Conversation
Students should:
- be prepared to communicate on a variety of topics relating to their personal world
- answer the question asked rather than presenting pre-prepared responses
- express their ideas and opinions and justify their point of view
- elaborate using a variety of vocabulary, phrases and expressions suitable to the question asked
- use a range of tenses and be prepared to reflect on the past, present and future
- manipulate the language to fulfil the requirements of the question
- avoid the repetition of the same vocabulary, phrases, expressions and grammatical structures
- be prepared to be interrupted by the examiner
- use Maltese to ask for repetition and/or clarification of the question.
In better responses, students were able to:
- respond confidently with fluency and correct intonation
- use appropriate grammatical structures and manipulate the language to respond to the question asked, for example avvanzata and ħwarar.
Areas for students to improve include:
- elaborating appropriately to fully answer the question
- avoiding repetition of the same information to respond to a different question
- supporting what they say about their personal world by giving their opinion or point of view
- using appropriate conjunctions, for example għaliex, minħabba, ir-raġuni hija, imma, pero.
Discussion
In preparation for the Discussion
Students should:
- choose a topic that has good quality reference texts and sources available
- prepare for the discussion by referring to at least three texts in their research
- ensure that one of the texts used in their research is a literary source.
During the Discussion examination
Students should:
- support their discussion with evidence from the texts that they have sourced
- express and justify opinions and points of view on the in-depth study topic
- reflect on their research findings to help them express opinions or develop new perceptions about their in-depth topic
- manipulate language to respond in a coherent and logical way to the questions asked
- use a variety of relevant vocabulary, grammar, sentence structures and expressions
- avoid responding with pre-prepared responses that do not address the question asked
- avoid relying on general knowledge about the topic of in-depth topic.
In better responses, students were able to:
- include detail in the discussion of the in-depth topic, for example specifics and examples from the texts used in their research
- demonstrate grammatical accuracy, for example rephrasing the question tista’ tiklarifika
- show evidence of evaluating and analysing the information researched when expressing their point of view.
Areas for students to improve include:
- avoiding generalisations and giving responses that are general knowledge
- elaborating their response with specific information relating to their topic of in-depth study
- supporting what they say with evidence from their texts
- using relevant grammatical structures to answer the question asked
- avoiding simply narrating facts irrespective of the question asked.
