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Spanish at AS?

Hello,

This may sound crazy but I've contemplated taking Spanish for a-level with no GCSE in it. I have been interested in learning Spanish properly and have quite a few resources online and books and things e.g Assimil. Do you think that I would be able to get my Spanish up to a level that would be required for a-level by September? I've done GCSE French but to be honest, I have absolutely no interest in French and would love to pursue Spanish and not too sure if still want to take RS at a-level. It would seem much more beneficial to do a language, and I would probably drop it at AS :-)

Edit: Forgot to mention, I will most likely be doing 2/3/4 hours of Spanish a day for the next few months.
(edited 9 years ago)

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Reply 1
If your school will accept you onto its spanish course I would encourage you to take it if you feel strongly enough to do it. Obviously the course is based on your spanish knowledge and grammar but you must be interested in it to have the motivation to further your vocabulary and your structures and you definitely seem like you are, so you do seem like you'd do well if you took it. It is possible to make it to a level standard in a few months (GCSE isn't particularly difficult haha) and I'd recommend you focus on grammar which isn't hard at all as that will massively help in your essays and your speaking. Check the specification of the course to check if you are still interested and just practice as much as you can, especially practicing your speaking! Confidence really helps!:smile:
Reply 2
Original post by charhey
If your school will accept you onto its spanish course I would encourage you to take it if you feel strongly enough to do it. Obviously the course is based on your spanish knowledge and grammar but you must be interested in it to have the motivation to further your vocabulary and your structures and you definitely seem like you are, so you do seem like you'd do well if you took it. It is possible to make it to a level standard in a few months (GCSE isn't particularly difficult haha) and I'd recommend you focus on grammar which isn't hard at all as that will massively help in your essays and your speaking. Check the specification of the course to check if you are still interested and just practice as much as you can, especially practicing your speaking! Confidence really helps!:smile:


I would have liked to have done German but Spanish comes a very close second, I like the practicality of the subject and also something different the the maths based subjects I will be taking. I don't know how I would go about asking my teacher to join the course, the last time I had Spanish lessons was in year 8/9. When and what would be a good time to ask the head of MFL? Send her an email in Spanish, speak to the head of sixth form? What would be a good way of approaching the subject. My current level of Spanish is not a lot, but I have the motivation to learn.
Original post by GoldGhost
Hello,

This may sound crazy but I've contemplated taking Spanish for a-level with no GCSE in it. I have been interested in learning Spanish properly and have quite a few resources online and books and things e.g Assimil. Do you think that I would be able to get my Spanish up to a level that would be required for a-level by September? I've done GCSE French but to be honest, I have absolutely no interest in French and would love to pursue Spanish and not too sure if still want to take RS at a-level. It would seem much more beneficial to do a language, and I would probably drop it at AS :-)

Edit: Forgot to mention, I will most likely be doing 2/3/4 hours of Spanish a day for the next few months.




If you're dedicated, I would most definitely do it! It feels so good learning a language, especially under a lot of intensity! I did italian from scratch and I achieved 93%
Reply 4
Original post by GoldGhost
I would have liked to have done German but Spanish comes a very close second, I like the practicality of the subject and also something different the the maths based subjects I will be taking. I don't know how I would go about asking my teacher to join the course, the last time I had Spanish lessons was in year 8/9. When and what would be a good time to ask the head of MFL? Send her an email in Spanish, speak to the head of sixth form? What would be a good way of approaching the subject. My current level of Spanish is not a lot, but I have the motivation to learn.


I'd recommend you visit the head of MFL as soon as you can, I'm not sure what your school requires to get on the course but at my school you needed a C at GCSE, so you'd probably need to demonstrate your willingness to learn Spanish to them. But you seem very keen and I think the teacher will see this too!
Reply 5
Original post by charhey
I'd recommend you visit the head of MFL as soon as you can, I'm not sure what your school requires to get on the course but at my school you needed a C at GCSE, so you'd probably need to demonstrate your willingness to learn Spanish to them. But you seem very keen and I think the teacher will see this too!


