For GCSE, I did both Spanish and German. Despite many people thinking that double languages would be overwhelming and confusing, it was one of the best choices I made! Being more familiar with the exam papers, mark schemes and teaching methods helped me to be more prepared throughout the GCSE course. For me, languages not only provide an efficient way to communicate with others, but also allow you to explore new cultures and traditions - giving you a much broader insight to the world.
So here’s some advice to help you learn languages more effectively, in particular, for GCSE.
The key to success
Immerse yourself in whichever language you’re learning, for example:
Read foreign magazines
Listen to foreign music (Alvaro Soler has lyrics which aren’t too complicated to translate)
Watch TV series and films in the language you’re trying to learn (Netflix have quite a few- High Seas, Elite and Cable Girls)
Even though you may end up reading the English subtitles, listening to the language makes you pick up new words and phrases. Being passionate and interested about a language really does help fuel your knowledge and cultural awareness for it, although this is crucial for A-Level, it’s great for GCSE! Consistency is also crucial to learn languages (test yourself using active recall) and it ensures that, whilst your language skills are building all the time, you can utilise whatever knowledge of the language you have at any moment.
The Exam (structure)
Most exam boards (I did AQA) test you on four main skills at GCSE languages:
Reading
Writing
Listening
Speaking
Each of these are equally important and are worth 25% of your final mark at the end of year 11. What I love about learning languages is that, for GCSE, every theme or topic will come up in at least one of the four different types of exam (reading, writing, listening and speaking).
The different themes are:
Theme 1: Identity and culture
Theme 2: Local, national, international and global areas of interest
Theme 3: Current and future study and employment.
It’s hard to believe how much progress you make at the beginning of the course through to the end of year 11 - not just with the building bank of vocabulary, but also your grammar skills. For example, when revising, I found it helpful to go back to my early written pieces and add more complex structures and varieties of tenses to improve my work.
The Vocabulary
Vocabulary is extremely important, perhaps even more so than grammar when you study languages at GCSE. This is because you don’t always need to understand the exact translation of something to win the marks in an exam, you often just need to have a general understanding. In many questions this is enough to get the bulk of the marks. I find that websites such as Spanish Quizlet, German Quizlet and Spanish Memrise, German Memrise were very helpful, as long as you use them consistently throughout the course. If you simply search for the sets with the correct exam board, you’ll find topic specific vocabulary which can be used for all the language exams which you sit. After all, there’s no better way to understand others and communicate than having the right words to say it readily available!
👆Quizlet example
👆Memrise Example
The Grammar
Personally, I found German grammar and Spanish tenses quite confusing - as we rarely pay a second thought to the grammar and tenses we use in English! Even when we are using English, it seems as though there are only three tenses:
Present
Past
Future
Yet, without realising it, there are many forms of each time frame which we use in everyday life. For example, the preterite past, present continuous and subjunctive… These are only a few tenses and it still sounds confusing! Initially, it is slightly annoying, and I couldn’t help thinking - why can’t we all just use three tenses? But, as you delve deeper into a language, you realise that tenses are crucial to communication. As a visual learner, I found it really helped me to make a timeline of when to use what tenses (for example: the preterite is for single, completed actions in the past), what endings to include and any irregular verbs.
The Listening Exam
Out of the four sections which are examined, I always found listening exams the hardest: most of the time I could understand what the audio was saying, but transferring it from my ears to the paper in the correct format for that question was slightly trickier.
So what’s the best way to improve? Sounds simple... but the answer is to just practice! Practice listening out for words in whatever language you’re studying on a regular basis. When you encounter a word you don’t know - write it down (even if it seems irrelevant) anything can come up in the exam.
Remember to write down things you do not yet remember or understand, it takes time but it works! 📝
Writing and Oral Exam
For both the written and spoken exam, there is so much freedom for creativity, which will help you to use the best language you can and get the top marks. To practice writing and improve my vocabulary, I would regularly write paragraphs for each topic we studied in class. Using a checklist for exams was extremely useful for me, as it ensured I included the best variety and quality of work that I could, for example:
Opinions
Connectives
Tenses
I used other complex language and phrases, for example, in German - the ‘verb comma verb’ structure:
‘um…zu’ and connectives such as ‘obwohl’.
