Oracy and speaking skills

You are starting the course in September of year one. Using only the weightings and the section structures, decide what oracy practice should look like in each of the four terms before the AS oral, and then in the A2 year.

1. 01Establish what has to be true by April of year one

   By the time the examiner visits, you must be able to discuss a film in a group of three for twenty minutes in Welsh, and then talk alone for five minutes about your own Package. Those are two different skills and both have deadlines in the same fortnight.

2. 02Term one — the habit

   A weekly twenty-minute discussion in a group of three, in Welsh, on anything at all. The subject does not matter yet; what matters is that three people learn to share a conversation without one dominating and one vanishing. Record it and listen once. Nobody enjoys this and everybody benefits from it.

3. 03Term two — the material

   The same weekly discussion, now on the film. One located scene per week: what happens, how it is filmed and scored, what it suggests. This serves AO2 as well as AO1, and it builds the stock of specific detail that the examiner’s follow-up questions will demand.

4. 04Term three — the individual section

   Unit 1 Section B is a solo conversation about your Package, so it can only be rehearsed once the Package exists. Spend this term answering the six things the specification says you will be asked about: the contents, why you chose the subject, your reasons, the stimuli, the research, and the individual components. Five minutes, alone, no notes.

5. 05The A2 year

   Unit 4 doubles the AO1 stake and adds two new demands. Section A is about living through the medium of Welsh, which needs current named examples refreshed each term, not memorised in April. Section C is synoptic across every text you have studied, which means the film from year one is still live. Keep the weekly group discussion running all year, and add a monthly cross-text conversation on one of the five named themes.

Result: Four terms: build the group habit, attach it to the film, rehearse the solo section on your own Package, then in the A2 year keep the habit and add the two new demands — current cultural examples and cross-text themes. The plan is weekly, not seasonal, because AO1 is 30% of the A level and none of it is recoverable elsewhere.

The examiner is required to ask a candidate to provide evidence to substantiate an idea. Build a three-part answer in Welsh that survives that question, and show what a weak answer looks like beside it.

1. 01The claim

   Suppose you have said: Dw i’n meddwl bod y ffilm yn drist. (I think the film is sad.) The examiner asks: Pam wyt ti’n dweud hynny? (Why do you say that?) This is not a challenge to your opinion; it is the examiner doing the job the specification assigns.

2. 02The weak answer

   Achos mae hi’n drist iawn. Roedd hi’n gwneud i mi deimlo’n drist. (Because it is very sad. It made me feel sad.) This repeats the claim in different words. It uses no specific information about the film, so it earns nothing on the AO2 side and very little on AO1 either, because it demonstrates no range.

3. 03The three-part answer

   Move one, LOCATE: Yn yr olygfa lle mae hi’n gadael y tŷ am y tro olaf — in the scene where she leaves the house for the last time. Move two, DESCRIBE: mae’r camera’n aros ar y drws ar ôl iddi fynd, ac mae’r gerddoriaeth yn stopio’n sydyn — the camera stays on the door after she has gone, and the music stops suddenly. Move three, CLAIM: felly dw i’n meddwl bod y cyfarwyddwr eisiau i ni deimlo’r golled, nid dim ond ei gweld hi. So I think the director wants us to feel the loss, not merely to see it.

4. 04Why the three moves work

   The located episode gives the examiner something to check, which is what ‘demonstrate specific information about the film’ means. The description is in your own words, which avoids any need to quote. And the claim is yours, which is what an opinion is. Together they answer ‘why?’ without ever repeating the original sentence.

5. 05Keep the frames

   Learn the joins as fixed phrases so they cost you nothing under pressure: Yn yr olygfa lle (in the scene where); mae’r camera’n (the camera is); mae’r gerddoriaeth yn (the music is); felly dw i’n meddwl (so I think); yn fy marn i (in my opinion); ar y llaw arall (on the other hand). Six phrases carry a great deal of a thirty-minute discussion.

Result: Locate, describe, claim. The weak answer repeats the opinion; the three-move answer supplies a checkable episode, describes it in your own words and then states what you conclude — which is exactly what the examiner’s substantiation question is asking for.

You are preparing for Unit 4 Section B, the discussion of the play. Write a five-move contribution plan you could use in any thirty-minute group discussion, with the Welsh you would actually say.

1. 01Move 1 — open with something located

   Do not open with a general opinion, because a general opinion invites the substantiation question immediately. Open with an episode: Hoffwn i ddechrau gyda’r olygfa lle mae’r ddau gymeriad yn ffraeo. (I would like to begin with the scene where the two characters quarrel.) You have given the group a shared object and yourself something to develop.

2. 02Move 2 — build on the next speaker

   Whatever they say, connect: Fel dywedodd Elin, mae’r olygfa honno’n bwysig — ac yn fwy na hynny, dw i’n meddwl ei bod hi’n newid popeth sy’n dod ar ei hôl hi. (As Elin said, that scene is important — and more than that, I think it changes everything that comes after it.) Naming the other candidate is what makes this count as listening.

3. 03Move 3 — ask a question

   AO1 asks you to raise questions, so raise one: Beth ydy dy farn di am ddiwedd y ddrama, Owain? Wyt ti’n meddwl bod y diwedd yn deg? (What is your view of the end of the play, Owain? Do you think the ending is fair?) A question directed at a named person also does the examiner’s job of bringing somebody in, which is noticed.

