In order for the student to accomplish the unpredictable bullet point, he/she must answer the question by using a verb. It is preferable to ask a question that will be easily understood by the student, maybe using a cognate, and that it can be answered easily by less able students but will also give scope for the more able to expand their reply. A good question could be Do you like television / radio / the internet? etc. Why (not)? At a basic level a student can say Yes it is interesting whereas a more able student may develop the response by saying something like Yes, I like … but sometimes I think there are too many adverts between programmes and therefore I prefer channels like the BBC.
“And now, the last question”, in the target language.
Y para terminar
Y ahora la ultima pregunta
Y entonces que pasó?
COMMON MISTAKES
- Incorrect gender of nouns.
- • Incorrect adjectival agreement.
- • The use of gustar in any form other than me gusta.
- • Confusion between me gusta and me gustaría.
- • Prefiero - often made reflexive or preceded by je in the case of dual linguists.
- • Es instead of hay.
- • Infinitives used in place of finite verbs.
- • A failure to use an infinitive when required (voy a juego).
- • Incorrect formation of the negative (es no bueno).
- • Use of the preterite instead of the imperfect tense.
- Use of the perfect rather than the preterite tense. This was often accompanied by French pronunciation of vowel sounds, suggesting that the student was also influenced by the French use of the perfect tense.
- Es vale to render ‘It’s OK’ and many other instances of poor dictionary use.
These were the main problems with pronunciation:
• The jota sound, especially with cognates or near cognates (geografía; general).
• Qu pronounced as kw.
• Ll pronounced as l.
• Pronunciation of ñ.
• Poor or inconsistent pronunciation of ce, ci and z. It is fine for students to pronounce these
sounds as ‘s’, rather than ‘th’, provided they keep to the same sound throughout the task.
• Anglicised pronunciation of cognates or near-cognates (ideal; religión; clientes; garaje
among many others).
• Poor stress, especially in confusion between present tense first person singular (trabajo)
and third person singular preterite (trabajó). Also gustaria for gustaría was common.
• An aspirated h.
• Me pronounced as mi.
• Cuidad for ciudad.
• Ayundo for ayudo.
• Aunque pronounced as ayunque.
• Mi for me and vice versa.
• Porque pronounced as porcu.
• Fue for fui and vice versa (this then becomes a serious grammatical error).
• Confusion between divertido and deportivo.
• General poor pronunciation and/or intonation because the delivery was too fast and
unclear.