Orals

Gavin "shels"

:eek: So with the orals creeping up how is everyone suited? Been preparing much or concentrating on the mocks.

I'm grand for French, but Irish I don't know anything bar the basics *hint hint people*

The word oral, coupled with the smiley :eek:, make quite an amusing combination.

Ok, I'm sorry: I'll keep sexual innuendo out of this.

PurpleFistMixer

Watch TG4 till your eyes bleed. Aifric isn't bad, if it's still up on their website.

Gavin "shels"

PurpleFistMixer wrote: »

Watch TG4 till your eyes bleed. Aifric isn't bad, if it's still up on their website.

Actually tried watching that programme today but couldn't handle it.:D

Are the orals really 15 mins?:eek:

Thinking off it I'm not to bad at Irish, should get full marks for the Sliocht and I know enough oral Irish to get me through it.

SarcasticFairy

Oddly, I'm not that nervous about the Irish orals....

French is on the complete opposite end of the scale, I haven't a clue, and I cannot put even the slightest french lilt on my accent, with the result I sound completely ridiculous when I try to speak it :rolleyes:

PurpleFistMixer

PurpleFistMixer wrote: »

Watch TG4 till your eyes bleed. Aifric isn't bad, if it's still up on their website.

Any tips for maximizing the number of marks I could get for it? I'm currently struggling to get an OD3; and I feel that the oral will be my downfall - and if that's so, no college.

Dante

Hopefully an overload in friendly nods and striking arm gestures accompanied with the odd "aaahhhhh oui!" will get me through my french oral!
As for Irish....the spamming of everyones favorite word "sea" might scrape me through!
PS: Don't ruin my optimism.....it's all I have left :(

K4t

French will be grand unless they start takin the piss.

Ordinary Irish will be fine too.

French orals are where I'm hoping to pick up the marks. I can speak far more than I can write.

The writing will kill me as my teacher isn't doing it with us.

Dante

K4t wrote: »

French will be grand unless they start takin the piss.

Ordinary Irish will be fine too.

There are no specific ordinary or higher level orals....Its all the same; the examiner doesn't know what level you do and they are told to mark you accordingly so I've been told!

GA361

A bit worried about the Irish orals. . . but the strangest thing is our teacher says most always get an A.Don't know how true that is.
The Italian Oral should be fine cos we have an excellent teacher for it.

PurpleFistMixer

Gavin shels wrote: »

Are the orals really 15 mins?:eek:

15 minutes yes, feels like the time flies, tbh. When I think about my Irish Oral all I can remember is talking about going to the Gaeltacht... for like, 30 seconds, and then leaving. Maybe I repressed it all. : p

-JammyDodger- wrote: »

Any tips for maximizing the number of marks I could get for it? I'm currently struggling to get an OD3; and I feel that the oral will be my downfall - and if that's so, no college.

Tbh, and it's a bit late for this I realise, the best thing that helped me was going to the Gaeltacht in the summer. After that I felt happy to ramble in Irish about anything I wanted.
For the Oral though.. well, just use Irish as much as you can, I suppose. It's just about being comfortable stringing sentences together without having to stop and think "okay how do I conjugate the present tense...". Also knowing what you'd say to certain questions, not in the sense of learning off answers, just so you're not thrown if they say "What would you do if you were principal?", so you can have an opinion already formulated.
Ultimately I can't really help too much, Irish is one subject (well aside from maths etc. obviously) that I had a real passion for so I spoke Irish as much as I could, joined Irish language groups online (#gaeilge on quakenet!) etc., so I don't know tricks as it were. : p

cautioner

Loving how the french book recommends we just stick our document in their face if we get asked a sticky question.

"Est-ce qu'il y a beaucoup des problemes sociale dans cette region?"

".... Voila, j'ai fait un docuthingy! Regarde!"

xOxSinéadxOx

I'm bricking it. I'm **** at french and irish, can't speak either plus I keep mixing the two up! and I'm doing honours in both, I think I may drop down in french

Edsgravy0

French shouldn't be too bad. Irish could be quite tricky

I'm just worried that rather than sitting there with not a clue what to say, I'll turn into a gibbering wreck and the orals will go like the Spud interview scene from Trainspotting (i.e, a feckin disaster)

La crise financiére est trés grave... oui, bien sur...

p1akuw47h5r3it

Gavin shels wrote: »

:eek: So with the orals creeping up how is everyone suited? Been preparing much or concentrating on the mocks.

