GCSE Spanish Role Play Speaking

5 things you should do to get a top grade in the AQA GCSE Spanish Role Play and LEARN WITH THESE ROLE PLAY past papers and AUDIOS

In this post we are going to talk about how to get a higher grade in the AQA Board GCSE Spanish Role Play task, within the Spanish Speaking Exam. We even include 9 recorded role play mocks at the end of the video, you can download the script of the role play YouTube mocks dialogues for free here.

We start with the foundation tier role play cards past papers included in the 2018 exam series (AQA official website link here), and we recorded and uploaded the tips for higher in a future post, so please subscribe to the website and to the youtube channel and hit the notification bell so you don’t miss future videos and articles that will help you ace the GCSE Speaking Spanish Exam.

Watch this video to understand how the Role Play is like, how it works, marks, timings, what you can or can not do, USEFUL PHRASES, and you can test yourself preparing these 9 foundation 2018 past paper role play AQA Speaking exam and see the solutions on the youtube video and read them on the free script of the video solution you can download here.

Check the table of contents of the video below to the part you are interested in:

Table of contents: – 01:18 What is the role play? What do we mean by ‘role play’? – 03:10 How long is the role play? – 03:48 How many marks can I get? – 04:20 What is the role play like? – 05:50 Spanish useful phrases, questions and answers Q&A, YOU NEED TO KNOW – 11:38 Few more tips about role play: what I can and I can not do – 16:52 Role play 2018 past paper AQA FOUNDATION 1. 17:06 Role Play 1: Reservar una mesa. Book a table. Answer: 18:00 2. 19:30 Role Play 2: Un día en el colegio. A day at school. Answer: 19:47 3. 21:12 Role Play 3: Ir de tiendas. To go shopping. Answer: 21:29 4. 22:35 Role Play 4: Tienda de móviles. A phone shop. Answer: 22:51 5. 23:56 Role Play 5: Sobre el colegio. About school. Answer: 24:13 6. 25:30 Role Play 6: El transporte. Transport. Answer: 25:40 7. 26:34 Role Play 7: La vida sana. Healthy Lifestyle. Answer: 26:50 8. 28:00 Role Play 8: Las relaciones. Relationships. Answer: 28:17 9. 29:27 Role Play 9: Trabajo a tiempo parcial. Part time job. Answer: 29:45

If you are a UK school student and you are taking the AQA GCSE Spanish exam soon, don’t miss our section GCSE Spanish to find out more tips and useful resources.

Introduction to the AQA GCSE Spanish Role Play

The GCSE Spanish exam AQA and Edexcel, consists of 4 different parts (papers), each one on a different skill. Speaking is one of these 4 parts, and it is called Paper number 2. As the other papers, Paper 2(speaking) weighs 25% of the total Spanish GCSE.

To learn more about the Speaking exam, Photo Card etc, click here.

The speaking exam is conducted by the teacher who records the Speaking exam as a mp3 file. The board marks the exam.  

There are 3 different parts in the Speaking exam + preparation time :

  • Preparation time
  • First: role play
  • Second: photo card
  • Third: General conversation including two different parts (2 themes)

AQA Board: You can see in this image that the Role Play is 15 marks worth and is only 2 minutes long both in foundation and higher tier. But there is not really a limit, the examiner does not need to time the role play.

speaking-gcse-exam-aqa-foundation-higher-role-play-photo-card-general-conversation-total-preparation-time-4
speaking-gcse-exam-aqa-foundation-higher-role-play-photo-card-general-conversation-total-preparation-time-4

Now, let’s dive in how to approach the Role Play task in particular.

GCSE Spanish Speaking Exam AQA: Role Play (2 minutes foundation/ 2 minutes higher, 15 marks out of total 60 in the Speaking exam)Read the English title, it might give you clues.

You need to prepare 5 interactions. The question mark ‘?’ is a question you need to ask the examiner. The ‘!’ is an interaction or question your examiner is going to ask you, but but have no clues about when you are preparing the role play during the preparation time.

The examiner will start saying they are going to start with the role play in Spanish, something like ‘Empezamos con el role play’, ‘vamos a hacer el role play’. The first question will come after that.

