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…