The Student Room Group

english speaking and listening

hi i have my english speaking examination next week and our teacher says our topic has to be based on one of the books we are studying (macbeth, jekyll and hyde, an inspector calls) but im struggling to think of a topic i could talk about for 5 minutes :frown:
Reply 1
Original post by Monklithemonkey
hi i have my english speaking examination next week and our teacher says our topic has to be based on one of the books we are studying (macbeth, jekyll and hyde, an inspector calls) but im struggling to think of a topic i could talk about for 5 minutes :frown:

Think about the themes of each text and pick one you feel comfortable with. I am sure there is plenty to talk about for five minutes as you will have a theme, give a definition of it, discuss how the text treats that theme generally speaking, then look at a couple of quotes from across the text and expand on them a little. A bit like an essay but spoken.

E.g. say you chose to do 'duality' in Jekyll and Hyde. You would spend the first minute perhaps defining 'duality' [e.g. Cambridge online dictionary definition: "the state of combining two different things"] and then expanding on how this is relevant to the text, such as the 'duality' of Jekyll which is explored through Hyde- they are presented as opposites and yet there are two personalities contained within the same being. Also why this duality is used, so you can comment on Stevenson's message that man is "truly not one, but truly two" and how this relates to his time period- e.g. the 'repressive' nature of Victorian society: how you had to present yourself in public one way but behaved differently in private etc. Perhaps you could even talk about how 'duality' functions in the text as a 'Gothic trope' and talk about how this 'duality' was a common theme across other novels of the period. Then as I said you could choose a few quotes which highlight the theme and talk briefly about what they indicate.

Hope this helps!
Original post by Loladee
Think about the themes of each text and pick one you feel comfortable with. I am sure there is plenty to talk about for five minutes as you will have a theme, give a definition of it, discuss how the text treats that theme generally speaking, then look at a couple of quotes from across the text and expand on them a little. A bit like an essay but spoken.

E.g. say you chose to do 'duality' in Jekyll and Hyde. You would spend the first minute perhaps defining 'duality' [e.g. Cambridge online dictionary definition: "the state of combining two different things"] and then expanding on how this is relevant to the text, such as the 'duality' of Jekyll which is explored through Hyde- they are presented as opposites and yet there are two personalities contained within the same being. Also why this duality is used, so you can comment on Stevenson's message that man is "truly not one, but truly two" and how this relates to his time period- e.g. the 'repressive' nature of Victorian society: how you had to present yourself in public one way but behaved differently in private etc. Perhaps you could even talk about how 'duality' functions in the text as a 'Gothic trope' and talk about how this 'duality' was a common theme across other novels of the period. Then as I said you could choose a few quotes which highlight the theme and talk briefly about what they indicate.

Hope this helps!

thank you so much !! im hoping to get a distinction so this helped alot

Quick Reply

Latest

Trending

Trending