I'm grand for French, but Irish I don't know anything bar the basics *hint hint people*

i'm the other way round...grand for irish,screwd for french

Jack Sheehan

Oooh my german will be a disaster. Ah well, you cant win em all.

bythewoods

-JammyDodger- wrote: »

Any tips for maximizing the number of marks I could get for it? I'm currently struggling to get an OD3; and I feel that the oral will be my downfall - and if that's so, no college.

I'd definitely advise you to practice practice and PRACTICE the sliochts.
Like, you can write in all the phonetics, as I'm sure you know yourself, so it's easy enoguh to get a lot of the marks in it. Even if the rest of your oral's not as you'd like it to be the sliochts are a great way to pick up marks.
I'm not too sure about OL marking, but reading the passages is worth 5% overall of the entire HL Irish result! 5% for 1 minute of reading like!

Aside from that, focus on the basics.
Don't worry about the difficult questions, just try to perfect the basic questions which you're going to be asked. Learn off things for your family, pastimes, school, etc and try get the examiner to stick on the topics you're most comfortable with.
If there's a question you really don't like try bringing it back to something you're better off with.
Do you like politics?- No, but I'm really interested in *something you're interested in*.

If you don't want to talk about drugs or economic issues, make no reference to it. etc.

If there's a question you don't understand or are struggling with, just say you don't understand and get back to a topic you know.

Hope I'm of some help...

Busi_Girl08

Heya lads,

I did the Leaving last year, French and Irish higher level.

First of all, time wise, the 12-15 minutes will actually fly, don't worry about that.

Second of all, be sure just to have plenty of schpeal made up for key subjects, particularly family, hobbies, subjects, and the more abstract subjects, like economy, environment, etc.

Thirdly, the best thing to do is just stay calm, the worst thing you can do is cram the night before, because I guarantee, you will BLANK.

Just practise practise practise!!!!!!

Piste

Irish should be ok, as should French if I just get around to learning off my document. For German I'm a bit worried as my grammar tends to be all over the gaff. But something like 60% of that oral is learned off beforehand so hopefully that'll get me through!

p1akuw47h5r3it

u do 3 languages??

Piste

Yeah

p1akuw47h5r3it

:eek: Jeez you must have a knack for languages then? Is it not real tough... how you remember all the rules and stuff

pepsicokeacola

irish oral is easy but then im near fluent in it, but the paper itself is absolute bull****. I HATE IRISH(LEAVING CERT):mad:


OH BTW dont learn it off word for it, try to get free with our language

http://www.tg4.tv/default.aspx?p=channels/CulaArchive&a=55289

if nothing else it gives u a good reason to watch the smashing clíona ní chíosan.

Thanks for the tips PFM and bythewoods. I badly need all the tips I can get!

Piste

Henrik Helpful Minus wrote: »

:eek: Jeez you must have a knack for languages then? Is it not real tough... how you remember all the rules and stuff

Well Irish, French and German are all so different that it's hard to mix up the rules. The only time it gets annoying is when I can think of a word in one language and not the other. The words and sentence structures are so different that a rule in one language would be impossible to use in another, so a lot of the grammar fits the specific language.

Now if I were doing French and Spanish that'd be a totally different story! They're quite similar in their structure and a lot of the words are the same so I can see myself getting very confused!

p1akuw47h5r3it

Piste wrote: »

Well Irish, French and German are all so different that it's hard to mix up the rules. The only time it gets annoying is when I can think of a word in one language and not the other. The words and sentence structures are so different that a rule in one language would be impossible to use in another, so a lot of the grammar fits the specific language.

Now if I were doing French and Spanish that'd be a totally different story! They're quite similar in their structure and a lot of the words are the same so I can see myself getting very confused!

Ye well good luck nyway;)

p1akuw47h5r3it

pepsicokeacola wrote: »

irish oral is easy but then im near fluent in it, but the paper itself is absolute bull****. I HATE IRISH(LEAVING CERT):mad:


OH BTW dont learn it off word for it, try to get free with our language

http://www.tg4.tv/default.aspx?p=channels/CulaArchive&a=55289

if nothing else it gives u a good reason to watch the smashing clíona ní chíosan.

