FAQ for preparing the DELE oral exam for 11-18 years old

I think the ideal way of starting this blog entry is by showing a sample of work of a DELE student. She recorded a presentation (task 3) where she describes an ideal school. I really loved the outcome and after asking for permission I am sharing this here as a good sample of the level required for the DELE escolar.

If you can't view the video follow this link

The most fascinating thing about DELE escolar is that there is no way to train for it. Also, once the exams are performed and assessed all papers are destroyed so any textbook will need to 'guess' what the papers may look like! However, what we know is that the junior version of a B1 exam provides more time and probably fewer tasks.

Oral test. Students will not know the exact questions before hand. They will know though that the main areas of interest are: experiences and aspects of their everyday life in relation to a certain topic: i.e. environment, social media, food, holidays, etc.

The advantages of using technology for preparing some of these tasks is that we can bring the idiosyncrasy of a certain city or town from any Spanish speaking country into the task and it is a personal experience in real time. The student chooses where to go within the city and what to describe. In addition to this, the use of augmented reality to describe a picture (tarea 1) can be embed with how we use technology in our lives.

For instance, during a lesson we were looking at a street in Madrid using street view and 3D. The student was trying to locate Casa de Lope de Vega after visiting a Chocolatería and suddenly the focus of attention was taken by the beautiful sky of Madrid. I started to type her responses and this was the result:

Casa de Lope de Vega: "la puerta es como verde muy verde. Es muy antigua pero en buena condición. El suelo es gris, de piedra. Hay muchos árboles. El cielo es increíble, hay muchas nubes sin formas. Pero ahora veo nubes con forma de chica. Otra nube tiene forma de ciervo. Hay un ratón y un caballo en el cielo. Hay mucho mucho graffiti. El letrero dice ‘farmacia’. Hay plantas.

And this lead us to the next topic: The environment and all about Air.

El Medio Ambiente: ¿Podemos salvar el planeta?