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Spanish HL as a non-native speaker


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The title is probably a bit confusing, but basically I'm wondering if it's possible to succeed in Spanish HL without being a native speaker or speaking the language at home? My teacher said all his past HL students spoke Spanish at home. I'm not so good at grammar, but I can generally understand what's going on in a sentence without getting every single word of it, and at the SL level I do very well on my practice paper 1s and 2s (we haven't done a lot of oral practice yet). Is it possible for me to succeed with study at home, or should I ask now to switch back down?

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Spanish B is designed for non-native speakers. Native speakers shouldn't actually be allowed to take it (it's a pity schools allow it, to be honest, cause it raises the grade boundaries unreasonably high), but you can definitely be successful in a language B HL without speaking it at home, provided you're at a sufficiently advanced level and willing to put work in. 

Good luck :)

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Thanks! I'm nowhere near fully fluent but with the IB standards I do fine and can understand what's going on. Do you know of any online resources for IB Spanish B HL? My teacher is, let's just say, easily distracted when it comes to actually teaching.

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37 minutes ago, erika__ said:

Thanks! I'm nowhere near fully fluent but with the IB standards I do fine and can understand what's going on. Do you know of any online resources for IB Spanish B HL? My teacher is, let's just say, easily distracted when it comes to actually teaching.

Sorry, can't help here. I never took Spanish in the IB, I took English and I speak it fluently, so never really needed any resources. But I'm sure there are some out there. 

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You definitely don't need to be a native speaker to to take language B HL. I'm doing HL French B and I'm doing just fine. Most people at my school who do French B HL have been studying french immersion (half of their classes are in English, half of their classes are in French) at school since at least grade 4-ish I think. None of them are native speakers.

Edit: you do not have to be fully fluent either. Most of my classmates have to sometimes look up a few words, but generally know what's going on.

Edited by Lord of the Pickles
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Personally I take Spanish B HL, and I am in no way a native speaker or even have anyone in my family who speaks a hint of Spanish. I'm from the UK, so my family all learnt French. In case you're wondering how I find it, Spanish is a language I have been studying for 5 years now, and I'm writing my Extended Essay in Spanish as well. I usually score 6/7s on almost all assessments, which are all past papers. I find a good way to practice is to try and use the language with other people in your class, for example the only other guy in my HL class and I speak spanish in our other classes whenever we can, just to keep up the language and be comfortable speaking it. It also helps to do things like having a spanish keyboard setup on your computer/phone as well. 

If you're looking for resources to help, I personally think Duolingo is pretty good as a review tool. I usually just test out of the units, but as part of that, I'm having to recall old Grammar and Vocabulary that I maybe haven't used in a while. Another good resource is Quizlet, on there you can find many sets of flashcards for Spanish, often in specific areas. You can also use Quizlet to test yourself too. My third suggestion would be one you would have to ask your teacher for help with, but this is something my entire class (HL and SL) have found helpful. English is forbidden once you enter the class, it's a Spanish class, therefore everything in class is said in Spanish to force everyone to use the language. Obviously if there is important information or an emergency then English is used to ensure everyone understands, but we mainly use Spanish whenever possible. Even then, there are times when I don't know a word in Spanish and will have to look it up. As long as you enjoy the language and are willing to use it, you should do fine in Spanish B HL.

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Thank you all! I do have a generally good understanding of the language, I just struggle with preterite/imperfect and other grammar specifics. I always write my Paper 2s in present tense unless I absolutely have to switch to past, and it works fine because I usually get a good grade on them. I really don't have a clue what kinds of IB grades I get on the practice papers we do, since the teacher doesn't tell us the markschemes and also for some reason he takes the square root of the decimal of whatever grade we get, so it looks like we're doing much better than we are (which is fine for my GPA). He claims it's the French way, but I wish he'd tell me the IB way. 

Slovaceck - though I absolutely love the idea of having class entirely in Spanish, and we did it for Spanish 3 at a different school and it worked great, I really don't think my teacher would allow it. Let's just say he gets... easily distracted (by YouTube and his own political opinions), and would much rather be teaching German. But I will definitely look into Duolingo and Quizlet, thank you! I have a friend doing Spanish B HL with me, so maybe we'll work on speaking Spanish together, and I'm hoping to get in contact with my old Spanish teacher. 

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