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Getting Flustered In Oral Exams

I have my german oral in two weeks and two days, and to say that I'm scared is an understatement. :eek:

It's coming in too fast, make time slow down please!

Anyway, in my previous exams, I've always felt that the oral went the best. There's always been a level of uncertainty to the AS/GCSE orals, but it's nothing like the A2 - they could ask me anything controversial really (I have hunches on what I might get asked, but I want to know everything). I've never had a problem with over-thinking before, but I can tell this time I'm going to freeze or start talking complete crap or even possibly burst into tears (that's what I'd do if it was tomorrow, lol). I know pretty much all of my oral but again I get quite uptight when I start saying it aloud and this leads me into a cycle of - Can't even get the introduction down, can't get the issues down, can't the grades I need, can't get into uni, fail at life. (OK, I go quite extreme with my panics, lol :redface:

)

After all that waffling, my question is how do I stop getting flustered? I'm so petrified of f-ing this up. :redface:

Reply 1

xJessx

18

Yeah, I'm having the same problem with Spanish. Normally, I do best at speaking but this time, at A2, I feel a bit lost because the range of topics is so big!
Just practice as much as you can with a teacher or friends, learn key words, listen to tapes, news, videos and anything else you can get your hands on!
It's obvious you really want to do German so what will be will be! I'm sure you'll be fine, two weeks is a reasonable amount of time to have, you've got enough time to look back over your key topics. Good luck! :smile:

x

Reply 2

kiss_me_now9

OP

16

I'm typing up all my notes and it's just like "I'm meant to learn this, in two weeks?!" I know most of the vocab already (I'd probably understand it in the exam) but it's a kinda comfort/warning to me what I need to know. Plus it'll be useful for the written!

I hate having to have an opinion on everything... There are somethings I honestly don't care about!

Reply 3

city_chic

13

Aw, I know the feeling. I had my French oral this morning and I was so nervous over it. Once I was in the room with the examiner though, my nerves flew out the window and I just got on with it. I did stutter a little on some things I was trying to say, and probably made a couple of verbs up in the process, haha, but you can afford to stumble a little and still get a high mark. The uncertainty about what you may get asked is the most nerve-racking thing, but just prepare all you can and that's all you can do. Look over your A2 topics and learn specific vocab. Will you be presenting a topic of sorts? If so then just memorise it way in advance and go over it each day to have it firm in your head. I had prompts, and when my brain froze and I forgot how my next paragraph started, I just referred to my prompts quickly and got on with it. You don't lose any marks for forgetting what you're supposed to say. You can also probably guess what questions the examiner may ask you in advance. I'd listed down all the possible questions I thought could occur, and wrote notes that I could use in my answers. A few that I'd prepared did in fact come up, so I wasn't too surprised and unsure what to say. I got a little flustered in parts and when a sentence I was trying to say didn't quite come out right, I thought 'ugh, crap...' but in the exam you just get on with it and continue talking. Hope I've helped slightly... lol. It's true what everyone says though: oral exams are never as bad as you think they're going to be. And they're over with so quickly too. You have a good two weeks now to practise, and hopefully nail it :wink:

Good luck! :smile:

Reply 4

kiss_me_now9

OP

16

stryker101

and me with french. i only wrote my presentation today, we have to do a brief presentation, then 10 or 15mins of debate. on the 14th i think. ergh..
yeah isnt it the WORST feeling when you start a sentence, and you just know that you are about to get to a word which you just dont know, like you keep on talking and talking and then you reach this chasm of silence as you rack your brains! ergh its horrendous.i need to do SO much work!! esp as my teachers are total jokes, literally one of them used to be a stand-up comedian...

I did that this morning (we were playing Taboo... :biggrin:

Love my german class!) I got to my sentance and I ended up just carrying on saying random things because I couldn't remember one word and ended up rambling desperatly trying to remember the word and keep the sentance going so I could fit it in. :biggrin:

Reply 5

shmex

I had my german oral 4 days ago. Ahhh bliss.....

Reply 6

Meliae

I've got my Spanish oral tomorrow. All my conversation sheets have somehow vanished off the face off the earth so I guess I'm going to have to wing it. I hate speaking exams. I just freeze up and forget everything. It doesn't help that I do a few languages so once I get into the Spanish exam, for example, I start thinking in French. I've got a French listening exam on Wednesday as well... :frown:

Reply 7

nearlyheadlessian

15

kiss_me_now9

my question is how do I stop getting flustered? I'm so petrified of f-ing this up. :redface:

I know it's difficult but step number one is to be relaxed. You don't have to be so laid back that you're lying down, but do come to the exam in as positive a mindframe as possible. It will help. Do all those other little things to avoid nerves and stress before hand. Eat and drink properly the night before. Get a good nights sleep. Meander into school (if you can). Take your time and feel confident. Once you're there, sure - look over your notes - practice little bits and pieces to yourself - but don't stress out as you'll have already sealed your fate with your last two years of work and in particular the practice you've put in the weeks leading up to it. Another tip! Don't drink too much beforehand - saves all those "I need the loo!" nerves...