See the problem is, I don't even have GCSE level Spanish at the moment, all my learning will come after my last exam (June 13th) but Spanish and German and have intrigued me for a long time. I would absolutely love to take the challenge of an a-level, and I've regretted for months that I didn't take GCSE spanish. I'm worried that if I ask my teacher tomorrow for example, she will ask me to demonstrate my competence in Spanish and unfortunately I am not very competent, I know a bit of grammar and some simple vocab. I was thinking around the end of August, contacting her.
Reply 6
Original post by GoldGhost
See the problem is, I don't even have GCSE level Spanish at the moment, all my learning will come after my last exam (June 13th) but Spanish and German and have intrigued me for a long time. I would absolutely love to take the challenge of an a-level, and I've regretted for months that I didn't take GCSE spanish. I'm worried that if I ask my teacher tomorrow for example, she will ask me to demonstrate my competence in Spanish and unfortunately I am not very competent, I know a bit of grammar and some simple vocab. I was thinking around the end of August, contacting her.


Speak to her now, make the intention clear. She might ask you what you know now, show her, but explain your plans. Coming out of the blue in September might make it quite difficult for them to accommodate you. How is your French doing? A good record with your French GCSE will help you plead a case that you can get up to the required level. As above, GCSE isn't that difficult in terms of the depth it actually goes into - but the jump to AS is huge so you need to be confident. An advantage will be that you'll have it all fresh on your mind when you begin though.
Reply 7
Original post by Nymthae
Speak to her now, make the intention clear. She might ask you what you know now, show her, but explain your plans. Coming out of the blue in September might make it quite difficult for them to accommodate you. How is your French doing? A good record with your French GCSE will help you plead a case that you can get up to the required level. As above, GCSE isn't that difficult in terms of the depth it actually goes into - but the jump to AS is huge so you need to be confident. An advantage will be that you'll have it all fresh on your mind when you begin though.


I dislike French to be honest, and didn't both learning vocab and regret it. I am much more interested in languages such as German and Spanish. Hoping to come out with an A in French though (I know, not an A* but after 5/6 teachers in just over a year I got so demotivated).

Honestly, my level of Spanish is appalling, it's not even conversational. I just feel it would be embarrassing to ask her so soon, she asks my to demonstrate my competence in the language and I'm not competent. Should I send her an email about a month before I go back to school so that I can write it in Spanish? I know that my school is very accommodating when it comes to option changes and I would like to change another option as well.
Reply 8
Original post by GoldGhost
I dislike French to be honest, and didn't both learning vocab and regret it. I am much more interested in languages such as German and Spanish. Hoping to come out with an A in French though (I know, not an A* but after 5/6 teachers in just over a year I got so demotivated).

Honestly, my level of Spanish is appalling, it's not even conversational. I just feel it would be embarrassing to ask her so soon, she asks my to demonstrate my competence in the language and I'm not competent. Should I send her an email about a month before I go back to school so that I can write it in Spanish? I know that my school is very accommodating when it comes to option changes and I would like to change another option as well.


I'd still let her know now, and an A in French is good! It shows you can take to it - and for most people the initial struggle is the sort of comprehension of structure. It differs between languages but at least you already know what a conjugated verb is, that's probably half the battle of GCSE (at least that's what it felt like in my class :x). Just sort of say: is it possible assuming I can demonstrate the level required at the end of August/start of Sept. It would be easy enough for her to just give you a mock GCSE paper and mark it. If she's happy then it's all swell. Make a suggestion like that and I think she'll be open to it. She might actually be able to recommend/offer support to your summer learning if you ask her - a checklist of the basic things you need etc. even. I went into AS without knowing about some tenses that the rest of my class seemed to know, so every little helps :tongue:
Reply 9
Original post by Nymthae
I'd still let her know now, and an A in French is good! It shows you can take to it - and for most people the initial struggle is the sort of comprehension of structure. It differs between languages but at least you already know what a conjugated verb is, that's probably half the battle of GCSE (at least that's what it felt like in my class :x). Just sort of say: is it possible assuming I can demonstrate the level required at the end of August/start of Sept. It would be easy enough for her to just give you a mock GCSE paper and mark it. If she's happy then it's all swell. Make a suggestion like that and I think she'll be open to it. She might actually be able to recommend/offer support to your summer learning if you ask her - a checklist of the basic things you need etc. even. I went into AS without knowing about some tenses that the rest of my class seemed to know, so every little helps :tongue:


