Ir al contenido principal

2013-2014 Academic Year and the beauty of Blended Learning

During 2013/14 academic year I have been supporting students with their Spanish GCSE, A-Levels and IB ab initio exams. In addition, I am now accredited as an examiner for DELE levels B1/B2 by Instituto Cervantes to prepare and assess students for their DELE exams.

There are so many differences on the way these exams are set and assessed and the resources available for tutors for preparing that it is imperative for all teachers to get know in great detail what is at stake.

DELE


It seems clear that DELE exams are the hardest for a tutor to help preparing mainly because there are no past papers available. This material is being destroyed after every entry. 

Also, time restrictions, for the speaking test the students have only a few minutes before the exam to prepare the answers for the questions. No material is allowed in the room and students have no access to the questions until the exam starts.

IB ab initio


This is very similar to DELE on terms of materials used for preparation i.e. Difusión. However, there are past papers available for the second year external exams, but no so much consistency on past papers for the internal exams during the first year, as teachers for each school develop these papers in-house and are not allowed to share them with external bodies (i.e. tutors). These internaltests are not always consistent with what has been covered by the teacher in class.


GCSE and A-Levels (AS/A2)


There is plenty of information and resources for preparing GCSE and A-levels Spanish. In my opinion the UK system is by far the easiest to help students preparing. This doesn't mean that the level of competence expected is low. In fact, the level is pretty high. The advantage for the students is that they have the time and resources for preparation. The disadvantage is that they will need fewer skills in learning strategies and intercultural competence to get best marks in compare to the previous systems. This makes an impact in fluency and the level of competence might seem lower than the previous systems.

i.e. GCSE AQA Speaking test: 10 days for preparation where students already have the questions and also they can use any material for preparing the answers i.e. dictionary/notes. 

The challenge for the tutor is fluency. With just one or two questions that the candidate doesn't expect from the examiner, usually there is an impact on the level of fluency as not surprisingly candidates tend to memorise the answers by heart. Poor fluency means lower marks. 


The results for this previous academic year have been higher than expected. Well done everyone!

What's the future for this academic year?


Well,  I always encourage all my new students to try an online session and then decided a plan for the year. I usually get better results from students that take a blended option. Check my post here about using Skype in the language classroom.

Comentarios

Publicar un comentario

Entradas populares de este blog

mlearning

After a few weeks and attempts to use my iPad in the Primary classroom I learned: -Generally children get too excited and all want is to touch or be near the iPad. Some groups got distracted by technology and lost focus on the learning intention of the task. -children need to interact first with a physical tool: ie such as a wooden clock before trying to use a clock with the iPad. -Child age doesn't seem to be a concern for using technology. Year 1 groups (4 years old) responded really well to an app and played a talking game with the iPad with great success. SO.. I have started to use my iPad in the classroom for the ONLY purpose of recording the children's work digitally. And it works.. The Classroom atmosphere has changed and kids really work hard because they know I will take a pic at the end of the task. Try it!  Finally, I have created a gmail account so that my KS2 students can send me their home work via email. Also, something a learned is that mlearni...
Publicar un comentario
Leer más

In the time of Covid-19

As a brief introduction, my name is Lorena Zurbano and I am an educator (originally from Madrid) based in London, with a background in research in language learning. A decade ago, when I first started this edublog, I was intending to switch my work as a school-based teacher/teacher trainer to language online tuition. Perhaps my studies as an online learner (MA in teaching Spanish as a foreign language) helped me to feel immediately comfortable in the new environment. More recently, 3 years ago, we were informed of the sudden closure of  my daughters’ school, and after some discussions we decided to give her a choice between all the options available locally and she opted for Home Education (not so much Home-based learning though!) alongside most of her school friends. I kept working online supporting Alevels and GCSE tests taking learners and in the system. One thing I learnt is that if you wish to pass a test then tutors or school may help, but if you want to become a pro...
Publicar un comentario
Leer más

The use of e-learning journals with Google docs

This academic year my students have made good use of google tools.  One of the best tool for preparing test has been google docs, but also useful has been mindmaps, wordle and also padlet. I have noticed that some schools have decided to increase testing time during the Autumn and Spring term, leaving students with not enough proper learning time. As a result my tutoring work has been challenging and demanding at times as it felt like teaching a complete scheme of work in just 60 min a week. Sometimes these in-house tests included material and topics that learners hadn't properly covered in school. Luckily I have had very able and resilient students this year, and hopefully they will not be discouraged by so much school testing and will carry on next year with modern languages.
Publicar un comentario
Leer más