As many students will tell you, the oral exam is the most terrifying part of a foreign language course. Not only are you expected to read the language and make sense of spoken words, but now you also have to actually be able to talk to someone in that language. To make matters worse, the score you get in the oral examination can be worth up to 25% of your final grade, and at a mere 15 - 25 minutes (in most cases), woe betide anyone who screws up. This Entry will guide those who have not yet been through it to victory with a minimum of fuss.

What the Oral Is

There is a lot of literature available detailing strategies and approaches for oral examinations, what to say and what not to say, documents to bring in, and ways to impress the examiner. However, what these guides fail to mention is what the oral actually is, so here you go: The oral examination is a relatively short exam in which the candidate talks to an examiner in a foreign language. The language is the one which the candidate is studying, and the examiner may or may not be a native speaker. The candidate is graded in four separate categories: grammar, pronunciation, communication, and naturalness.

People taking foreign language courses will be familiar with the first two. Communication refers to an individual's ability to get a point across, regardless of any grasp of the mechanics of the language. Naturalness refers to how similar to a real conversation this is, according to examination board guidelines as to what constitutes a natural conversation. Unfortunately, this is rather removed from reality for a lot of students; they are expected to talk at great length on fairly mundane topics in response to fairly short questions.

For the most part, native speakers of the language automatically get top marks, for obvious reasons. Even if the student is not a native speaker, they can still get full marks if the conversation actually sounds natural. Teachers encourage students to learn passages that they (the students) have written themselves, and to simply reel these off in response to a question. Examiners have become wise to this tactic, however, and will tend to ask questions that may be a little bit off-centre, in order that the student must actually think and formulate a reply. For example, examiners were known to ask students their names, where they lived and basic questions about their families and their hobbies, in that order. However, when it came to one Researcher's Irish oral examination, the first question the examiner asked the students was to describe themselves. This technique is not foolproof; almost all of them learned about the question and were able to prepare for it anyway.

Preparation is good, but students will be heavily penalised if they seem to be simply reciting from memory; either that or the examiner will interrupt them and ask them about some detail.

Stuff You Can Bring In

These are collectively referred to as 'documents.' A document may be a picture, photograph, object, or piece of text in the language you are taking.

Unless you are particularly good, it may be inadvisable to bring in a piece of text. You will be asked questions relating to it, which allows you to score more marks by preparing statements. Beware, however, that you are likely to be asked questions you had not predicted; for example, if you bring in a picture of your favourite band, you may be asked about what music you like rather than about the band itself.

Be aware that not all state exams allow you to bring in documents; for example, in Ireland students can bring in documents for any language other than Irish.

You may also be asked to read a short piece of writing in the language. If this is the case, it is likely to be a choice of, say, five out of fifteen paragraphs, which your teacher will tell you about beforehand. Pick the ones that are easiest to pronounce. You are most likely allowed to deface the sheet on which they are written, and so can cross out complex words and write them phonetically above. Some students even bring them home, type up their chosen paragraphs phonetically, print them out, and bring this in instead. You do not have to comprehend the paragraphs at all, so don't bother trying to understand more than you can unaided.

Strategies

• Speak in the language. Either to yourself, to family members, friends, fellow students, or the other people waiting outside the exam room. If you find yourself in need of a word you don't know, look it up. You'll need all the words you can remember.

• Learn what is being asked. Talk to people who have already done it; they know more than you. In particular, people in your year who are doing the exam with you will be able to tell you what comes up repeatedly.

• Expect the unexpected. Don't you just hate it when people say that? If you expect it, then it's not unexpected. However, a good strategy is to have a whole bunch of stuff prepared about every aspect for your life. That way, it will be difficult to catch you out.

• Topics that tend to be asked about: Your name, your family, where you live, your hobbies; favourite music, favourite TV shows, your school, what you would like to do over the summer holidays, what you would like to do in college, what you would do if you were president/prime minister/taoiseach/chancellor/school principal, current affairs (this last one only if you're really good).

• Don't bother trying to remain calm. You should try to be calm while actually in the exam, but while you are waiting to go in by all means fret, worry, fidget, hit the wall, curse, run around, do whatever you want. This advice is rather unorthodox, but while you are waiting outside, you unconscious mind will read your conscious mind's worry as danger, and your system will become flooded with adrenaline. Movement will help to work this off and allow you to be more calm both in the exam and while looking at your oral notes before going in. Attempting to force yourself to stay calm will only frustrate you and have the opposite effect to that which was intended. Just don't be too loud, as the person in there needs a lack of noise to communicate well.

• Say as much as you possibly can. You go in with 0 marks and the examiner wants to see how many they can give you. You do not go in with the maximum while the examiner attempts to take as many as possible off. Saying little in order to avoid error will reduce your overall score.

• Try to steer the conversation towards a topic of interest to you. For example, if you read a lot and they ask you about what sports you like, you could say you don't play sports much, as you're always reading. You should then be asked about reading.

• Make eye contact, and speak confidently - but not too quickly. This gives the impression that you know what you are talking about. Taking a few seconds pause before you answer the question not only gives you time to collect your thoughts, but also gives the impression that you are thinking carefully rather than blathering out the first thing that comes into your head.

• Stick to what you know. Don't say anything that may lead to an unwanted supplementary question.

• Learn how to say 'erm'. Surprisingly, the word 'Erm' or 'er', to denote a pause in a conversation, Is not universal. Ask your tutor or a native speaker in advance how to make your conversation more natural by using the same kinds of pauses a native speaker might use.

• If you bring in a document, do not memorise it completely. Instead, try to give the impression that you have learned off a few notes and are extemporalising from them.

How Did You Do?

Note: This is only a very rough guide. Students may quite possibly do better or worse than the ratings listed here.

• You are a native speaker of the language: 100%

• You spend almost the entire time talking about one subject which the examiner happens to be interested in, for example a mutual friend or a sport that they are involved in: 90%+

• You are asked about current affairs: 85%+

• You are asked questions in all four tenses (past, present, future, and conditional): 70% - 85%¹

• You are not asked the conditional tense, nor do you use it yourself: 50% - 70%

• You spend the entire time talking about one subject and the examiner seems to be getting exasperated: 30% - 50%

• The examiner asks you if you would like a sweet: 10% - 30%

• The examiner asks you to read from a children's book: 10%-

• The examiner is a green-skinned six-eyed tentacled drooling thing: You are having a nightmare.

More BBC Links

• A list of pages and resources for people interested in learning languages.

• Some general advice on exams.