Sometime the examiner uses the phrase ‘en qué puedo ayudarle’. That means ‘how can I help you?’ Some other phrases you must understand are: ‘hablame de ….’, ‘descríbeme…..’, ¿cómo es……….? these three expressions mean ‘Describe …, tell me about’.

Check the video to see what the question words mean, they are key. ¿Cómo? ¿Cuándo? ¿A qué hora? ¿Cuántas veces?….

In order to do your best in the exam, there are 5 things or tips you should do:

TIP Number 1. Preparation time: use it wisely

You will have 12 minutes to prepare the role play and the photo card. You can take notes only on a blanck sheet. You can keep and use the role play, photo card and notes till you finish both the role play and the photo card. Then, you will have to give them to the teacher before you start the general conversation.

Therefore, you can read your notes during the role play and the photo card. However, please try to sound natural. And CHECK THE EXAMINER IS ASKING WHAT YOU ASSUMED THEY WERE GOING TO ASK DURING YOUR PREPARATION.

TIP Number 2. What can you ask the examiner and how can the examiner help

1) You can ask the teacher to repeat: ‘¿Puede repetir?’ ‘¿Repite por favor?

2) If you forget to ask the question the examiner can ask ‘¿la pregunta?’

3) If you have to give two details and you forget one, the examiner can say ‘¿algo más?’

4) Please self-correct, that is acceptable. ‘Perdón, no es correcto, quiero decir…’

5) If you get the first part right, the following wont be taken into account, even if it is incorrect.

TIP Number 3. Change the form of the verb, the pronouns etc. when you answer, or not….

You can learn in the video above how to change the ‘tú form’ (ej. compras) to the ‘yo form’ (ej. compra), and which ‘need to know’ exceptions/irregulars may come across (ej. voy, tengo…). Also learn how to change the reflexive pronouns (‘me mantengo’ instead of ‘te mantienes’ en forma) and the possessive pronouns (‘mi’ casa instead of ‘tu’ casa).

When the question is not in the ‘you form’ you don’t need to change the verbs and pronouns. When talking about ‘tu mejor amigo es’ you will only need to change ‘tu’ for ‘mi’.

Mi ‘something’ ideal….you can always answer with ‘sería’:

Ejemplo: ‘Mi ‘something’ ideal SERÍA….(WOULD BE). Ej.: Mi casa ideal sería muy grande.

TIP Number 4. Giving opinion

You can always prepare an opinion question easily. You can use one of the two following structures, and you may prepare some easy adjectives to choose from:

First structure: Pienso que………(1)…………..es/son…..(bueno/malo/genial/horroroso)………….porque es/son….(3)

Second structure: (No) me gusta …………(1) porque es/son ……………(2)

Notes: (1) what he opinion is about. If it is singular (is) use ‘es’, if it is plural (are) use ‘son’. (2) Use adjectives like: cómodo, emocionante, original, aburrido, justo, limpio, sucio, peligroso, seguro, sano, malsano. Change he ending ‘o’ for ‘a’ when needed.

Ejemplos: Pienso que fumar es malo porque es malsano. No me gusta fumar porque es malsano.

TIP Number 5. The question bullet -?-

Learn the question words and phrases included in the video, they will help you make a question with the prompt next to the question mark.

If you don’t know what the word means, most of the times you can use the following:

1) ¿Qué opinas de……..? (what’s your opinion about….?), or

2) ¿Hay………………………? (is there????, are there?) Watch the video to learn from the examples.

Practice, practice, practice

Send us a comment with your questions or with any topic you want us to address in the future!!!!!!!!!!!!

Use the video and links above to practice with these 9 role play cards of 2018 exam series, foundation tier. But practice in exam conditions!!!!

Continue learning….

To learn more about the Speaking exam see all our videos and posts: click here.

Don’t miss our workshops. We organise lessons and we go over a lot of examples. Click here to know more.

You can also check which books we recommend in The best GCSE books to learn.

You can learn more about the Spanish GCSE Exam in AQA website link, the source of this post together with the courses, experience and training of our teachers and tutors.

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