How do you measure success when learning a language? For some people success is measured in exams, certificates and qualifications, for others it is more a question of gaining confidence to be able to do things which you couldn’t do before, like ordering a coffee – or discussing your refurbishment project with the builder! Today’s success story is about Liz. Here is what she says:
“Owning a home in the Swiss Alps, I recently needed to significantly progress my working knowledge of French to cope with the redevelopment of our property there and so liaise with builders and suppliers. I enjoyed fun and diverse learning sessions where all key language skills were addressed; vocabulary and scenarios relevant to houses and building really helped me specifically.”
It wasn’t all about the building project. We also took care to help with grammar so that Liz could understand whether people were talking about things they had already done or what was to be done in the future. Liz continues: “For the first time too, grammar was understandable. Teri’s grammar sheets clearly showed how to construct particular tenses and the structure of sentences in terms of word order – something I had always struggled with at school.”
Liz continued with classes for some time after the completion of the refurbishment project. She concludes “Language Learners lessons have definitely progressed my ability in French and I feel confident to liaise in a multitude of scenarios. I still have a lot to learn, but I know I can speak, read and write at a much higher level than ever before and my understanding, gained from a range of interactive listening exercises, has also progressed.”
During the writing exam, students are asked to write a range of different types of language. You may, for example, be asked to write an article for a school newspaper, or it may be a letter (formal or informal). Make sure you know how to set out each different type of writing and remember to include a greeting and a closing if it is an e-mail!
When it comes to marking, there are a range of techniques which will help to open up the higher grades. One key point is to answer the correct number of questions! For some questions you will have a choice of which question to answer. Don’t try to answer them all as you will run out of time, and some of your answers will be ignored. Try to pick the question for which you have the most ideas that you can express in your target language, and be sure to cover each bullet point.
In order to score well you should also show a range of grammar knowledge and constructions. GCSE examiners are very keen to give out points. Higher Level candidates should try to include as many of the following list as possible:
– A range of tenses (past, present and future as a minimum, but for a higher mark then present, perfect, imperfect, future, conditional and pluperfect if possible);
– Complex grammatical structures – e.g. um…zu for German, après avoir +past participle and avant de +infinitive for French;
– A range of people doing the verbs (to show you can use correct endings);
– Opinions (3 different ways of showing what you think);
– Modal verbs (can, should, must);
– A set phrase or two using the subjunctive;
– Word order: especially for German but also with French (adjective order);
– Correct endings depending on gender (and “case” for German);
– Time phrases – not just “at 12 o’clock” or “tomorrow” but also “rarely”, “often”, “never”, “always”, etc.;
– A negative or preferably two;
– A question where possible.
Additional things for all candidates to think about:
1. Make sure that your written pieces contain work on each of the bullet points. For example, if there are four bullet points (Edexcel) then make sure that it is clear that you have answered all of them, otherwise you lose marks. Check to see that you have used the relevant tense or tenses for each point. If there are two bullet points (AQA) then be sure to expand on each and use a variety of tenses as well as giving your opinion;
2. NEVER leave an answer blank. An intelligent guess is more likely to gain marks than a blank (which is guaranteed not to score at all!);
3. Read the translation passage twice before you start to translate any of it. Get a good idea of what it all means in English, as that will keep you on the right track in your target language. Then if you have a tricky sentence, you can make sure it matches with the general idea of the passage, rather than mistranslating sections you were confident with in order to make them match with your guess for the tricky part;
4. Watch out for the little words that can change the meaning of a sentence. Words like “not”, “already”, “never” etc. provide key information for answering the question successfully, especially in the case of the translation passage. Try not to miss them out of your translation;
5. Pay careful attention to the use of tenses in the translation section. Past, present or future DOES make a difference and you should be able to recognise which one is needed.
The GCSE and A Level exams are approaching rapidly. It really is time to knuckle down and get a revision schedule sorted out so that you make sure you spend enough time on each subject and have a chance to look at all aspects of the curriculum.
Here are a few helpful tips to help you stay on the right path:
1. Don’t revise for an exam within half a day of taking it. Exam in the morning? Stop revising for it at lunchtime the day before. Exam in the afternoon? Don’t revise for it that day. Revising at the last minute can sap your confidence as you convince yourself that you don’t know anything and will never get a good grade. If you don’t know your stuff that close to the exam, then spending the remaining hours cramming is unlikely to help!
2. Little and often is key. It can be really tempting to leave the final exams until much nearer the date. However, after 4-5 weeks of exams you will be suffering from revision fatigue and you really won’t want to spend hours each day revising for the last one or two. Besides, we can’t focus well for hours on end so that kind of revision is less effective anyway. Schedule in a few revision sessions for those last exams earlier in the month so that you can keep things ticking over nicely.
3. Take a break every 45 minutes or so. There is a good reason why school lessons last 35-45 minutes – we cannot focus intensively for much longer than that. Work hard and focus well for 45-50 minutes, then take a short break. Not three hours of social media, but 5-10 minutes to walk around the house or garden, get a drink or something to eat, and stretch. Then sit down for another session. Try looking into the “Pomodoro Technique” – there are lots of videos to explain the idea.
