GCSE Speaking Exams will be taking place in late April which gives just a couple of weeks left for preparation. This year they may be causing particular concern to some students, parents and teachers, as the recent curriculum changes have introduced a new “read aloud” task to check pronunciation.
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 read aloud task, a role play and a picture card section with a related conversation – 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 (14 is standard, more if you have special accommodations) in a room with an invigilator. During this time, you won’t have access to a dictionary or smartphone. Look at the picture topic and prompts and plan the role play. Think about how to pronounce the words in the read aloud task, and where you should take your breaths. You are allowed to write notes but 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. Decide whether you will use the one-minute recorded practice to read words aloud or if you prefer to remain quiet and practice silently.
3. Your teacher should have given you a choice of two topics for the photo. They may also have given you some sample 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 be creative so you can demonstrate your language skill, rather than stick rigidly to what you really think/did. E.g. if you spent last weekend windsurfing in Cornwall 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 week?” = past, “What do you like to do at the weekend?” = present, “What will you do next summer?” = future). Try to mirror the tenses used.
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. 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.
7. Know how to ask 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.
8. Grammar! In order to get higher marks, 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
9. 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…
Teri Fleetwood is an experienced language tutor with 20 years experience of tutoring to the GCSE and A Level curriculum. If you would like to discuss 1:1 or small group tuition, whether for exam preparation or pleasure, then do get in touch! teri@language-learners.com