In Spanish, showing off a range of tenses in phrases like:
‘no podría’ (conditional)
Using the subjunctive phrase
‘cuando tenga…’
Or perfect past
‘siempre he querido’.
Make sure to have some handy phrases when writing about the past, present and future to impress the examiners and show a wide range of knowledge.
Opinion phrases are crucial to show your passion and interest when you’re writing in a language (I found that, I believe/ think that, in my opinion, some say…). Connective phrases show fluency in both speaking and writing, and using sophisticated conversational terms helps you sound less like a robot and more like a native!
German grammar can also be quite difficult once you move onto the more advanced (and slightly less relevant) aspects, but my advice is to focus more on the skills you will use. For example, instead of learning multiple versions of the past tense, recognise a few of the important verbs in the imperfect tense - such as ‘ich war’, but make sure you know the basic German perfect preterite tense like the back of your hand. Similarly, in Spanish, make sure you have some good ‘go to’ phrases in different tenses which can be easily used during a writing or speaking exam.
Practice is crucial for any exam: learn the content, vocabulary and basic grammar. Remember, you’ll be improving all the time as you continue to use the language. This also means that whilst you complete practice papers and questions (I get mine here, on AQA's website) you’ll automatically get more familiar with the format as you gain more understanding in the language.
Some of the German GCSE Revision materials I used
For the written exam in particular, it’s important to practice the questions to time. Often, most people finish extremely early, yet still manage to write above the expected word count: I strongly advise not to do this! You are marked on:
Accuracy - thoroughly check your work after finishing to make sure the tenses and word order is correct
Range - include a few impressive phrases or idioms in different tenses as well as having opinions and justifications
Content - stay relevant to the question, the examiner is likely to mark you down for wandering off topic
The Reading Exam
Make sure to read the text a few times before answering questions, underlining the key information as you go. And, of course, learn vocab!
Here are a few German words that are key to distinguish ideas in a text:
Doch, aber: but
Jedoch, obwohl, trotzdem: although
Vorgestern: day before yesterday
Neulich: recently
Selten: rarely
Streng: strict
Zuverlässig: reliable
Frech: cheeky
Witzig:funny
Hilfsbereit: helpful
Gelegenheit: opportunity
Geduldig: patient
Chef: boss
Also: so
Note: grade
Bald: soon
And for Spanish:
Mañana por la mañana: tomorrow in the morning
Decepcionante: disappointing
Sensible: sensitive
Sencillo: simple
Aunque, sin embargo, a pesar de, por otro lado: however
Sin duda: without doubt
Por eso, por lo tanto: therefore
Mejor: better
Peor: worse
Cuidar: to look after
Querer: to want
Suelo de: I usually
Acabo de: I have just
Largo: long
Nota: mark
Some Spanish revision notes and guides 🇪🇸
The Real Thing
For the real exam - make sure to be calm and focused. For me, the speaking exam was the most daunting, it seems as there is added pressure because of the one-to-one conversation, but most teachers understand how you feel so support you as much as they can!
Make sure you stick to the plan which you have prepared, for example, I remember in my German speaking, every time my teacher was looking down at her sheet of paper, I thought she was disinterested (when really she was looking for a new question) - so I stopped answering the question and didn’t add as much detail as I had intended to. Expand and elaborate on your points as much as possible. After all, this gives the teacher less time to ask you more questions which might catch you out, and more time to talk about what you know. You’re in control of what you say, so take the initiative and play to your own strengths!
The great thing about doing two languages was that my Spanish was significantly less nerve wracking, having recently been in a similar situation for German, I felt much more composed and took my time. Making sure to answer all my questions in sufficient detail, unlike my previous German exam!
Summary
Languages are one of the most essential skills to learn, they provide so many external benefits. The topics explored are culturally valuable and relevant, so they give you an amazing foundation to build your skills on and are compatible with every other subject! At GCSE, make sure you keep on top of the vocabulary and the main tenses that you need to know in order to fluently write or talk to someone. Whereas the more complex phrases have the capacity to boost your grade. It may seem embarrassing at first, but try to converse with friends, family (or even yourself) in the language.
I hope this has been helpful, gracias por leer/danke fürs lesen!