4. 04Move 4 — concede something

   A balanced conclusion needs a concession somewhere: Dw i’n cytuno i raddau â hynny. Ond ar y llaw arall, dydy hynny ddim yn esbonio pam mae hi’n dewis aros. (I agree with that to an extent. But on the other hand, that does not explain why she chooses to stay.) Conceding and then continuing is more persuasive than never conceding, and it is explicitly what ‘balanced’ means.

5. 05Move 5 — summarise before the section ends

   Felly, i gloi, mae’r tri ohonon ni’n cytuno bod y berthynas yn newid — ond dyn ni ddim yn cytuno ai’r ddamwain neu’r teulu sy’n gyfrifol am hynny. (So, to conclude, the three of us agree that the relationship changes — but we do not agree whether it is the accident or the family that is responsible for it.) Note the emphatic word order in the last clause, which is A2 grammar used naturally in speech.

Result: Open located, build on a named candidate, ask a directed question, concede once, summarise before the end. Five moves and about eight sentences of prepared Welsh — enough scaffolding for eight or nine minutes of real discussion without any of it being a memorised speech.

In the middle of describing a scene you need the Welsh for ‘lighthouse’ and it will not come. Show four ways out, in order of preference, and say what each demonstrates.

1. 01First, describe the function

   Y tŵr uchel sy’n rhoi golau i’r llongau yn y nos. (The tall tower that gives light to ships at night.) This is the best outcome available, because it uses a relative clause, three ordinary nouns and a time phrase — that is a demonstration of range, which is exactly what the first AO1 clause asks for.

2. 02Second, describe the location

   Yr adeilad gwyn ar ben y clogwyn. (The white building on top of the cliff.) Less precise, but it keeps the conversation moving and gives the listener enough to follow. Precision is worth less than continuity here.

3. 03Third, ask for it

   Sut mae dweud lighthouse yn Gymraeg? (How do you say lighthouse in Welsh?) This is legitimate and far better than silence — but it is a last resort in an examination, because it steps outside the discussion and briefly stops being Welsh.

4. 04Never, fourth

   Do not stop, do not apologise at length, and do not switch to English and carry on. A pause that turns into a retreat costs you the rest of your turn, and the examiner has no way of knowing that the only thing missing was one noun.

5. 05Practise it as a drill

   Take twenty nouns you do not know in Welsh and define each in Welsh you do know, in one sentence, in under ten seconds. Do it weekly. After a term the reflex replaces the panic, and the reflex is itself the skill the specification names when it asks for the ability to express a meaning without referring to a dictionary.

Result: Describe the function, then the location, then ask — and never stop. The first route is not a fallback at all: a relative clause built out of ordinary vocabulary is a better demonstration of range than the single noun would have been.

The examiner asks: Beth mae’r testunau rwyt ti wedi’u hastudio yn ei ddweud am gyfrifoldeb? (What do the texts you have studied say about responsibility?) Build a two-minute answer from the grid.

1. 01Choose three cells, not one

   A synoptic question wants connections, so an answer built on one work has already failed the task however good it is. Pick three works you know well and one located episode from each. Say at the start how many you intend to use: Hoffwn i sôn am dri thestun. (I would like to speak about three texts.) Note thri thestun — tri takes the aspirate mutation, and tri itself softens after am.

2. 02First cell — state, locate, connect

   Yn y ffilm, mae’r cyfrifoldeb yn perthyn i’r teulu yn hytrach nag i’r unigolyn. Dw i’n meddwl am yr olygfa lle mae’n rhaid iddi ddewis rhwng ei mam a’i dyfodol hi ei hun. (In the film, responsibility belongs to the family rather than to the individual. I am thinking of the scene where she has to choose between her mother and her own future.) One claim, one located episode.

3. 03Second cell — mark the connection explicitly

   Mae rhywbeth tebyg yn y ddrama, ond mae’r cyfrifoldeb yno’n dod o ddamwain yn hytrach nag o deulu. (Something similar happens in the play, but the responsibility there comes from an accident rather than from a family.) The words tebyg (similar) and yn hytrach nag (rather than) are doing the synoptic work — say them out loud rather than leaving the connection implied.

4. 04Third cell — introduce a contrast

   Ond yn un o’r cerddi, does neb yn cymryd cyfrifoldeb o gwbl, ac efallai mai dyna’r pwynt. (But in one of the poems nobody takes responsibility at all, and perhaps that is the point.) A third cell that AGREES with the first two adds little; a third that complicates them is what a balanced conclusion is made of. Note mai in the nominal clause — A2 grammar in speech.

5. 05Close with the connection itself

   Felly, dw i’n meddwl mai’r cwestiwn ym mhob un ohonyn nhw ydy pwy sy’n gorfod dewis — nid pwy sydd ar fai. (So I think the question in all of them is who has to choose — not who is to blame.) The answer ends on the link rather than on the last example, which is what makes it synoptic rather than a list.

Result: Three located episodes from three different works, joined by two explicit connectives and closed on the connection itself. Two minutes, no memorised speech, and every element of it came from a grid cell written months earlier.