As the Leaving Cert orals approach, it is important to remain calm and organised to try to get the most marks for your oral examinations. It is never too late to start preparing, even if you only start a few days before the examination. Whether you are starting your European language or Irish oral, here are some tips to try and make the oral exam easier.
Familiarise yourself with previous oral examination questions and the marking scheme. For example, the Irish oral is worth 240 marks and 40 per cent of your final grade. Past examinations and marking schemes can be found on the State examinations website. There are plenty of Leaving Cert oral exam resources such as YouTube, StudyClix and revisewise.ie to help with preparing for the exam. In every oral exam, you will have to greet the examiner and give your name, age, address, date of birth and exam number so make sure you know all of these off by heart in that specific language. Try and identify the most common questions, which are likely to be about hobbies, school subjects and your future career.
Always start preparing what you know is guaranteed to come up, eg role plays or picture stories, as well as basic information about yourself and your family. Make sure that your grammar and sentences are correct. If you are not very confident with a language, try to use shorter sentences but make sure they are correct. If sentences are challenging or you are really struggling with a certain language, just prepare keywords as answers. Try to use colloquial phrases and a diverse vocabulary where possible. This will show a greater command of the language.
It is so important to try to prepare as much as possible. Using flash cards with prompt words and mind maps can be useful to memorise words and phrases. Mind maps can also be useful in preparing themes or links between similar conversations. Write out what you want to say and prepare your relevant topics, and practise out loud in front of the mirror or with a friend or relative. This will help you with confidence building and pronunciation. You can also record yourself using apps such as Parrot or the voice memo on your phone, and listen back to yourself. You can then listen back and correct your mistakes and you can listen to yourself anytime with these apps, helping to memorise the grammar and vocabulary.
You can also ask a friend or a relative by getting them to ask some unexpected questions. Unexpected questions are not to be feared — remember, you do not have to answer them in a factual way. So an answer that you have prepared can be used to answer multiple questions. For those who are aiming for a high mark and quite comfortable with the language, prepare a number of detailed answers, and try to lead the conversation where possible. Make it easier for the examiner by providing interesting, detailed answers.
Prepare answers using a variety of tenses to show that you have mastered the language. As a general rule of thumb, I always advise the student to answer the questions using the same tense as the question, so for example if you were asked a question with the past tense, answer the question using the past tense.
Get a good night's sleep the night before the exam, stop revising an hour before you go to sleep and do something to distract yourself. Set out your clothes and oral notes the day before the exam. Remember to be organised on the day. I highly recommend arriving an hour before your oral, bringing ID and some water. It is normal to be nervous before and during the oral exam and the examiner will understand this. Just remember you are allowed to ask the examiner to repeat the question, and you will not be docked marks. Many students find it useful to visualise the exam going well, and some students may even use breathing techniques to relax before the exam, to help alleviate stress.
Remember to remain flexible and adaptable on the day. Even if you are asked a question and you don’t understand it, try to answer to the best of your ability, and remember as long as you say something and it is grammatically correct, you will get marks even though it may not be the answer they are looking for.
Finally, the oral exams are daunting and can be stressful, especially when many people find languages difficult to learn or do not enjoy learning languages, but most students regardless of their language level, get through the oral exams relatively well. The oral examiner will be well trained and probably have a lot of experience conducting the oral exam, and will therefore be used to examining nervous students. The examiner will do everything within reason to put the student at ease. The oral exam will not last more than 15 minutes and time will fly during your actual exam, so best of luck with it!
