Spanish

With over 400 million Spanish speakers world wide Spanish A Level gives you an opportunity to communicate on a global scale as well as providing academic benefits.

Why study this course?

• Develop your communication and adaptability skills: Learning a new language gives you the opportunity to communicate with foreign speakers, including people you meet when travelling as well as people in your own community.

• Enhance your cultural understanding: Speaking another language helps you to get to know about other people and cultures, it gives you a broader view of the world.

• Increase your brain power: Foreign language study can help to develop your problem-solving skills, long and short-term memory, self-discipline and grammatical and linguistic understanding of your own language.

Two main themes in Year 12, plus the following:

• Being a young person in Spanish speaking society.

• Understanding the Spanish-speaking world.

• Diversity and difference.

• The two Spains: 1936 onwards.

“Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios” feature film by director Pedro Almodóvar

“El otro árbol de Guernica” a novel by Luis de Castresana

The WJEC A Level exam in the following components at the end of year 13.

Component 1. Speaking (21-23 minutes) (30% of A Level)

• Task 1 - Presentation and discussion of an independent research topic of an aspect that interests you related to the countries or communities where Spanish is spoken.

• Task 2 – Discussion based on a written stimulus.

Component 2. Listening, Reading and Translation (2h30) (50% of A Level)

• Listening – True/False answers, multiple choice answers, answers to questions in Spanish.

• Reading – Gap fill tasks and answers to questions in Spanish.

• Translation – One translation into English.

One translation into Spanish. (100 words each)

Component 3. Critical response in writing. (2 hours) (20% of A Level)

Two essays of 300 words each; one on the film and one on the novel in which you write a critical response referring to characters, themes, structure and social and historical context.

Language students in the UK find it easier to get jobs and there is a wider choice of jobs for language graduates. By choosing languages, you are enhancing your career options. Modern Languages graduates have a whole range of career opportunities open to them, including: Manufacturing, Sales, Banking/Finance, Community/Social Services, Transport/ Communications, Military, IT.