Spanish B HL Perfect Score on Orals

[Mandiloquence]

Hi everyone,

I was talking to my Spanish teacher, and although she has so far given me perfect scores on my orals she says that I will probably NOT get a perfect score on the individual oral because she considers it an extremely rare occurrence (it has only happened once in the history of our school, and it was a native speaker). My question is, does this regularly occur in your schools, and [b]how can I become exposed to extremely higher level vocabulary and sentence structures that will persuade her to give me a perfect score[/b]? I don't mean to sound arrogant, but I consider myself good at Spanish, and my teacher has even given me the nickname "La Nativa", so I don't think my goal is out of the range of my skill level. My teacher just needs persuasion. So, how can I blow my teacher away so that she'll give me the coveted 10-10-10?

Any help would be much appreciated!

[Chesire_Cat]

[quote name='Mandiloquence' post='28125' date='Nov 10 2008, 12:14 AM']Hi everyone,

I was talking to my Spanish teacher, and although she has so far given me perfect scores on my orals she says that I will probably NOT get a perfect score on the individual oral because she considers it an extremely rare occurrence (it has only happened once in the history of our school, and it was a native speaker). My question is, does this regularly occur in your schools, and [b]how can I become exposed to extremely higher level vocabulary and sentence structures that will persuade her to give me a perfect score[/b]? I don't mean to sound arrogant, but I consider myself good at Spanish, and my teacher has even given me the nickname "La Nativa", so I don't think my goal is out of the range of my skill level. My teacher just needs persuasion. So, how can I blow my teacher away so that she'll give me the coveted 10-10-10?

Any help would be much appreciated! [/quote]


What our teacher keeps telling us is that the more sayings you put in your oral, the highest it will be. (eg. "tener dos dedos de frente"="be thick of skull"= be stupid). So if you use it in your oral, you're likely to get higher marks. The main difference between SL and HL is that the HL people have to know how to use spanish sayings and that we have to use very good vocabulary. So, I'm guessing that using the subjunctive, conditional and expressions used in spanish speaking countries will rase your grade greatly. The quickest way to become very good at spanish, though, is to go to a spanish club where everybody speaks Spanish or to just find a person who speaks spanish and ONLY speak that language with them. If none of this options are avaliable to you, you could just study all the tenses and expressions... but that would take you way more time than just speaking spanish to somebody. Good luck!

[Mandiloquence]

[quote name='Chesire_Cat' post='28287' date='Nov 12 2008, 01:25 AM']What our teacher keeps telling us is that the more sayings you put in your oral, the highest it will be. (eg. "tener dos dedos de frente"="be thick of skull"= be stupid). So if you use it in your oral, you're likely to get higher marks. The main difference between SL and HL is that the HL people have to know how to use spanish sayings and that we have to use very good vocabulary. So, I'm guessing that using the subjunctive, conditional and expressions used in spanish speaking countries will rase your grade greatly. The quickest way to become very good at spanish, though, is to go to a spanish club where everybody speaks Spanish or to just find a person who speaks spanish and ONLY speak that language with them. If none of this options are avaliable to you, you could just study all the tenses and expressions... but that would take you way more time than just speaking spanish to somebody. Good luck![/quote]

Hi! Thanks for the reply! My Spanish teacher has been telling us the same things about sayings and vocabulary, and I pretty much have those covered (I have an idiom book, a verb book, and 2 dictionaries that I take everywhere ). My only problem seems to be finding advanced grammatical structures. I don't have any problem using conditional, subjunctive, imperfect subjunctive, etc. But I only use them in the ways that she's taught us, which are few due to the level of some of her students. For example, she's taught us structures like "Por rico que sea, no nos ayudara" (with an accent mark over the last a) and "Ojala que" using both present and imperfect subjunctive, etc. But I'm looking for more complex sentence structures that don't necessarily translate directly from English.
Also, I've tried to speak Spanish with the "native" speakers, but almost all of them were born here or came to the US at a very young age, so they speak "Spanglish", which our teacher marks down for heavily.
I've ordered Cien Anos de Soledad in Spanish and English so that I can get an idea of more complex sentence structures, but if you know of any other ways to find them I would appreciate it!

[Chesire_Cat]

[quote name='Mandiloquence' post='28437' date='Nov 15 2008, 02:21 PM']I've ordered Cien Anos de Soledad in Spanish and English so that I can get an idea of more complex sentence structures, but if you know of any other ways to find them I would appreciate it! [/quote]

I think that reading would be the quickest way to do it, also, ask your Spanish teacher for books, that's what I'm doing right now, and the teacher said that it would help a lot. Also, if you somehow integrate Spanish/Latino culture into the oral, IB appreciates it.

[deissi]

idiomatic structures. that's what IB just loves to hear in lang. B orals. Out of my Swedish B group (requirements are exactly the same) 5 of us got 29/30 and 1 got 30/30, so I guess my teacher was right too

[Mandiloquence]

[quote name='Chesire_Cat' post='28441' date='Nov 15 2008, 10:03 AM']I think that reading would be the quickest way to do it, also, ask your Spanish teacher for books, that's what I'm doing right now, and the teacher said that it would help a lot. Also, if you somehow integrate Spanish/Latino culture into the oral, IB appreciates it.[/quote]

I think that's what I'm going to be doing. I've pretty much raided the Spanish section of our local bookstore.
And the issue of the books I ordered has commentary on its relationship to the culture and the author's history, etc.

I was just wondering if someone had written a magical book of idiomatic structures or something similar that might be helpful.

But thanks for the practical suggestions.

[biochem]

Honestly, i am in a similar position with my classmates. The teacher won't give u the grade, because IB will bring the scores down. your teacher is just going on through assumptions. Honestly though, a 7 in B language means your fluent basically. You have a manipulation of the languages. Doing good in a class is relative, and doesn't always translate to IB standards.
for exposure, go to lunch with a spanish friend and carry an elevated conversation (discussing current contraversal issues) for an hour or so. Other than that, I use a dictionary and pick up words which are very narrow in description or specific. Things Ib will use, that is very elevated vocab.

[rochabm]

Why don't you read the news in spanish? That always helps. My first language is spanish and I did that for French and it helped a lot

[Hedron123]

Mandiloquence, Spanish is my native language. I can help you with whatever you need. Send me a private message.