IOP Detailed Guide

[ShineeLikeMe]

Greetings humans. The following are some tips I've compiled in order to make your oral a less painful and rather care free process in which you talk with the examiner (which may or may not be your teacher) about a topic that you have chosen (or not). So here we go with the tips...

The Format

Alright. The oral for language B consists of 9-12 minutes of you purely talking in your chosen foreign language. Whether it be French, Spanish, German, MAndarin, etc. the list goes on and on, the format will mostly be the same. (Unless I'm delusional in which case it isn't). It is also divided into three 3-4 minute chunks. These 'chunks' if you will each have a different component to them.

Chunk #1

So you sit down you say your name and candidate number. And then you start. This part is 3-4 minutes wherein you provide some background information about the subject you have chosen. Let's say I was doing my Spanish oral and I wanted to do it on the concept of the siesta. Alright so in this portion I would talk about the siesta, what it is, where it is practiced, when is it, etc. So the basic who what when where. Don't try to be too specific and don't try to be too deep. I know IB has made us robots and that "everything must be deep". But don't do it! There's time for that later .

Tips for this chunk:

Don't memorize your presentation: Just don't do it. NEVERRRRR. Now reread the last sentence. Here it is again. NEVERRRR. The examiner and the grader will know when you've memorized your presentation and they will dock points. Dock I say, DOCK! So just don't do it. Instead know what you're going to talk about, and say it. Don't memorize every single word you're going to say because if you happen to miss a sentence it'll trip you up like no other. Just be natural and if you have to pause don't insert space fillers such as "uhm" "ah" "oh" "ee" "oo" "eek" "omg" "gasp" you get the point. Just let it be silent for a few seconds while you recollect your thoughts and then continue like nothing happened. Also I would suggest using the formal conjugation of all verb tenses. Your teacher (like mine) may allow you to use the informal tense. No. I don't think the graders like that. Finally, stay on track. Don't be so robotic that you have no emotions but also don't be so giddy that you fill the 4 minutes with laughter instead of speech. Always remember to use a variety of tenses and colloquial language. Sprinkle in some idioms and bake at 350 degrees till perfection.

Chunk #2

Alright then. You'd think the first chunk would be the hardest eh? Ya no. The during the second chunk, your examiner asks you questions about the topic you just presented. They could transcend cultures and these questions get a lot deeper. For example if you were doing that oral on siesta's your examiner could ask you "How do you think this tradition has affected the psyche of those who practice it" or "how do you think the people who practice the siesta differ from those who do not if at all". You get to improv. Yay!

Tips for this chunk:

Be prepared. Expect the unexpected. You will not be able to cover all basis. Always remember that the grader, if you are taking a B language, will not expect you to be fully fluent. They will expect pauses for you to think and they will expect that you will not be able to answer some of the more complex questions. If you can, good for you. In the event that you cannot however, there are ways to work around it. If you cannot answer the question asked say "I'm sorry can you reword that?" or "I am not able to talk about that aspect however I can tell you about another aspect...". In the first way, you can backtrack and allow the examiner to ask you the question in a different way while in the second you can avoid the question altogether and talk about something different that you have more knowledge or know how to word better. At the same time you will be showing the examiner and grader that you know how to navigate in a conversation in a language you are unfamiliar with. Let's see what else can I ramble on about in this...Oh! Ok, try to speak about one question as long as possible. If your answers are too short you'll be seen as incompetent but speak too much and they'll think you're rambling. Leave room for about 3 questions and you'll be good.Once again, just act natural (MOOOOO!).

Chunk #3

Yayyyy. Now that the hard part is over, you get to have fun. Theoretically...In this section the examiners will ask you questions about your life. Where you want to to go to college blah blah blah. You know the generic type of questions. Another 3-4 minutes will make up 9-12.

Tips for this section:

Once again, no rambling. Leave room for 3 questions. Use a variety of tenses. If your life is boring and you have nothing to talk about pull a Duy (thats me) and make up stuff. Not outrageous mind you. Just spice up your life with stuff that you'd never do. It's exciting and shows of your vocabulary that you wouldn't use otherwise. So doooo it. Pull stuff out of the air. Dooo it. Thats pretty much it. Keep it consistent and you'll be good for this section.

So I hope this helped. That's pretty much all I know. Maybe. I dunno. MAybe I'll add more stuff later...Meh.

[anne.antoinette]

Oh this post is AMAZING ^^ And the way your wrote it, really helpful for a clutz who is just preparing for her oral, like me

Another little tip: PREPARE earlier, write down bulletpoints, maybe get used to them, look at them a couple of times. Dont start preparing a day before the oral...

[quinnib10]

I disagree with the memorising bit - where in the assessment criteria does it mention anything about memorising? You can pull it off by using filler words appropriate to your language b (ie. an english equivalent would be "umm", "like I was saying", "wait one moment") and making sure to not talk to fast! Part one of the individual oral is in my opinion the easiest part to impress the examiners and is the perfect opportunity to use idioms, tenses, etc and to add to the overall fluency of the oral.

[Avan:)]

Thank you very much!

OH, the previous sentence was btw NEVERRRRR not NEVERRRR soz

[Anchuquchu123]

Do you guys know where I could find mp3 sample of a French IOC?

[pennywise256]

What is your mother tongue?

[little.kai]

Aren't they revising the way orals are done this year? Our German teacher has started giving us picture prompts. Has anybody else started doing these, or has any tips?

[TykeDragon]

This is what happened to me in my IB1/ Yr 12 Japanese B SL mock. I was given a picture prompt and mind went blank. I hope this isn't a sure change, the system your guide is referring to seems a lot more reasonable to me!

[japaneseBSL]

This year the Individual Oral is based on photos the info above about a prepared speech is the old curriculum. Your teacher will give you 2 photos one from a different option. Each photo will have a caption or title. You have 15 minutes prep time to choose which photo you want to talk about. In the 15 minutes you can prepare 10 dot points to help you describe the picture. You need to describe the picture for about 3 minutes. Then your teacher will ask you more questions for about another 5-6 minutes on that picture. They may also ask you info about the other pic too so be prepared to say why you didn't choose it.

[eatingpieisgreat]

what about ab initio languages??