I’ve been preparing students for their GCSE Spanish exam for 10 years. And in this blogpost I’m going to share with you my top tips on how to get the best grade possible.
1 – Learn the vocab
Most people go to Duolingo for their vocab, but I’d say check out Memrise; you can do it by topic, you don’t have to go back to the beginning if you don’t finish a topic, you can choose a different topic, so you can actually find AQA vocab, as well as Edexel Pearson vocab.
2 – Buy a great revision book
The CGP books are fabulous because they have all of the grammar that you need to be able to get a great mark in the exam. The topics in the AQA books are slightly different to the topics in the Edexcel and Cambridge but don’t let that put you off, they still do cover the very broad topic areas, the main reason I like these is for the grammar.
3 – Listen to Spanish music.
Two ways of doing this; so you can either have it on as background music when you’re studying, because it’s in a different language so it’s not going to be as off putting. And the second way to do it is to just listen to it all the time, so just having your headphones in, listening to Spanish music.
My advice would be to choose 2 or 3 artists and listen to their music, don’t listen to too many artists. By listening to those artists, you’ll get used to their pronunciation and it will help you understand the vocabulary in the songs easier. Pick out key phrases, look at the lyrics of the songs, translate them, and that will help you increase your bank of vocabulary. It will also help you with your listening skills.
4 – Learn your tenses.
So with my students we put together a verb timeline, which is a really handy document as we learn a new tense, we pop it on our timeline and then we have all the tenses together in one place.
5 – Past papers
Practise doing past papers – especially for the writing exam, you need to cover different tenses. At the top of the writing question, list the tenses that you want to include in your answer to the question, and use 2 or 3 different subjects. For example you want to use the “I” the “we” and the “them” for each, as you’re writing your answer to your writing question, tick them off as you include them. That way you’ll know you’ve covered all the tenses that you need to cover in that writing question.
6 – Photo question
So in the oral exam you’ll be given the opportunity to prepare a photograph that you will take into the exam with you. My advice is to choose the topic that you find most difficult for this photo. Because you can memorise off by heart what you’re going to say about the photo/image. And you can memorise answers to the follow up questions that your examiner is likely to ask. Once you’ve done that topic as your photocard, you’re not going to be asked that topic again for the rest of the oral exam. So it’s a really handy way to make sure that you’re in control, a little bit, of the exam.
7 – More Past papers
Do as many past papers as you can. And start to time how long the questions are taking you, how much time you need, and just be prepared. That will help you prepare for how the questions are formed in the exam, so there will be no surprises.
8 – Read in Spanish
Again, it’s all to do with vocab. There are a few ways you can do this; my advice is to set a timer for 20 minutes and do twenty minutes a day if you have that time. If not, 15 minutes is fine. Get a book or an article or a children’s bilingual book and just read in Spanish for 15-20 minutes and make a note of any new vocabulary. It will start to add to your vocab bank and your vocabulary is so important.
9 – Create a Spanish learning environment
If you can create an environment where you immerse yourself in Spanish, especially leading up to the exam, then it will feel a lot more comfortable. You’ll feel like you’re already in the zone when it comes to sitting your exam, or preparing for your oral. You can have a go at putting your phone language or satnav settings to Spanish. You can have a look at food menus, maybe cooking or baking for yourself in Spanish. Just try to immerse yourself in the language as much as you can.
10 – Practise, practise, practise!
And finally, the last top tip from me is to practise. If you’ve got a friend that is also sitting their Spanish GCSE that’s coming up, practise speaking, practise going over the questions, asking each other, and just practise as much as you can. If you’ve got anybody in your family who you can practise speaking Spanish with.
So there we go, my top 10 tips to get the best grade you’re capable of in your Spanish GCSE. To help I created a YouTube video on this exact topic. Watch it below.