As for the exam; bring a good selection of filler phrases along with your notes. 5 or 6 ought to do it. Things like "I'm sorry, I've lost my thread of thought." or "Let me just catch up with myself" or "I've got a hole in my memory!" If you can wheel one out when you lose your thread you look good linguistically and it gives you seconds to calm yourself down and look in your prompts at where you were. Other thing. Bring water. Take small sips so you're not drying up as you speak. If you're feeling bad, or want 3 or 4 seconds of respite and a chance to check your notes, before you answer an examiners question just say "excuse me" or "let me have a sip of water" - it helps to relax you and makes the whole performance more natural.

Remember, try to be chilled - only way to avoid flustering.

Reply 8

davireland

13

I have mine a week on wednesday and Im just learning my set answers over and over again. Im terrified im going to forget it. Im going to learn some emergency phrases just in case.

Reply 9

AlphaWulf

I don't know why, but I'm actually quite calm about it. Having said that, I don't really know any of the secondary topics well at all. Maybe I'm just relaxed because I have good marks to fall back on if I do terribly.

However, in a practice the other day I got completely tongue tied. I was talking about euthanasia in Holland, and how the rules must be slack because patients who request euthanasia are denied it, where as those who do not request it often have it forced upon them. I was completely lost, ended up saying something like "the rules must be quite weak because those who want it do not get it but those who do not want it get it". :s-smilie:

My teacher was so confused, so I tried to rephrase it and ended up blurting out the same thing again. :biggrin:

I don't know, as long as you have a decent number of things to say in the oral I'm sure you can fill it up easily.

Reply 10

x7xemilyx7x

i have my french oral exam today :frown:

10 minute prepared and 5 minute with no indication on what the questions are going to be lol

Reply 11

x7xemilyx7x

everything went well, except on the presenation i said the wrong thing and it probably sounded proper wrong lol

Reply 12

hannah_dru

2

Sit back and do breathing excercises firstly. Try and think positive thoughts. Before the actual thing try and immerse yourself in German so that it'll come more naturally to you.

Reply 13

Greatleysteg

19

city_chic

Aw, I know the feeling. I had my French oral this morning and I was so nervous over it. Once I was in the room with the examiner though, my nerves flew out the window and I just got on with it. I did stutter a little on some things I was trying to say, and probably made a couple of verbs up in the process, haha, but you can afford to stumble a little and still get a high mark. The uncertainty about what you may get asked is the most nerve-racking thing, but just prepare all you can and that's all you can do. Look over your A2 topics and learn specific vocab. Will you be presenting a topic of sorts? If so then just memorise it way in advance and go over it each day to have it firm in your head. I had prompts, and when my brain froze and I forgot how my next paragraph started, I just referred to my prompts quickly and got on with it. You don't lose any marks for forgetting what you're supposed to say. You can also probably guess what questions the examiner may ask you in advance. I'd listed down all the possible questions I thought could occur, and wrote notes that I could use in my answers. A few that I'd prepared did in fact come up, so I wasn't too surprised and unsure what to say. I got a little flustered in parts and when a sentence I was trying to say didn't quite come out right, I thought 'ugh, crap...' but in the exam you just get on with it and continue talking. Hope I've helped slightly... lol. It's true what everyone says though: oral exams are never as bad as you think they're going to be. And they're over with so quickly too. You have a good two weeks now to practise, and hopefully nail it :wink:

Good luck! :smile:

100%

Reply 14

Meliae

I just had my Spanish oral. I think it's the first time an oral exam's actually gone well :biggrin:

. I mean, there were a couple of moments where I got a bit tongue tied, but all in all, it went great. In my practice Spanish oral, I completely forgot how to do the past tense and started thinking in French. It couldn't really have gone much worse.

Reply 15

hellojess

Just had my oral exam today too.. Thought it went alright but looking back on it I've messed quite a lot up haha.

To be honest, to practice the most is just to learn the vocab and repeat, repeat, repeat. When you're walking on your own, go through it in your head. Ask yourself questions that they'll ask and think of ways of how they'll ask them and also how you'll answer. Think of idioms to say and learn connectives!! They'll help you get from one point to the other by sounding natural and it'll make the conversation flow SO much easier. If you don't understand what the examiner's asking you, don't panic, just ask them to repeat it or even ask if they can say it a bit slower.

They're not there to purposely trip you up, they just want to know more about what you're talking about and make you sound like you know your stuff.

Good luck!!

Getting Flustered In Oral Exams

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