probably unnecessary.

What bad luck that the teacher wasn't there.

Interesting way of approaching gcses - across three years. I wonder whether the examiners take account of maturity when schools take this kind of approach. I've got two girls - one y8 but early sept birthday, so a week from age of some y9s, and one year 11. I can't imagine my youngest getting her head around the amount of work needed to do proper justice to an mfl gcse.

My DS1 has a photographic memory but can't speak a word of French or Spanish .
This is how a child can pass A* in a MFL without being able to speak it. It's a memory test, sadly.