Thanks, I'll speak to her after exams are over (June 13th) and also the head of sixth form as well. I'm not in school this week and I we have half term next week, might as well just speak to her after. I was actually thinking of getting her to mark a mock GCSE paper for me, don't know if I'll be able to learn the GCSE syllabus it in 6 weeks though (3/4/5 hours a day). Do you (or anyone) have any suggestions please?
Learning Spanish at A-level when you have very little knowledge of it at the moment will be so difficult but if you really wanted to do it then I'm sure that all the hard work would pay off. You'd be at huge disadvantage though because other people doing the course will have maybe 3 years more experience than you. I'd definitely recommend learning Spanish because I love the language but it would require a huge amount of hard work and you'll probably have enough stress with your other A-levels.
Good websites for practice are www.linguascope.com www.thisislanguage.com www.quizlet.com and use past papers from AQA but you might have to sign up/pay for some of those.
If you are willing to put the work in then i'm sure you'd get a lot out of it
Reply 11
Original post by kathrynwardle
Learning Spanish at A-level when you have very little knowledge of it at the moment will be so difficult but if you really wanted to do it then I'm sure that all the hard work would pay off. You'd be at huge disadvantage though because other people doing the course will have maybe 3 years more experience than you. I'd definitely recommend learning Spanish because I love the language but it would require a huge amount of hard work and you'll probably have enough stress with your other A-levels.
Good websites for practice are www.linguascope.com www.thisislanguage.com www.quizlet.com and use past papers from AQA but you might have to sign up/pay for some of those.
If you are willing to put the work in then i'm sure you'd get a lot out of it


Thankyou! I have completed my GCSE in French so I am hoping that will help me a bit. Also, I planning on spending my whole summer on Spanish, 3/4/5 hours a day. I think that the recommended teaching hours for GCSE are 200 hours and I could easily do more than that on my own. I will access to native speakers, I have Spanish with Ease by Assimil, I have got a premium membership at Lingq and memrise. I am going to get some basic Spanish books and a good Spanish to English and English to Spanish dictionary. Is there anything I've missed? I know that I shouldn't set hours, but I think I could probably get in at least 300 hours of learning (not including listening to News in Slow Spanish, Spanish cartoons and thing like). I am planning to start this Friday for an hour a day. Then after June 13th step it up. I am very determined as I've always wants to learn a language as long as I can remember, because they fascinate me.
Reply 12
Original post by GoldGhost
Thankyou! I have completed my GCSE in French so I am hoping that will help me a bit. Also, I planning on spending my whole summer on Spanish, 3/4/5 hours a day. I think that the recommended teaching hours for GCSE are 200 hours and I could easily do more than that on my own. I will access to native speakers, I have Spanish with Ease by Assimil, I have got a premium membership at Lingq and memrise. I am going to get some basic Spanish books and a good Spanish to English and English to Spanish dictionary. Is there anything I've missed? I know that I shouldn't set hours, but I think I could probably get in at least 300 hours of learning (not including listening to News in Slow Spanish, Spanish cartoons and thing like). I am planning to start this Friday for an hour a day. Then after June 13th step it up. I am very determined as I've always wants to learn a language as long as I can remember, because they fascinate me.


I find it really helpful going on YouTube and finding a song I like (in english) but with spanish subtitles. Obviously it won't help your pronunciation like spanish songs can but it definitely boosts your vocabulary if you remember a word from a song, or with grammar, it'll help you recognise tenses easily. There are websites that do this too! 123teachme is very useful if you want to see all of the conjugations on one page and in a clear structure... And I'm sure wordreference will be your best friend by the end of summer:wink:
Original post by GoldGhost
Hello,

This may sound crazy but I've contemplated taking Spanish for a-level with no GCSE in it. I have been interested in learning Spanish properly and have quite a few resources online and books and things e.g Assimil. Do you think that I would be able to get my Spanish up to a level that would be required for a-level by September? I've done GCSE French but to be honest, I have absolutely no interest in French and would love to pursue Spanish and not too sure if still want to take RS at a-level. It would seem much more beneficial to do a language, and I would probably drop it at AS :-)

Edit: Forgot to mention, I will most likely be doing 2/3/4 hours of Spanish a day for the next few months.


