Your Plan to a Higher IB Spanish Score
By Jason Rowsey | Spanish That Clicks™
In November it can be hard to believe that your Spanish Individual Oral is coming up. However, when your calendar gets busy and your other IB subjects become challenging, suddenly your Spanish individual oral is looming.
Start with a simple plan for your week that will allow you time to identify areas for improvement, practice and receive feedback.
Having taught Spanish for over 24 years, I can assure you that having clear goals will help you. By changing "Study Spanish" to “Record a response and practice supporting my opinion with an example”, you have a clear task to complete.
Plan
Know what you are working towards
For May 2027 your IB Spanish B has 4 equal areas of assessment:
Assessment Task Weighting
Paper 1 Write for a specific audience and purpose 25%
Paper 2 Listening Answer questions based on listening texts 25%
Paper 2 Reading Answer questions based on reading texts 25%
Individual Oral Present and discuss your stimulus, then have a broader discussion 25%
Paper 1 requires SL students to produce between 250-400 words and HL students to produce between 450-600 words.
Find out the date that your school has set for your IO and add to your calendar. Start working backwards from this date to ensure you have enough speaking practice.
November & December
Start by doing some tasks.
Do a reading, listening and writing task at your level. Also do a short speaking sample. Ensure you are using material from your teacher.
Look for patterns.
Are you struggling to answer listening questions due to not knowing vocabulary? Can you only understand the vocabulary when you read it? Are you answering all parts of the writing task? Can you explain your opinion in more than just "es importante"?
Identify 2 areas to focus on. Maybe improving your spoken answers and using consistent past tenses.
Create a short checklist of common mistakes, correct examples and next steps. Ask specific questions to your teacher. Instead of asking "How do I get better at Spanish?" ask “How could I develop this answer?”
Start Practicing your IO
Ensure that you have regular practice for your IO.
Both levels have a 12-15 minute discussion. This includes a 3-4 minute presentation. SL students have 15 minutes supervised preparation time and HL students have 20 minutes.
Practice your presentation and discussion. Just because you are confident with your introduction doesn’t mean you will be with the follow up question.
SL Students:
Practice with unfamiliar pictures. Identify key points, explain what the picture suggests and link to the relevant theme and culture of a Spanish speaking country.
A good way to practice is to:
Identify key points
Explain what they suggest
Link to specific relevant culture
Add extra to your opinion including a reason/example.
Avoid generic statements such as “In Spanish-speaking countries, everyone…”. Use examples you have studied and can explain accurately.
HL Students:
Ensure that you have gone through both of your literary texts. Practice with different extracts. Focus on the characters, events, ideas and messages within the extract. Make a brief link to the overall text.
Ask yourself questions such as what is going on here? What does this tell me about the character? What detail can I use to support my interpretation?
Ensure you really focus on the extract. A general overview of the book won’t help.
January & February
Aim to do 4 focused practice sessions per week. These should be around 20-30 minutes long. Try to spread these out through the week.
Task Area Task
Listening Short task. Check and review missed information.
Reading Answer questions. Find evidence for your answers.
Writing Plan your answer, develop a paragraph or improve previous work.
Speaking Record your response. Practice follow up questions.
Ensure you include a couple of full practice tasks to help you understand how everything will fit together.
Ensure you practice all 5 themes of your course. Identidades, Experiencias, Ingenio humano, Organización social and Cómo compartimos el planeta.
Try to link your skills together. For example read about a community project, listen to an interview and then explain if you would support something similar. This will give you multiple opportunities to use the same vocabulary.
Answer with purpose
A great habit to get into is to answer, explain, give an example and develop.
Instead of saying:
"Las redes sociales son útiles."
Say:
Try:
“Las redes sociales son útiles porque permiten mantener el contacto con familiares que viven lejos. Por ejemplo, una persona que estudia en otro país puede hablar con su familia todos los días. Sin embargo, también es importante establecer límites.”
You have explained your idea, given an example and recognised another point of view.
Record yourself once a week. Identify 1 thing you could improve and try again. Maybe you need to add more detail to your examples. Maybe you lose track of your verbs when speaking fast.
Use this to identify what you want to improve next. Don’t script your whole conversation. Practice answering different questions about the same topic.
Paper 1 Preparation
Take a moment to plan your writing.
Who are you writing to? What do you want to achieve? What text type is best for the options given? What tone do you need?
Revise text features and practice using them. Your speech needs to be engaging. Your formal letter needs to have the right relationship with your reader.
Develop your ideas with reasons, examples and consequences. Revise vocabulary you can use accurately and slowly develop with feedback. Complex sentences should be used when they help you communicate.
Identify 1 area to improve after each practice.
Full Practice in the Weeks Before
As your school date is approaching, include some full practice orals with your teacher or suitable practice partner.
Ensure you are practicing with the right amount of preparation time. Practice moving from your introduction to follow up questions and then into a broader discussion.
Ask for feedback on specific questions. Did you develop your answers? Did you answer the question? Were your examples relevant?
Once you have finished your IO, use your preparation time for writing, listening and reading.
March & April
Increase your timed practice. However continue to carefully review your mistakes.
Reading – Explain why your answer is correct. Listening – Once you have completed the task, review the section you missed. If there is a transcript, use this to identify what you didn’t hear. Writing – Practice finishing in time to check you have covered everything, your organisation and any recurring mistakes.
Final Week
Review your recurring mistakes, useful vocabulary, text features and feedback from your teacher. Ensure you know what you need to do for your exam with your school. Do some short practice sessions to keep Spanish in your head.
Practical support from parents can help. Ensure they are letting you have a set study time. Offer to listen to their practice response. Let them explain what they are working on.
You don’t need to be fully confident in November. Just have a starting point and a plan.
Identify 1 task to focus on this week. Identify 1 thing to improve. Practice and receive feedback. Build from here.
If you would like 1-1 support, visit Spanish That Clicks to find out more about my IB Spanish coaching.
[Note: Assessment information taken from IB Language B Guide. First assessment 2020]
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