GCSE: Getting our students ready for the Speaking and Writing Exams.

I have not written anything here for quite a while, simply because I have not had the time after starting a new job, mentoring trainee teachers and changing the SoWs of the whole department from KS3! 

However, as I have started planning my strategy to support my students in the final weeks/lessons before their GCSE exams, I thought I would share some strategies that are working well for us. Just to remind you my context, a teach in a non-grammar school in Princes Risborough, Buckinghamshire. 

I have inherited a lovely Y11 mixed ability group, where half of the students will sit the Foundation Paper and half the Higher Paper.  My students need lots of support. So these are some of the strategies I have adopted with them since September and am focussing on up to the oral/written exams.  

We use AQA but the approach described below can be applied to any board.  In our case, we will finish teaching the syllabus next week, just before the Easter break. This means that we will have three weeks, 3 lessons a week, to focus A LOT on the Speaking exam and indirectly the Writing paper, after the holidays. 

Time-Writing Tasks

These have taken place since September. The idea is that I choose a past paper writing question, on topics covered in Y10. I always choose Q2 from the Higher AQA Paper, requiring 150 words, even for my Foundation students. I have high expectations and this allows me to motivate some of the students to believe in themselves, get better and maybe trying the Higher Paper after all! 

If too challenging, students can write 90/100 words.  In a lesson, I give them the exam question, we translate the bullet points. We discuss ideas on content snd model together an answer based on their knowledge. Then for h/w, using our model answer and their notes, they prepare the writing task and next lesson, in exam conditions and during 30 minutes, they write down their task. 

We do this every two weeks and it is invaluable to make sure writing skills get practised periodically. 

The 5 Magical Powers

To be successful in the previous task and to do really well in the oral exam, especially the General Conversation, students need to fulfil certain criteria.  This is what I call the 5 Magical Powers:

• Use of different tenses (at least three)
• Giving opinions 
• Giving Reasons
• Talking about someone else, in its simple form, the use of reported speech mi madre/amigo dice/dijo que..
• High Impact expressions

We embed these Magical Powers in our SoW as from Y7! In fact our mark scheme at KS3 is based on how well these powers have been achieved in a written/oral task. Click here for a Blogpost on this. Looking at the new GCSE, still these criteria are present so something that is not going away!  

To help students to use the Magical Powers, we created the following document, with examples of the Powers to practise as from Y10. This document has been printed in A3, laminated and displayed in the students' desk.  Click here for a copy.  Students also have their own laminated copy for their bedrooms! 

I have talked extensively about the Powers before, but one of the elements I developed recently is the use of LINKS or NUGGETS.  

What are the NUGGETS?

My Y11 students were really struggling with verb endings so I thought of using LINKS or NUGGETS, basically expressions acting as shortcuts,  which can be used for different tenses, without having to conjugate a verb.  I still expect most of my students to use verb endings but, if they struggle, in a moment of panic, the nuggets work wonders. Similarly, those students who can conjugate well and easily can alternate traditional conjugation with the NUGGETS, as these are also examples of High Impact expressions (a Magical Power), widening their use of vocabulary!

How do they work? If students do not remember the endings for the present tense, especially for irregular verbs, they may use Suelo/Suele/ Me gusta/ Podemos/Se puede. In the Preterite, Decidí/empecé a, in the Imperfect, Solía, in the future Voy a and in the Conditional Me gustaría. The NUGGETS or LINKS are very popular because once you use them, you just need to use the Infinitive after them!!

They also help weaker students to understand that an infinitive can never be used without the support of a NUGGET or LINK.  When we practise sentences, for example, we always do it using a verb ending but also a LINK/NUGGET if it is possible.  This has helped my students a LOT to avoid grammatical mistakes regarding verb endings. 

The nuggets or links work so well that these are introduced as from KS3, so they become a second nature for students when they reach KS4.

Embedding the General Conversation in all lessons

This is the core! We have a bank of questions, many taken from the Photocards, which students have been working on since the beginning of the year. Ideally, should start doing this in Y10: every time a topic is covered, students write model answers to some model questions for the given topic and practise them in lessons with lots of games throughout the two year course! 

