Personal and social life Self, family, friends, home life, shopping, meals, healthy living, illness and accident, free time, fashion, relationships, future plans. Local community Home town, school, education, local environment, pollution, recycling, local facilities, Comparisons with other towns and regions, weather and seasons. The world of work Work experience, part-time jobs, future careers, technology (sending messages accessing information). The wider world Travel and holidays, media, social issues (e,g, life of young people today, homelessness, crime, drugs, healthy living, religion, politics),life in the countries and communities where the language is spoken. The GCSE Topics

What does GCSE German look like?

Speaking 30% You have to send one conversation and one speech/discussion to the examiner. We do 2 or 3 of these OVER THE 2 YEARS and choose the best ones to send away. We do a speaking test at the end of a topic eg Holidays School My Town. Test is done with me and recorded on MP3 player.

Listening Listen to snippets of German Questions and answers in English 20% of exam. Done in May of year 11 Can opt to do Foundation level (grades G-C) or Higher level (grades C-A)

Reading Read short texts in German Questions and answers in English 20% of exam Done in May of year 11 Can opt to do Foundation level (grades G- C) or Higher level (grades C-A)

Writing 30% You have to send 2 essays to the examiner. You write 4 over the 2 years You can prepare the essay in advance and your teacher will advise you how to improve it. You then write in an hour

Topics and Grammar Are based on what we do now- school, town, holidays, future plans, plus new aspects such as work experience. Mostly the grammar work is on the tenses and modal verbs as well as trying to help you to write in complex sentences (ie ones with conjunctions)

Success rate? Is very good. You have almost total control over the speaking and writing and that is 60% covered. The reading and listening are answered in English and the same types of task are set each year. They are each worth 20%

How does it differ from what we do now? No sudden change of level Same format of starters and games. Still have Arbeitshefte as support Some work with a series of DVDs. Still try to speak German as much as we can. Lots of support to do well

German at Keswick German is a very popular GCSE- over 100 people people study it in Years 10/11 We aim for C and above and seldom don’t manage this!