Leaving Cert orals: Examiners share the secrets of success

With the Leaving Cert language orals almost upon us, and nerves taking hold, students may be worrying about mixing up their passé composé with their modh coinníollach. With 25-40 per cent on offer, depending on the subject, there is a lot at stake. The fact that many students face exams in Irish and other languages in quick succession is another challenge.

So how can students put this remaining time to best use as they prepare for the orals? What should you do if the worst happens and you can’t understand what you’re being asked? And do you need to be up to speed on all aspects of current affairs if you want to get top marks in your exams? We spoke to some language teachers about how to prepare in the lead-up, and what to do, and not do when you’re in there.

Irish

Irish teacher Caoimhe Flanagan, from St Louis Secondary School in Monaghan Town, advises against spending too much time on topical issues if you have a good solid base on all of the basics.

“If a student is panicking about the exam and hasn’t been putting the work in over a long period of time, I’d be focusing on the basics of the main chapters — myself, my family, my local area, school, college, summer holidays,” she says.

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Recording yourself speaking on key subject areas can be a big help.

“Your own voice is very easy to learn from so if you record, in your own voice, a few of the topics you’re definitely going to be saying ... your tape work should be on your phone and you should be listening to it on your way into school,” she says.

“On the morning of, or on the journey to school for your exam, make sure Raidió na Gaeltachta’s on ... make sure there’s Irish running through your head.”

Flanagan explains the examiner doesn’t know when the student walks into the exam whether the student is a higher or ordinary level student, something which is the same across the language oral exams.

“The first thing is the introduction. Five basic things about yourself, your exam number, etc,” she says.

It’s also important that a student has 10-15 questions that they can interchange between the sraith pictiúr.

Flanagan says she always tells her “higher achievers” to try to use their modh coinníollach — the conditional tense — without having been asked a direct modh coinníollach question, “just to show that extra ability”.

If a student gets mixed up between Irish and another language, as can happen, Flanagan says, not to panic.

“Just say ‘tá brón orm’ and go again. I would say the big don’t is, don’t walk out there not having answered a question without asking the examiner to say it again. The examiner will often actually switch the phrases they’ve used for the question”, she explains.

If a topical issue or something in current affairs comes up that a student is not very familiar with, Flanagan says the best approach is to acknowledge that,

“Say ‘I know it’s a problem at the minute. I hope it can get better, but unfortunately because of study etc, I don’t really keep up with current affairs’.” she advises.

French

French teacher, Audrey McSweeney from Excel in French has experience as a State examiner for the orals. She says, knowing that students will be nervous, “they’ll start off with general questions” in order to “get the student talking”. Students will be asked questions in different tenses and “are expected to be able to go between tenses”.

Covering the three main topics — my daily life, my town, my area, my region and the future — McSweeney advises students to be prepared to expand on anything they say.

“Whatever you say is going to influence the conversation,” she says.

Students “are best to slow down when speaking”, McSweeney says, adding that sometimes sounding like you’ve learned a script off by heart can go against you. She also recommends trying to “make eye contact” and “let your personality shine through a little bit”.

“Take a pause and consider what you’re being asked before launching into an answer,” she says.

McSweeney says if students decide to take the option of bringing in a document to the oral exam, they should “prepare in a question and answer type way. Think to yourself, ‘what questions would the examiner ask?’”

Another top is that every student should know how to ask the examiner to repeat the question: “pourriez-vous repétér la question s’il vous plaît?” — or to ask the examiner to speak more slowly — “pourriez-vous parler un peu plus lentement s’il vous plaît?” she recommends.

“The thing to remember is you go into the exam with zero and you come out with something,” she adds.

German

The German oral exam is split into three parts: general conversation, pictures or project and role-play.

German teacher Amy Weddell from Gonzaga — who can be found on Instagram under the name Leaving Cert linguist — explains this means students can pre-prepare for two-thirds of the exam.

Weddell says it’s important, especially with the role play, that “you know them super well”.

“The examiner can come in and they can have a different script, but if you know the information you have to share, the task that you have to get across ... you’re coming out with 20 out of the 30 marks before they even think about the level of German that you’ve used,” she says.

Weddell recommends at this stage of preparation to “focus on the tense of the question”, especially around the “general conversation”.

“I’d also be looking to see do I have a nice phrase or idiom to boost my language,” she says.

If a student makes a mistake in the exam, Weddell says it’s no reason for panic and to “self-correct”.

“The examiner will love to hear the self-correction because it shows the knowledge of the language. If I hear them correct themselves, I know they know what they should have said,” she says.

If there’s a topic you want to discuss in the exam, Weddell says to “bring it up”.

The examiner “wants to hear you speak and they want to be able to ask you questions. It’s really important it’s not a learned off presentation.”

Weddell recommends in advance of the orals to watch TV shows students normally watch on platforms like Netflix, but in German.

“Put the German subtitles on. Keep English out of it altogether,” she adds.

Spanish

There are four components on the marking scheme, explains Spanish teacher Katie Lenehan: communication, grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation.

“I would say to students to try to aim to have about 10 to 12 minutes of content prepped,” she says.

Lenehan — who can be found on Instagram and TikTok under the handle “@mslenslanguages” — suggests that students time themselves to know if they’ve enough prepared.

If students prepare about seven minutes on the basics about a student’s life, there is more opportunity to gain marks for getting the grammar correct in an easier part of the conversation, she says.

“At the end of the day, [as an examiner] I can always give you marks for getting stuff right and doing stuff well. It doesn’t matter if it’s basic ... it’s still correct so I have to give you marks for it,” she says.

“I think a lot of H1 students think they have to talk about the more difficult stuff which by default you’re going to make more mistakes. If you prepare the easier stuff really well, and maybe in a more advanced way, it’s probably a better way of optimising your marks.”

If a student is asked about a topic that they don’t feel they have sufficient Spanish or knowledge of the topic itself to converse on it, Lenehan says to have a phrase prepared that can redirect the conversation along the lines of “that topic does really worry me, but what I’m more interested in/worried about ...”

This won’t be problematic, she says, as you’ve shown both that you understood the ask, and are willing to have a conversation.

Another key tip: between 75-85 per cent of the conversation in Spanish will be using the present tense, so make sure you’re prepared on that front.

Final countdown: the dos and don’ts of oral exam preparation

Do prepare — and if you mention anything, prepare to go into more detail

Do know your tenses.

Do watch your pronunciation. Use online tools to help.

Do think about where conversations might go if you raise certain topics.

Do record your answers and listen to them every day.

Don’t go into school really early on the day of your exam. It’s not helpful to sit around listening to how everyone else got on.

Don’t forget to learn how to spell your name and your exam number in your target language.

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