By Eimear Dinneen - 2 minute readThe Leaving Cert Spanish orals run in April which means now's the time to make sure you're well prepared. Here we've put together some tips to get you ready for it.
In this part of the exam you will speak on various topics. The best preparation you can do is to practice speaking Spanish as much as possible. Practice with your friends, record yourself on your phone or even start watching Spanish TV. A good challenge can be to pick a theme, time yourself, and see can you speak aloud for 1 minute on that theme. Making an effort to use an accent and properly pronounce words will really help you improve your grade.
Rather than waiting for the examiner to ask question after question try and lead the conversation into areas you have a good knowledge of and are well prepared for.
Examiner: "What did you do last weekend?"
Student: "On Saturday morning I..., then in the evening I did... On Sunday I studied, studying takes up a lot of my free time at the moment..."
Mindmapping out possible links between conversation topics can be worthwhile.
One of the key skills in an oral is to know your verbs. Be prepared to speak in the past, present and future tenses and if you are doing really well the examiner may introduce the conditional tense "what would you do if..."
One thing students often forget is to study the vocabulary the examiner will use when asking you questions. Listen carefully to the tense that is used in the question as this will guide you in your response.
The 5 roleplay cards will be turned upside down. The examiner will choose one for you to do. There are 4 set parts to the dialogue and you will be required to say your piece of the dialogue in a conversation with the examiner. The 5th part of the roleplay will be a surprise unseen question form the examiner.
If you find yourself in a tight spot, phrases such as
Lo siento, No entiendo la pregunta
(Sorry, I don't understand the question!) and
Puede repetir la pregunta por favor
(Can you repeat the question please)
..can be very useful!
Best of luck!