I make it clear they must not learn them by heart but it is good practice to have an idea of what can be said for each topic, transfer the answers to flashcards and do active learning/ testing as from Y10. We make sure these general conversation questions are embedded in our Scheme Work and all our lessons aim to reach fluency/communication having these as our final goal!

I like this approach as we don’t only tackle the oral aspect, but also the writing tasks, basically productive skills. 

My current cohort of students need lots of support to help them practise the General Conversation, so we practise the questions with MWBs.

I use the following Flippity Ramdomiser Task where a question for each theme appears. Click here for the example. Students then, answer in their MWBs the question referring to their Nominated Theme, to start with, to the best of their ability.  At a second stage I will ask them to choose a question from a non-nominated theme. 

To promote spontaneity, when practising these questions, you can ask students to answer the question using a specific structure. Check this other Flippity activity which we carry out once students are more confident with their answers

Preparing a Revision Schedule

It does not matter where I have taught, students find revising for their language GCSE very tricky!  So, years ago, I started preparing a revision schedule using Padlet. In fact, I have polished this practice over the years and now I create a revision schedule for their Mocks, another one for the Oral practice, to be carried out as from Easter, and once the oral is out of the way, I will prepare another one for the Reading, Listening and Writing exams.  This is our oral revision Padlet.  Our students and their parents were really grateful for this as I showed the schedule to them last week during Parents' Evening!

Practising the Role-Play

Students can find this section of the exam very challenging as the prompts found in those Roleplays can be particularly odd. 

What works here is practice, practice, practice, so students can get as close to the 15 points as possible by being accurate and being concise! This is hard to understand as we always encourage them to extend answers! Well for the Roleplay, No! 

I always make a selection of past Roleplays and to start with (mid Y10 and beginning of Y11) I spend time going over the bullet points, analysing them and explaining what is “a detail”, which can be any piece of information! 

Example: ¿Qué hiciste el día de la excursión? 2 detalles: fui a un museo (detail 1) but instead of saying another activity, which requires conjugating a verb, hence risking making a mistake, students can just say por la tarde/con mi clase/ por la mañana/ con mi profesor (detail 2). It will score the same as saying: y vi muchos cuadros! 

I always start practising the Roleplays together as a class, with MWBs, so I can check for understanding and spot errors that we can comment on. This can take up to one lesson! 

At a second stage, after lots of modelling, students can move to practise the Roleplays in pairs. For this we have an oral booklet, click here, with Roleplays, Photocards (from specimen and past papers materials) and examples of general conversation questions. On the booklet, I include the Teacher’s sections, so students can practise easily in pairs or on their own, testing themselves! 

I also spend time practising how to ask questions. This is key! What’s the easiest way to ask a question in French, German, Spanish that would fit nearly any topic/situation? For me is, what do you think of? In both ways: the polite and familiar forms. Also, do you like…? Finally, depending on the Roleplay,  the question is there? is very useful! 

In my experience with these three questions students can answer the Roleplay well! What about having some starter, retrieval practice quick fire task  focussed on asking questions? This should be second nature! As the exam approaches, have a roleplay as a starter activity, to be carried out using MWBs

Practising the Photo Card 

I use a similar approach for this component to that used with the Roleplay but emphasising the idea that, in this section, they need to extend answers by giving reasons and providing examples using a different tense. 

We do this via MWBs with the whole class. We focus a lot on the first question: what is there in the photo? And use the PALM acronym (describing people, action, location, mood). Then, to stretch students we talk about imagining a little story using the structure: Creo que acaban de + infinitive (I think they have just….) or Creo que están a punto de + infinitive ( I think they are about to).

As with the Roleplay, having our oral booklet with all the Photocards and the teacher’s input is key! Once we do lots of modelling together with MWBs, students can then practise in pairs or individually with these. 

Tip: have a look at the questions used for the photocard by your exam board and include these questions, or similar ones, as part of your oral General Conversation model questions. These questions keep appearing in a similar format year after year, and by including them in your bank, students will be familiar with the questions even if they are surprise ones! 

Good luck to all Y11s!