spanish igcse cie

this exam board is very tricky, I have looked at all the specifications for edexcel, ocr and aqa and they all include coursework for writing and speaking. I really do not like the fact that this board is 100% based on the exam because I simply cannot write spanish on the top of my head and having coursework would allow me to prepare types of answers.

Is anyone doing this board? What are your tips and tricks for mastering the writing and speaking. Also the reading is incredibly hard because the questions are in spanish?! what if you do not understand a question?

spanish is really stressing me out at the moment

you're right that the igcse is harder than the "normal" gcse - but it is a much better course as well, as it covers the basics - i.e. The grammar - much better and so prepares students better if they decide to continue their language studies in the sixth form.

To learn to write and speak spanish off the top of your head you need to learn the structures and the vocab. "structures" is all about grammar; the vocab you need is related to the topic areas. If you haven't got it already, you could get hold of the "defined content" booklet of the course, available here towards the bottom of the page:
http://www.cie.org.uk/programmes-and-qualifications/cambridge-igcse-spanish-foreign-language-0530/

the tenses you need to know seem an awful lot until you realise that a lot of them are pretty similar. For example, the perfect is he hablado, the pluperfect is había hablado, the future perfect is habré hablado and so on. Similarly, the present continuous is estoy hablando and the past continuous is estaba hablando. so you don't need to them all separately: Just make sure you know your past and present participles!

The booklet also has a list of the minimum core vocabulary you need, topic by topic. In reading comprehension questions they will only use vocabulary that is in these lists, so make sure you learn them. It's the only way to ensure that you understand all the questions.

Apart from the core vocabulary, you can also learn sets of phrases which include more advanced grammatical structures - you'll be given these in your textbook.

I would advise that you start a systematic learning / revision routine as of now to build up your vocabulary and your understanding of grammar. If you could do 20 minutes to half an hour a day working on this, you're sure to make brilliant progress.

suerte!

thank you so much for taking your time to reply to this! Your advice is really helping me revise. I never knew about the booklet and it's really useful thank you!