Lower 6th Form CurriculumSyllabus Followed: Edexcel
Entry Requirements: Grade B in GCSE Spanish
Over six million Britons visit Spain every year, so Britain’s link with Spain is significant. There are about 360 million speakers in the 21 countries in which Spanish is the official language, including most Latin American republics. This makes Spanish the most widely spoken world language after Mandarin Chinese. Indeed, one third of the population of the USA now speaks Spanish. Spanish is also one of the five official languages at the UN. Spain is currently Britain’s third most important trading partner. British executives and managers need to speak and understand Spanish so as to meet the challenges of this market and the enormous potential in Latin America, and they need to be informed about the culture of this vast and varied area in which, very often, English is not spoken. The advanced study of Spanish is therefore of clear practical use in career terms.
Studying Spanish to AS and A2 level entails developing good spoken Spanish and the extension of written techniques, grammar and vocabulary. The language is studied via important cultural, social, political and economic topics of contemporary interest. This can lead to an introduction to Spanish and/or Latin American literature at A2. Authentic material (newspapers, magazines, books, audio and video recordings) are widely used for lessons.
You will also need to keep abreast with current affairs and are expected to read around the subject in addition to the set prep time of five hours per week minimum as well as attending the language laboratory weekly.
In the A2 course in the Upper Sixth, AS topic areas are revisited and new ones are added. One exam tests oral skills; the other assesses writing based on an oral or written stimulus, plus writing in registers: creative or discursive or task-based. The third A2 written exam on topics and/or literature may be waived in return for freely-chosen coursework.
Spanish is offered to those who wish to study the language at a higher level at many British universities, often in combination with another language or a different subject, perhaps with a commercial emphasis. Spanish is a useful asset in a vast range of careers and professions which are becoming more internationalised, given the free movement of workers within the EU, for instance.
Sixth Form Hispanists are expected to spend some time in Spain during their course(s). There is a wealth of choice, including links with a school in Vigo, work experience in Valencia, language courses and the possibility of trips to Latin America.