4. Vary your revision techniques. Reading and re-reading the same page again and again only works for a very small minority of people. Try drawing mind-maps, thinking of acronyms to help you remember key info, summarising and re-summarising to get to the key points. Get busy with the highlighter pens, add stickers to mark the important bits, see what works best for you.
5. Test yourself regularly. At the beginning of a topic, write yourself a quiz covering 5-10 key pieces of information. When you think you have finished with that topic, try the quiz and see if you can remember the answers without looking in your notes.
6. Check your timing by trying some past papers, under timed conditions. Time management is an important exam technique as it is vital to leave enough time to tackle all of the questions on the paper. Your teacher may give you some past papers, or you can usually find some on the website for the relevant exam board.
7. Successful multi-tasking is a bit of a myth. If you are watching TV, listening to music, checking social media AND revising, then you aren’t concentrating properly on any of them. Book time in your schedule to check email or messaging apps, tell your friends you are going off-line for a while, and allow yourself to really focus.
8. Downtime is important too, so remember to plan it in your revision schedule. Maybe not full days or a whole weekend, but careful slots to allow you to exercise, meet friends, or go to that party.
9. Eat well. Lots of fruit and veg, of course, but also proper good quality protein and carbs. Yes to home-cooked stir fry, stew, bolognaise etc. Proceed with caution when it comes to doughnuts, chocolate and fast food.
10. Prioritise a good sleep habit. Although it can be tempting to revise late into the night, you have to balance the likelihood of retaining something important read at midnight, with the probability of impaired thinking if you have been up that late!
GCSE speaking exams will be taking place in April which leaves just a few weeks of revision and preparation time. So, if you have just 10-12 minutes or so to wow the examiner and get the best possible mark, what preparation can you do?
1. Firstly, be sure to look at the specification for the exam board that you are doing. They are all freely available online, and your teacher may have given you some information already. In general, there will be a picture card section, a role play and a conversation or two – do you know how long each one lasts? How long do you have to prepare?
2. Use your preparation time wisely. You will have a few minutes (12 or so) in a room with an invigilator. During this time you won’t have access to a dictionary or smartphone. The idea is that you look at the picture topic and prompts and plan the role play. You are allowed to make notes, but you must not read out full sentences from your notes, so use keywords only – maybe past participles or verbs to remind you to use them – even a simple list of the things to remember like tenses, adjectives, smile etc.
3. Your teacher has probably given you a list of likely topics/questions. Ensure that you understand ALL of them and that you can recognise them quickly. If you have been encouraged to write sample answers for each question then accept that you may not remember each answer in full – that’s like learning a script. Instead, try to learn keywords for each area and if necessary be willing to stretch the truth in order to demonstrate your language skill, rather than stick rigidly to what you really think/did. E.g. if you spent last weekend canoeing in Somerset but can’t remember how to say so, then tell the assessor that you went to the cinema with your friends to see a comedy!
4. Your assessor will give you a chance to demonstrate past, present and future tenses. Make sure you recognise the clue in the question (ie “What did you do last weekend” = past, “What do you like to do at the weekend” = present, “What will you do next weekend” = future).
5. Learn some panic vocabulary. Swapping from your target language into English to say “I don’t understand” will lose you marks – doing it in French/German/other target language will lose you fewer marks and may gain you some for effective communication! Remember that for some parts of the exam the assessor is only allowed to repeat what they said, not to change the words at all.
6. Know how to formulate questions in your chosen language. For example, does the word order change when you make a question instead of a statement? What are the different question words and what do they mean? Can you recognize them all? You will have to ask a question as part of the role play, so do practise relevant questions for each topic.
7. When it comes to the picture prompt, it is always a good idea to have practised a couple first. Do remember to try to link your description of the photo to the topic where possible. So if the topic is “Work” and you have a picture of a young man serving an elderly couple, try to include the words “waiter”, “restaurant” or “hotel” in your answer as well as describing what they are wearing/doing/eating. Remember that the prompt words are there to give you an idea of what will be asked. The assessor will not use those exact words during the conversation, but will formulate a question around each (from their script).
8. Consider your choice of conversation topic carefully. For example, for Edexcel you can choose one of the two topics and have a minute or so to talk about it before being asked questions on other themes in that topic. You could select one of the themes you are LESS confident with so that you have the maximum amount of time possible to prepare, or you could just hope that it doesn’t come up in the exam and choose one that you know really well instead.
9. Grammar! If you are aiming for the higher grades, then you will have to demonstrate a range of grammar knowledge. See how many of these you can include in your conversation…
– A range of tenses (past, present and future as a minimum, but for a higher grade add, imperfect, conditional and pluperfect if possible) – Complex grammatical structures – e.g. um…zu for German, après avoir +infinitive and avant de +infinitive for French. – A range of people doing the verbs (to show you can use correct endings) – Opinions (3 different ways of showing what you think) – Modal verbs (can, should, must) – Word order: especially for German but also with French (adjective order) – Correct endings depending on gender (and “case” for German) – Time phrases – not just “at 12 o’clock” or “tomorrow” but also rarely, often, never, always etc. – A negative or two
10. Take time to take a deep breath or two as you go into your speaking exam. Remember to smile. And when you run out of things to say, stop and smile confidently rather than trailing off in the middle of a sentence…
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