Spanish

Why study Spanish?

Preparing for GCSE Spanish will allow students to explore and appreciate Spanish culture through its language and to develop the skills of speaking, listening, reading, and writing.  Spanish is the second most common language in the world, spoken by over 300 million people in more than 20 countries.

• Family and friends
• Studying abroad
• Globalisation and employment
• Business
• Work experience
• Travel and Tourism
• Emigration
• European Union
• Literature
• Personal and social development

The Examination

We study the Edexcel specification.  The GCSE examination focuses primarily on the natural use of language in authentic situations.  There are four skills tested in the examination: speaking, listening, reading and writing; all carry equal weighting.

Paper 1 - Listening Higher Tier: 40 minutes plus 5 minutes reading time

Candidates listen to a range of authentic recorded material spoken by native speakers.  The questions will elicit a combination of non-verbal responses, target language answers and answers in English (up to 20% only).

Paper 2 - Speaking Higher Tier: 11-12 minutes

The test consists of two role-play tasks and a conversation on two topics, one of which will be chosen by the candidates.

Paper 3 - Reading and Responding Higher Tier: 1 hour

Candidates will be required to read a range of authentic written material of varying length.  The questions will elicit a combination of non-verbal responses, target language answers and answers in English (up to 20% only).

Paper 4 - Writing Higher Tier: 1 hour

Candidates will be required to complete two tasks.  The first one will be a piece of writing 70-80 words in length.  Additionally, candidates will produce a piece of writing of about 150 words in the form of letter writing, factual or imaginary narrative, or discursive writing.