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2013 Notes from the Marking Centre – Spanish Continuers

Introduction

This document has been produced for the teachers and candidates of the Stage 6 Spanish Continuers course. It contains comments on candidate responses to the 2013 Higher School Certificate examination, indicating the quality of the responses and highlighting their relative strengths and weaknesses.

This document should be read along with:

• the Spanish Continuers Stage 6 Syllabus
• the 2013 Higher School Certificate Spanish Continuers examination
• the marking guidelines
• Advice for students attempting HSC languages examinations, and HSC Languages oral examinations – advice to students
• Advice for HSC students about examinations
• other support documents developed by the Board of Studies, Teaching and Educational Standards NSW to assist in the teaching and learning of Spanish in Stage 6.

Oral examination

Characteristics of better responses:

• candidates responded effectively to factual, probing and thought-provoking questions
• candidates manipulated a wide variety of vocabulary, grammatical structures and tenses
• candidates provided details and expanded upon previous information
• candidates used standard Spanish, with limited colloquialisms.

Characteristics of weaker responses:

• candidates identified relevant explicit information within a text
• candidates spoke about a limited range of topics within their Personal World, and only gave minimal information
• meaningful conversation was hindered by the use of many colloquialisms and Spanglish
• limited, simple vocabulary and grammatical structures were used repetitively.

Written examination

Section I – Listening

Characteristics of better responses:

• responses were concise and specific
• judgements were well explained and supported explicitly with evidence from the text
• information was summarised clearly and in the candidate’s own words.

Characteristics of weaker responses:

• relevant explicit information was identified within a text
• isolated details, not always related to the answer, were identified in more complex questions
• information was not summarised
• opinions were not supported with relevant evidence from the text
• responses addressed only some aspects of a question.

Section II – Reading and Responding

Characteristics of better responses:

• relevant details from the text were included to support opinions
• responses were concise and specific
• responses addressed all aspects of the question
• responses were well structured and coherent.

Characteristics of weaker responses:

• information was not organised coherently
• only partial information was provided
• responses were translations of parts of the text.

Section III – Writing in Spanish

Characteristics of better responses:

• responses were well structured, logical and appropriate to the task
• responses demonstrated an understanding of the task and an awareness of audience, purpose and context
• sophisticated vocabulary, authentic expressions and complex grammatical structures were used
• responses were authentic and creative.

Characteristics of weaker responses:

• only part of the task was addressed
• limited, simple vocabulary and grammatical structures were used
• candidates demonstrated limited ability to write correctly in Spanish
• content irrelevant to the task was included.