Conversation
A conversation on two themes, opening with a topic you choose, with your opinions and reasons in every tense.
Learn
Conversation, explained point by point
Everything the GCSE specification expects you to be able to do, and how to actually do it - the same lesson a signed-in student studies from.
Know how the conversation works
The conversation is the last and biggest speaking task: 36 marks, 12 each for communication and content, interaction and spontaneity, and linguistic knowledge and accuracy. It lasts three and a half to four and a half minutes at Foundation and five to six at Higher, in two parts of equal length.
Choose your topic for the first part
You pick a topic from one theme and agree it with your teacher at least two weeks before the test. You may say which aspects you chose and talk about them for up to a minute, then the conversation can move to other topics in that theme.
Be ready for any topic in the second theme
The second part is on a different theme, set through Pearson's instructions, so revise all five themes rather than one. Your notes are handed back before the conversation begins.
Use the past, the present and the future
Mix them naturally: what you did (ગયા વર્ષે અમે ગુજરાત ગયા હતા), what you do (હું દર શનિવારે ગરબા શીખું છું) and what you will do (આવતા વર્ષે હું ...).
Show interaction and spontaneity
Answer the question you are asked, not the one you prepared; give opinions with reasons; and ask the teacher something back: તમને શું લાગે છે? what do you think?
Keep going when a word escapes you
Use a repair phrase rather than stopping: મારો કહેવાનો અર્થ એ છે કે ... what I mean is, એટલે કે ... that is. Describe a word you have lost.
Conversation key terms
The words the specification and the mark schemes use, each defined the way an examiner wants it.
- Interaction and spontaneity
- How naturally you respond and keep the conversation going, a third of the marks.
- Chosen topic
- The topic you pick for the first part, agreed with your teacher two weeks before.
- Theme
- One of the five broad areas, such as Identity and culture or School, each with its own topics.
- Repair strategy
- A way to keep talking when you are stuck, such as rephrasing or describing the word.
- Extended answer
- An answer of several linked sentences, with opinions, reasons and more than one tense.
Common mistakes in Conversation
The slips that cost marks year after year, and what to do instead.
Reciting a learnt speech whatever the question.
Prepare ideas and phrases, not paragraphs, and answer the question you hear.
Only answering, never asking.
Ask the teacher a question or two, such as તમે ક્યારેય ગુજરાત ગયા છો? have you ever been to Gujarat?
Staying in the present tense.
Bring in the past and the future with a time word: નાનો હતો ત્યારે, ભવિષ્યમાં.