Revising for the Speaking Exam Photo Card

 I know a lot of posts on this blog are about speaking spontaneously and developing ideas. But what about when it comes to the final stages of preparation for the exam? And what about when it comes to tasks other than the General Conversation? How do pupils prepare and revise for the Photo Card?

For a start, most of the Photo Card task isn't about the photograph at all. It's a chance to develop answers on the topic of the card, in response to unexpected questions. So all that practice on developing spontaneous answers should come in handy.

The description of the photo itself is just the first question. But since it's a highly predictable part of the exam, it makes sense to prepare for it.

One big question is what to do about the Present Continuous. She is eating some chips. They are playing hockey. In French it is a trap because there is no present continuous. As soon as the pupil says, "They are...", they are in trouble. Teachers get round this by teaching en train de + infinitive. In Spanish it seems odd to specially teach a tense just to be used for one sentence in one question of the exam. So I use the imperfect. Which is not an illogical tense to use if you are naturally describing a photo: This is my brother. He's in Spain. It was very hot and he was eating an icecream. It is also highly regular, has endings that pupils love to use (Abba and Mama Mía), and it's great reinforcement for using the imperfect so they don't forget to add it to their narrations in the General Conversation part of the exam.

Before the Easter holidays, I gave my Year 11s a set of 16 descriptions for different photos we've been using. For example:

Hay un grupo de jóvenes. Son estudiantes. Están en la biblioteca. Llevan uniforme. Estudiaban y leían. No hablaban. Parecen contentos.

The other 15 were similarly formulaic. Some with the addition of sentences about the weather. In the lesson, the pupils compiled a list of all the sentences with Hay... And a separate list of all the sentences with Están en... And another list of all the different possibilities for clothes... They have taken these lists home and are copying them onto cards. They have 7 cards including the one for weather. Then they can pick any picture and talk about it by working through their cards, saying one sentence from each card. Until they don't need the cards anymore.

I do find that over-specifying instructions does help! If you say, "Make some cards for revision" then maybe some pupils (the ones who would have done it anyway) will do it. If you say, "I want you to use different colour cards for each set of sentences" then they start to pay attention. If you say, "You are going to use the blue cards for the There is... sentences, and green cards for the They are in... sentences", then pupils seem to latch on to the instructions and feel compelled to follow them!

Of course the real point is to get them to not just make the cards, but to practise using them over and over...