Spanish - Year 9
How and when will I study Spanish?
In Year 9, you will continue with your study of Spanish with a view to embarking on a GCSE course in Year 10. The lesson allocation will again be 5 hours per fortnight.
The course is taught through electronic media and is based on engaging and authentic material, including great video clips and real Spanish text. It is supplemented by Scaffolding for Productive Language, which is bespoke, editable content enlivened by great images, and our colourful and imaginative content is uploaded to Google Classroom daily, so that students can review it at home. If you don't have it already, we strongly encourage downloading Google Classroom on mobile phones or other devices you may have. The Gatwick School also subscribes to Linguascope for great interactive activities. Click on the fish icon above. Login details for students are available from MFL staff. The Gatwick School also subscribes to Linguascope for great interactive activities. Click on the fish icon above. Login details for students are available from MFL staff.
Vamos a comer! - Let’s eat!
Meals & meal timings in Spain
Wide range of fruit & vegetables
Food preferences
Buying at the market & supermarket
Famous Spanish dishes
Meat, fish, seafood & vegetarianism
Accompaniments, menus & courses
International cuisine
Nutrition & the Mediterranean diet
A packed lunch
This theme is studied from September to November.
Vamos de compras - Let’s go shopping!
items of clothing
colours and pattern
whether or not something suits you
asking for clothes and different sizes
other typical shops
describe what you and others are wearing
meet a famous Spanish fashion designer
Spain’s leading department store
This theme is studied from November to January.
What else should I know?
Previous knowledge of Spanish is usually required to access this course as it is very challenging to catch up with at this stage.
The use of an online dictionary such as wordreference.com is permitted and dictionary skills are taught to students. Verb tables for Spanish can be found on verbix.com.
The use of Google Translate and other translation packages and AI is not allowed in lessons. You are here to actually learn the language, not to let software do the work for you.
You will do your work in an eeBook (electronic evidence book) rather than a traditional exercise book. This is permanently shared with your teacher who will review it and make comments electronically as applicable. You will have one eeBook for classwork and another one for grammar notes. You will need to be prepared to write reflections on your progress when asked to by your teacher.
¡Vamos de vacaciones! - Let’s go on holiday!
The airport and Spain’s leading airline
Making an online flight booking
On board the aircraft
Transport in Seville
Checking in at the hotel
Going down to breakfast
Complaints
Describing weather
This theme is studied from February to May.
¡Vamos a la clínica! - Let’s go to the surgery!
Parts of the body
Explaining symptoms
At the chemist
At the doctor’s surgery
Healthy lifestyle
This theme is studied from June to July.
¡Vamos a Barcelona! - Let’s go on to Barcelona!
Visit the capital of Catalonia on the northeast coast of Spain in these video episodes.
Meet the four teenagers, Kal from Morocco, María from Argentina and Barcelona residents Juan and Eva.
Find out about who gets on best with whom and what they think is important in their friendship.
This theme is studied periodically throughout the year.
Homework
You will definitely need to do some homework each week in order to ensure your success at language learning. This will be one or more of the following.
Learn a new Personal Response Question
Consolidate new vocabulary from a specified vocabulary list or use The Gatwick School Linguascope account.
Review a grammar note
Review lesson slide(s) uploaded on Google Classroom
Complete any activity you were unable to finish in class or for which you were absent
Read, listen or watch any French material specified by your teacher
Note: there is never any week that you do not have homework in Spanish. You should be doing at least one of the above regardless.
How will I be assessed?
You will always get plenty of feedback from your teacher as you go along, but there are also formal eAssessments each half term, which cover all four language skills each time.
eListening
This means a short electronic test on a locked, school-managed Chromebook in which the teacher plays some short Spanish audio recordings twice each, and you answer from a range of usually five multiple choice answers. There is also a transcription section in which the teacher reads out a sentence in Spanish and you type out what you hear. Spelling and accents do not have to be totally accurate when testing this skill.
eSpeaking
Each week you will complete a Personal Response Question or PRQ, in which you will devise an answer using a range of quality, scaffolded material. You will need to learn 5 questions of which you will be asked 4 in a random order. You will do your eSpeaking via video link to the classroom to give you some privacy and your teacher will talk to you using headphones. You must also ask the teacher a question related to the topic, which you can prepare in advance.
eReading
This is another type of short eAssessment conducted on a locked Chromebook, in which you have to answer for a range of multiple choice answers related to a very short text. There is also a translation sentence, in which you are asked to translate a sentence from Spanish into English.
eWriting
For many, this is the most challenging of the four language skills. However, it is also based on the same PRQs and you are asked to type out our four PRQ responses to see how well you can write in Spanish. In this eAssessment, correct spelling and placement of accents do carry weight. There is also a translation sentence in which you have to translate a sentence from English into Spanish.
Beside the four languages skills eAssessments, you should expect eVocab tests at various points throughout the course. These are very quick to do but will give you and your teacher a good indication of how well you are taking in new vocabulary.