I did my French GCSE and now I'm doing Spanish and if you already know some French, it can help with Spanish as a lot of the words are similar and it helps with the grammar side of stuff as you'll have learnt different tenses before - if you talk to your teacher they may be able to give you some advice or even resources, I did my French AS privately last year and the head of MFL helped a lot, he gave me textbooks and advice and stuff so it helped - also GCSE standard of Spanish isn't really that high so you should be able to get to that point easily if you prepare over the summer
Reply 14
Original post by charhey
I find it really helpful going on YouTube and finding a song I like (in english) but with spanish subtitles. Obviously it won't help your pronunciation like spanish songs can but it definitely boosts your vocabulary if you remember a word from a song, or with grammar, it'll help you recognise tenses easily. There are websites that do this too! 123teachme is very useful if you want to see all of the conjugations on one page and in a clear structure... And I'm sure wordreference will be your best friend by the end of summer:wink:


Thanks, I'm obsessed with some songs in German and find that I can learn some vocab that way by looking at the translations. Thankyou for the tip by the way, also I'll bookmark the page! Is it important to learn a lot of grammar in the beginning or allow that later?

Original post by the-anonymous-me
I did my French GCSE and now I'm doing Spanish and if you already know some French, it can help with Spanish as a lot of the words are similar and it helps with the grammar side of stuff as you'll have learnt different tenses before - if you talk to your teacher they may be able to give you some advice or even resources, I did my French AS privately last year and the head of MFL helped a lot, he gave me textbooks and advice and stuff so it helped - also GCSE standard of Spanish isn't really that high so you should be able to get to that point easily if you prepare over the summer


Thank you, it's going to an intense summer, but I suppose if you don't work hard, then you won't see results. How old are you / what year are you in please? Did you do GCSE Spanish and French in year 10/11/12?
Original post by GoldGhost


Thank you, it's going to an intense summer, but I suppose if you don't work hard, then you won't see results. How old are you / what year are you in please? Did you do GCSE Spanish and French in year 10/11/12?


16 - I did French GCSE in year 9 and then AS in year 10 but got a B so resat it this year in year 11 - I just did my Spanish GCSE last week so Year 11 - hopefully it went well

Oh and one more thing i forgot to mention, it really depends on which exam board you're taking for A Levels but I found with edexcel there was a relatively small gap between GCSE and AS compared to AS and A2 - because in AS, the topics are pretty similar to GCSE stuff (sports, alcohol, school) and you can listen to the listening as many times as you want because you have a walkman and CD - but in A2, they start studying more controversial issues and French literature, which is more interesting but a lot harder

Anyways good luck with whatever you decide to do xx
Reply 16
Original post by the-anonymous-me
16 - I did French GCSE in year 9 and then AS in year 10 but got a B so resat it this year in year 11 - I just did my Spanish GCSE last week so Year 11 - hopefully it went well

Oh and one more thing i forgot to mention, it really depends on which exam board you're taking for A Levels but I found with edexcel there was a relatively small gap between GCSE and AS compared to AS and A2 - because in AS, the topics are pretty similar to GCSE stuff (sports, alcohol, school) and you can listen to the listening as many times as you want because you have a walkman and CD - but in A2, they start studying more controversial issues and French literature, which is more interesting but a lot harder

Anyways good luck with whatever you decide to do xx


Thanks, I know that on the exam timetable it says that the exam code is '6SP02 01' and I know that my school does Edexcel French and Spanish so obviously our school does Edexcel. Would you recommend me to drill the vocab or is than an inefficient process to learn vocab? Also do you find that once you get to AS that the class is spoken in the target language? I know at GCSE my teachers all spoke in English, from year 7-11 which really frustrates me. One last question (because I've asked you lots, sorry :colondollar:) what do you do in lesson and at home for extra independent work and study> I know that for something like maths you can go home look over what you completed it class and practise but it seems like languages would be different. How do you ensure that you keep on top of your work for Spanish to ensure that you get the best grade possible?

