A Level Speaking Ideas

 Speaking at A Level can vary so much from perhaps a fluent discussion amongst native speakers, to maybe a student who did GCSE by learning answers by rote and struggles with spontaneity. So approaches differ and classes can be very different, but in all cases, we have to develop students' ability to speak with increasing fluency and sophistication in terms of argument and language.

One idea that I find works well is to have a speaking routine. This coincidentally works well for students
who are struggling with spontaneity, but also with native speakers who tend to give a straight-up answer to the question and leave it at that!

Students are banned from starting with their own opinion. First, they have to get used to examining other people's opinions or stereotypes. Even saying what they don't think, which introduces the subjunctive and helps consider different sides of an argument. Perhaps the debate lends itself to discussing how things used to be. Or giving a personal evaluation or reaction to the current situation. Then, and only then, once they have considered these other perspectives, can they give their own opinion.

This to some extent dictates what grammar I cover early in the course. We have to look at the subjunctive for doubt and for value judgements. We have to use the imperfect for talking about how things used to be. We have to learn to compare. And then re-use this routine regularly in lessons and across topics until it stops being a routine and becomes a natural way to consider and debate ideas.

I also use a lot of activities based around the idea of echoing back. The simplest version is pairwork, where one student has a copy of a text. They read it aloud in Spanish to their partner in short chunks. Their partner simply echos it back. Trying to process, memorise and repeat longer, more coherent sections of the sentences.

Then we move on to other variations of the same task: 

Echoing back but changing the tense. This works well with a text that was written about something that no longer exists. For example a description of the old Spanish social media site Tuenti.

Echoing back but changing the person. This works well with a first person account that students will need to use in the 3rd person. This is also important for the Summary task in the Listening and Reading paper.

Echoing back but simplifying, paraphrasing, embellishing, casting doubt...

Another favourite is Simultaneous Translation. One student is responsible for thinking up what to say. They feed this to a partner in English. The partner has to say it in Spanish. This is to overcome the situation of students having nothing or very little to say. The cognitive load of dealing with the A Level topics, thinking of something to say, AND saying it in Spanish, can be too much. The skill of thinking up what to say, making it coherent and pitching at the right level of language is a skill that needs practising. So one partner takes on this job. And the other just has to put it into Spanish. It's spontaneous extended speaking but with the workload shared. And it turns out that doing the Spanish is the easy part!

These structured activities need to be interspersed with more open activities. Such as describing a scene, answering a collection of bizarre personal questions ("¿Cuándo fue la última vez que viste un animal vivo?"), Would I Lie to You (I no longer play this after a series of revelations from one group) or just chatting.

Bizarre questions (Why is the sky blue?) are great for practising the skill of talking around something you don't really have an answer for. You can show off great language by saying that you are not sure about something, suggesting different possibilities, rejecting ideas, and re-framing the question. It's another powerful routine to be worked on until it comes naturally.

Using the Speaking Exam Stimulus Card is also important, but students sometimes automatically view these as threatening, or think there is a "right" answer. The routine outlined at the start of this post, does fit well with the demands of the Card, and it is important for students to be able to quickly spot that the questions are not asking for a straight-up answer, but in fact are an invitation for you to show off your knowledge and your Spanish.