Author: Neil

Teacher of French Spanish in east London.

GCSE listening skills

If you follow the AQA GCSE board, the following may be of use. I have put together similar exercises from all of the GCSE higher listening materials we have to date. There are some types of exercise that are repeated e.g. news item comprehension, past/present/future, inference, etc. I have grouped them together and I will be working through them soon with my group. Strategies like looking out for distractors are well known, but inference esp. answering when the words are not provided are more difficult and need some practice. The fact that similar exercise types have appeared in all papers so far is no guarantee that this will happen this summer, but the strategies in coping with distractors, tenses, inference, answering in the target language etc. will still be there.

When using the resources, the transcript part should be hidden. I’m getting the students to fold the paper.

RESOURCES: SKILLS types of listening questions  PowerPoint – COMPREHENSION skills LISTENING

Literary texts

Attached are a range of Spanish literary texts and exercises. They are all adapted from GCSE exam board materials or texts online. The techniques suggested are those provided by EdExcel.

KS4: Variety of literature READING LITERARY TEXT Higher Viaje a la Alcarria READING LITERARY TEXT Foundation Lecciones de poesía para niños inquietos READING LITERARY TEXT Higher Dime quién soy READING LITERARY TEXT Higher La ciudad de las bestias READING LITERARY TEXT Higher El tiempo entre costuras READING LITERARY TEXT Higher Yerma by Lorca READING LITERARY TEXT Foundation Historia de una maestra READING LITERARY TEXT Foundation La familia de Pascual Duarte READING LITERARY TEXT Foundation Las tres bodas de Manolita READING LITERARY TEXT Foundation Paula by Isabel Allende READING LITERARY TEXT Foundation Pobre Monolito by Elvira Lindo READING LITERARY TEXT Higher El árbol de la ciencia READING LITERARY TEXT Foundation Bodas de sangre READING LITERARY TEXT Foundation El caballero de Azor READING LITERARY TEXT Foundation Vida feliz de un joven llamado Esteban READING LITERARY TEXT Higher Tiempo de escarcha READING LITERARY TEXT Foundation El misterio de la llave READING LITERARY TEXT Higher La vida de Lazarillo de Tormes READING LITERARY TEXT Higher   KS3: El sueño de Otto READING LITERARY TEXT Year 7 Persecución en Madrid READING LITERARY TEXT Year 7

San Fermín – Higher level GCSE

The resources attached are from a lesson I taught recently. The topic was “Festivals” and I have been working towards a Higher Level GCSE 150 word writing task where one of the bullet points asks the students to write about a festival they would like to take part in.

There was a listening activity in the PowerPoint which I have deleted as it was based on audio from VIVA. I used the transcript to create an activity where the students heard the audio, but my transcript had replaced many words with synonyms and other verbs taken from the High Level Verbs sheet.

The lesson was taught a few days before the Day of the Dead in Mexico, hence the reference in the PowerPoint.

POWERPOINT: una fiesta en casa HIGHER    RESOURCES: SAN FERMIN reading grades 7+SAN FERMIN reading grades 5 6VERBS San Fermin lesson TEST SHEETVERBS San Fermin lesson ANSWERS

High frequency language

The attached documents highlight the core language students need to know in order to function well when producing Spanish independently. I think there is work to be done to adapt some of the attached documents to the requirements of Higher Level GCSE – I made them last year with lower sets in mind. This will be a task for me in the coming weeks.

The attached documents are just ideas. The key thing for me is continually revisiting the language in lessons especially expressions which continually trip up students such as “tampoco”, question words and expressions such as “acabar de”.

RESOURCES: compulsory language SPANISH past paper questions TRANSLATION into Spanish FOUNDATION compulsory language SPANISH answers compulsory language SPANISH blank compulsory language SPANISH connectives worksheet compulsory language SPANISH essential verbs crossword compulsory language SPANISH paritally completed compulsory language SPANISH past paper questions TRANSLATION FOUNDATION compulsory language SPANISH past paper questions TRANSLATION HIGHER

Translation formats

I’m posting a few documents I use regularly for translation (into and from Spanish). The formats can be used for all translation tasks – I just change the text. For the “select the best translation” task, a bit more work is required. The assessment criteria are those used by AQA.

 

RESOURCES: Higher Translation from Spanish to English FIESTA and English to Spanish TRANSLATION GCSE into ENGLISH foundation BEST FRIENDS TRANSLATION GCSE into SPANISH foundation SCHOOL NOW + IN THE PAST Foundation Translation from Spanish to English TIEMPO LIBRE and English to Spanish

La Voz Colombia

The resources attached are for a higher ability Year 11 GCSE group on the topic of free time, but more specifically on discussing music. The aim is to get the students to give interesting responses to questions about their musical tastes – ones which would score well at Higher Level in the GCSE speaking exam.

There is a video embedded into the PowerPoint which is a brief edit of an interview with a contestant from The Voice in Colombia. The reading comprehension interview with the contestant is made up, but hopefully carries on in the vein of what the singer was saying on the video. All should make sense when you look at the resources, however the first slides aim to build up vocabulary and useful phrases. With slide 8 students discuss each statement giving a personal response using some of the language presented. This then all builds to the comprehension activities. Finally the students prepare their own answers to the last two questions using the language presented and taking David’s responses as examples of good extended answers.

RESOURCES: PowerPoint: Una entrevista con David   Worksheet: ENTREVISTA CON DAVID La Voz Colombia