Agreed. The Irsh paper is ****.

Gavin "shels"

These are the 40 French Oral questions which the examiners got as ideas for the 2008 Leaving Cert at a conference in Athlone. Hope they help someone.;)

Jonathan

This thread has not lived up to its title.

degausserxo

Had my German mock oral today! Went pretty well, since I was so lucky in getting the first picture sequence and first role play, the ones I actually knew well!

SarcasticFairy

Eeeeeek! Mock Irish oral either tomorrow or Friday - they won't tell us! I'm a little bit nervous, and just want it over, but it should be good practice and take away some of the nerves for the real thing.

French will be a whole different ballgame.

lilmissprincess

I had a mock mock oral with my teacher this morning.

Apparently my Irish is fantastic but I need to learn the basic grammar you learn in Primary school....

As for french...my teacher is convinced that learning in blocks is the way forward and seems oblivious to my inability to do so....GRRR

bythewoods

-JammyDodger- wrote: »

Thanks for the tips PFM and bythewoods. I badly need all the tips I can get!

No problem.

Although, I really should have said something about THIS:


Rescue Remedy.
The stuff's amazing.

I'm generally not a nervous person but before the orals last year I was pretty shaky/ FREAKED OUT, as were most people. A few squirts of this and I was grand though.
Probably smelled a bit herb-y/ alcohol-y going into my orals, but it was better than shaking and grinning.

I know you can get it in health food shops. Possibly in pharmacies too.

SarcasticFairy

So, found ou last night the mock oral was definitely on Friday. So, I did nothing, at all.

Sitting eating lunch with my friends today, and with about 10 minutes left to go, my year head (who's one of the irish teachers) came over to us and told us her class had finished early and we were to go in after lunch. Cue frantic looking for oral copies and mild panic attacks. We went to our teacher to moan a bit and get ourselves out of doing it. One of the girls cried, and we were let off til tomorrow. She was actually crying, but still, crying always works!

Couple of the lads were coerrced into going in today. In the middle of talking about the recession, one of them was asked what sort of flowers he had in his garden. I mean what?! I leant my sliochts to one of them, cos he'd lost his, and he forgot to give them back. I now have none to practice.... Anyone know where you'd find them?

Tomorrow should be interesting :rolleyes:

celtic723

examinations.ie/schools/2006L...

lorna100

irish and french Im screwed for, spanish im fairly ok - my french grammer is all over the place, ive been avoiding thinking of the orals completly.. irish im just about scraping through honours and dont want to drop. Gonna try to use midterm to work on the orals.

It sounds really weird but for things like the sliochts and french documents, spanish roleplays etc, record yourself saying it on your phone and while on the bus/train play it over and over again, really helps to get it in on the ear and you can see where you go wrong most.

Make up a list of questions that you're likely to be asked in the oral and record yourself answering them, then play it back and see where your strengths/weaknesses are. Our french teacher provides a tape recorder for people to do this at lunch, lol! Also if you put yourself under pressure (like if you have to leave for work etc. at a certain time and cannot be late, be ready 15 mins early and don't leave til you have answered all your q's, then reflect on it to see where you went wrong.

I know if I do this often enough my grammer will improve in french, like say leaving out the helping verb when congujating the passe compose, or for agreements etc. The more you practice the easier it wil be!

SarcasticFairy

celtic723 wrote: »

examinations.ie/schools/2006L...

Thanks!

lorna100 wrote: »

It sounds really weird but for things like the sliochts and french documents, spanish roleplays etc, record yourself saying it on your phone and while on the bus/train play it over and over again, really helps to get it in on the ear and you can see where you go wrong most.

I recorded myself reading my sliochts and listened to them before I went in! It actually work, I got 30/30 for my reading!

I didn't record the rest, and it didn't go well at all. I struggled on simple questions and couldn't get my tenses together to save my life. But it was good experience and I know what to look at now for the real thing!

cautioner

Is anyone else using "An dTuigeann Tú?". I haven't had a proper read of it yet but some of the sample oral dialogues are thoroughly ridiculous.

"An raibh tú san ospidéal riamh?"
"Bhuel, fan go bhfeicfidh mé, bhí mé san ospidéal anuraidh. I ndáríre, bhí mé! Bhris mé mo chos, níl mé ag magadh!"