Merci beaucoup! :wink:
Original post by GoldGhost
Thanks, I know that on the exam timetable it says that the exam code is '6SP02 01' and I know that my school does Edexcel French and Spanish so obviously our school does Edexcel. Would you recommend me to drill the vocab or is than an inefficient process to learn vocab? Also do you find that once you get to AS that the class is spoken in the target language? I know at GCSE my teachers all spoke in English, from year 7-11 which really frustrates me. One last question (because I've asked you lots, sorry :colondollar:) what do you do in lesson and at home for extra independent work and study> I know that for something like maths you can go home look over what you completed it class and practise but it seems like languages would be different. How do you ensure that you keep on top of your work for Spanish to ensure that you get the best grade possible?

Merci beaucoup! :wink:


I didn't do my AS at school but privately - my parents hired a tutor to teach me once a week and I had some help from the head of MFL at school with marking essays and advice - but with my tutor, for stuff like learning tenses, the explanation was in English but other than that it helps if the teacher speaks the target language because often, it's the speaking people find hard - at AS you have a little case study (I can't think of another word) but ya, mine was a little extract about biking and sports last year and you have about 15 minutes to look at it and make notes - then the teacher/invigilator asks you some questions about the text but then it drifts off into a conversation about the topic (mine was about sports) and for me, I found it helped if I spoke in the French as much as possible just to improve conversational skills (I had a French friend so that helped lol - she still talks to me in French if she wants to tell me something and we're in public)
In terms of vocab - people have different ways, some people prefer having a list and learning it but I found that too boring because I'd lose concentration - you can try learning vocab through websites (There were some mentioned above by other people) or even watching French movies, reading French books (I read Harry Potter and the sorcerers stone in French, it helped as I already knew the story so could piece together vocab I didn't know), I personally didn't do this but some people said that listening to French radio helped them - just in the background if you're lounging around or turn to a French station when in the car/ or just listening to the radio

I kind of wrote too much but hope it helps

One more thing, do lots of past papers just to get used to the style of questions and for me, I tried to do a writing at least once every two weeks or so just to get used to it and that really helped
Reply 18
Original post by the-anonymous-me
I didn't do my AS at school but privately - my parents hired a tutor to teach me once a week and I had some help from the head of MFL at school with marking essays and advice - but with my tutor, for stuff like learning tenses, the explanation was in English but other than that it helps if the teacher speaks the target language because often, it's the speaking people find hard - at AS you have a little case study (I can't think of another word) but ya, mine was a little extract about biking and sports last year and you have about 15 minutes to look at it and make notes - then the teacher/invigilator asks you some questions about the text but then it drifts off into a conversation about the topic (mine was about sports) and for me, I found it helped if I spoke in the French as much as possible just to improve conversational skills (I had a French friend so that helped lol - she still talks to me in French if she wants to tell me something and we're in public)
In terms of vocab - people have different ways, some people prefer having a list and learning it but I found that too boring because I'd lose concentration - you can try learning vocab through websites (There were some mentioned above by other people) or even watching French movies, reading French books (I read Harry Potter and the sorcerers stone in French, it helped as I already knew the story so could piece together vocab I didn't know), I personally didn't do this but some people said that listening to French radio helped them - just in the background if you're lounging around or turn to a French station when in the car/ or just listening to the radio

I kind of wrote too much but hope it helps

One more thing, do lots of past papers just to get used to the style of questions and for me, I tried to do a writing at least once every two weeks or so just to get used to it and that really helped


Thanks, I've noted down your advice, going to start learning some Spanish tomorrow after my exams - looking forward to it!
I do Spanish at as level at the moment and I think you would be fine as long as you put the work in this summer! The standard for GCSE isn't actually that high because there isn't that many grammar points!

At GCSE my teacher gave us some good resources and ideas to help us! They included:
-using memrise and linguascope to learn vocab
-watching a tv show called extra on YouTube and then write a summary in Spanish after (this helped a lot)
-every week try to write a diary of your week in Spanish and look up new vocab


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