Spanish speaking A Level

[HopeItHelps]

Does anyone have any tips or hacks for preparing for this exam? Looking for any advice that helped you or someone you know, like revision techniques, useful resources, or anything else that made a difference! Gracias!

Hi @HopeItHelps MFL is my subject so I will post in more detail in a bit (busy day) but just to say, speaking as an assessor, the key is to know the rubric really well so you know what you need to do. It amazes me every year that candidates are so poorly prepped that they don’t know they need to ask questions, adduce stats and examples and be able to answer a range of questions in their IRP.

I’m assuming this is AQA btw tho Edexcel is pretty similar

Hey @HopeItHelps OK I am back from my busy day.

So in terms of revision resources, the best thing is to practise as many of the speaking stimulus cards as you can get your hands on for the first element.
Be aware that you should:

• Cover all the info on the card
• Ask the examiner two questions
• Adduce relevant stats and facts
• Add in some of your own views
• Be prepared for surprise questions from the examiner

At all times during the exam it is crucial to use a wide range of complex language. The AQA website (under assessment resources and then the mark scheme for the speaking assessment) can tell you what complex language is for Spanish (I am more about Fr and Ger). But it is likely to be complex structures, verbs in the conditional or subjunctive, a range of connectives, qualifiers and ways to express your opinion. Accuracy is also important.

Learn a range of useful phrases which can come in handy while you think of how to answer the question – on the one hand.... but on the other... or Some might say that, but I would suggest... or As far as I am concerned...

If you don't have a list of such phrases, there will be suggestions online.

Really revise the different topics well. You will be offered two stimulus cards to choose between, one from the AS topics and one from the A2 topics. It might be that you have preferred topics that you have more to say about or enjoy more; but be aware that if you HATE topic B and topic J, well they could both come up, so you do need to be able to answer on any topic. I had a student once who really did not want to answer on the Art and Architecture topic (German) so they needed to be happy wit any of the A2 topics.

When it comes to the IRP, learn the speech very well and make sure it is 2 mins long and no more or less. You cannot take a crib sheet into the exam so don’t ask (you would be surprised). Make sure the speech raises some discussion points for the examiner to pick up on. Is the examiner going to be the student’s own teacher? If so see if they will discuss in a general way what sort of follow-up questions they might ask.

Work out some questions yourself and think about how you would answer them. Make sure you have plenty to say – again, you would perhaps be surprised but I have had students be in the exam and say frankly that they don’t have very much interest in the topic they have chosen for their IRP – which does make the discussion grind to a halt a bit!

HTH and sorry for the essay!

@clary, thank you so much!! I was out all day yesterday after I posted so I am sorry to have taken so long to reply. Actually, the exam board is not AQA or excel, it's another one I can't remember the name of but I'll ask DD when she's up. Thank you so so much for the tips, going through all you suggestions as we speak! 💐

The exam board is Eduqas

Ah OK, much of what I said may not be relevant then, depending on the spec.

I don't know that board so well but will look later.

@clary It’s helpful here though - thank you (AQA French).

OK well I have looked up the Eduqas spec (amazingly about the only MFL GCSE/IGCSE/A-level board I have never conducted the speaking assessment for) and in fact it is very similar to AQA. There is the IRP, 2-min pres, 10-min discussion, two stimulus cards and very similar themes and AOs so much of what I said is relevant. Also candidates need to ask the examiner two questions in the discussion of the card.

Three differences I can see from a read-through of the spec:

• The examiner is a visiting examiner, so not your teacher. I guess it would be even more reasonable to discuss possible questions for your IRP with your teacher, but they will not be asking them! (this is different IME from other boards where the teacher is the examiner, in a school anyway)
• The order is different but that makes no odds really – you start with the IRP pres then discussion, then you have five mins to look at the stimulus card then discuss that. Hmm a bit disjointed but hey.
• The biggie is the stimulus card – AQA has three questions and the expectation of interjections or further questions by the examiner (tho these will or should arise from the answers the candidate gives) but Eduqas just has one question, then there will be one other question from the examiner. So you need to have enough to say in answer to two questions to fill 5-6 minutes, which is quite a bit. Worth being aware of.

Otherwise most of what I said is relevant.

@clary thank you so much, you are so kind to have looked into this! This is all very helpful. I am also wondering if there might be any techniques or hacks, such as recording yourself or someone else speak and listening, watching spanish tv, etc.

Well I did wonder how soon before someone mentions watching Spanish TV. By all means do that, it can’t harm, but unfortunately it won’t teach you your verbs or stats about family life in Spain. I say this bc I fear students think if they watch Finding Nemo in Spanish that’s all the work they need!

If pronunciation is a concern then listening to spoken Spanish is good, but pronunciation is rarely a place to lose a lot of marks. The focus needs to be on range and quality of language, and content of what you say. It’s an idea to record your IRP speech and listen to it if that helps learn it. Otherwise no, no quick hacks to get a great grade. You need to be secure in your knowledge of the topics and of your IRP and your grammar and vocab and phrases need to be solid as well. How you learn is up to you.

Actually one thing that really is worth doing (but they should be doing this anyway!) is researching online the latest stats, ideally from Spanish media. I was talking the other day to a student about how (for example) any facts in a book about YP use of digital media are way out of date; we were also talking about the rise of the far right in Germany, again, a very current topic. Presume there is similar for Spain so if you can say “I read about xyz that happened this month” that looks really good.

Thanks again. Which is a good Spanish website to use for this?

Well Spanish is not my language but I would think your dc’s teacher should have given them pointers. El Pais is a big newspaper or El Mundo; or you could search for latest updates on a specific issue.

But the language and the command of the topic info are the first things, so they should focus on those unless they are already fluent/native speaker.