I wonder if the examiner would be exasperated, amused, or simply confused...

bythewoods

cautioner wrote: »

Is anyone else using "An dTuigeann Tú?". I haven't had a proper read of it yet but some of the sample oral dialogues are thoroughly ridiculous.

"An raibh tú san ospidéal riamh?"
"Bhuel, fan go bhfeicfidh mé, bhí mé san ospidéal anuraidh. I ndáríre, bhí mé! Bhris mé mo chos, níl mé ag magadh!"

I wonder if the examiner would be exasperated, amused, or simply confused...

Haha, I know! They're actually hilarious! It's all just fillers, you're saying nothing of any worth!
Although they've one or two nice phrases. Litterally, one. Two tops.

cautioner

I think the best one I saw was:

"a thiarcas!" - - - - - - "Oh jeepers!

How quaint!

Piste

My entire Irish essay for paper 1 next week will be full of fillers. I'm going to do the diaspóireacht as it'll be a half page of intro, another paragraph or waffle about the many problems that face the country, but none as important as X, a page or so making some sort of argument and then the rest insulting the other team and ending it with a load of clichés.

Honestly if people spoke/wrote in English the way LC students do in Irish people would get so pissed off constantly hearing things like "in my opinion, the situation is getting worse lately, this is only the tip of the iceberg to tell the truth..."

celtic723

how much marks can you obtain from the Sliochts if you make no mistakes?

Fad

Piste wrote: »

Honestly if people spoke/wrote in English the way LC students do in Irish people would get so pissed off constantly hearing things like "in my opinion, the situation is getting worse lately, this is only the tip of the iceberg to tell the truth..."

God be with you, I havent a dog's respect for the government, If I won the lottery, with the help of God, I would buy a small island.......A1 sentence me thinks:D

Of course you'd have to directly translate everything from Irish, so the syntax would be a little "Different"

celtic723 wrote: »

how much marks can you obtain from the Sliochts if you make no mistakes?

30 I think.

celtic723

Fad wrote: »

God be with you, I havent a dog's respect for the


30 I think.

thanks that means its a huge chunk of your total oral percentage.. excellent

SarcasticFairy

Fad wrote: »

God be with you, I havent a dog's respect for the government, If I won the lottery, with the help of God, I would buy a small island.......A1 sentence me thinks:D

Of course you'd have to directly translate everything from Irish, so the syntax would be a little "Different"


30 I think.

I said something along the lines of "Who is responsable for this situation? In the name of God where does the blame lie?!" in my mock. I would never say anything like that in English, but it looks good in the middle of it all! Everything I write or say is a gross exaggeration of what it needs to be, just because that's the way we're taught!

celtic723 wrote: »

thanks that means its a huge chunk of your total oral percentage.. excellent

Well it's 30 out of 150, so it's like, what 20%? Still though, much easier marks than stumbling through a sentence straight out of your head!

bythewoods

celtic723 wrote: »

thanks that means its a huge chunk of your total oral percentage.. excellent

It's 5% over all, for the whole subject like. 30/600.
That's a huge amount for just reading a passage which you're allowed have the phonetics written in for.

Aisling(",)

my friend and i are now texting in irish till after the orals.we keep ending up with crossed wires though

bythewoods

Aisling(",) wrote: »

my friend and i are now texting in irish till after the orals.we keep ending up with crossed wires though

Nice! I did that last year, really quite helpful, if a little uncool.

2 of my friends study french in college, something I plan on making use of. It's lovely and handy to text in french.. you can just turn the predictive text to french et voila!

cautioner

Wish I had the fundage for a Tocco... I have a couple of Gaeilge buddies but it's a pain in the arse texting them.

Fad

cautioner wrote: »

Wish I had the fundage for a Tocco... I have a couple of Gaeilge buddies but it's a pain in the arse texting them.

Hardly need predictive text to do it (I managed a few years ago, but it took hours to have a conversation).

You can download it though here, well not there, but there are instructions, and its on some samsungs, my sister has that touch screen one with all the Irish stuff already on it., Tá mé an gealasach (My phone is too old, and it wont support the download)

cautioner

Non-predictive text kills me. Especially as I'm prone to sending quite long messages.

Thanks for the link! It says it should work ok on my phone. Nice one.