Leaving Certificate HL – The Opinion Piece

Sample Opinion Pieces & Notes.

I’ve attached a link to Google Drives with some sample Opinion Pieces that I’ve collected over the years for you to have a look at. I would not recommend learning them off as you don’t know if they’ll necessarily apply to the question your given. Rather look at the structure of the pieces, the vocab and phrases they use, take some ideas from them and write some sample plans.

Remember that when writing an opinion piece once you make your content relevant to the title you should be ok. It’s up to you to make it fit.

You’ll also find some vocabulary and hint sheets on what constitutes a good Opinion Piece though you have most of these already.

Google Drives Sample Opinion Pieces

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La Comida

This is a great page from BBC Languages that will help you with Food vocabulary and how to create some  basic sentences that you’ll be able to use in your exams.

BBC Languages Food & Drink

5º – Verbos Irregulares en el Subjuntivo

En las últimas clases hemos visto como se forma los verbos regulares en el subjuntivo. Ahora podemos practicar con los irregulares. De nuevo la página web BK Nelson es nuestra amiga ya que hay un montón de ejercicios con que podemos practicar. Abajo podéis encontrar unos enlaces:

Repasos del Subjuntivo:

Como se forma los verbos regulares e irregulares.

Verbos regulares y los con cambio de raiz

Verbos con cambios ortograficos 

Verbos irregulares

Para Practicar:

Ejercicios de BK Nelson

Más ejercicios

5º Curso – El Subjuntivo

Al fin estamos a punto de luchar contra el subjuntivo. El año pasado vimos un poco de este modo a traves del imperativo sin embargo este año vamos a ver no solo cómo se forma sino como se usa. Abajo podéis encontrar unos enlaces útiles para repasar y practicar el modo.

Repasos:

http://www.studyspanish.com/lessons/subj1.htm – Un buen repaso del modo con que puedes practicar un poco también.

Práctica:

http://www.colby.edu/~bknelson/SLC/subj_pres.php – una selección buena de ejercicios aquí. Si practicáis con estas no tendréis problemas.

http://www.aprenderespanol.org/verbos/subjuntivo-presente.html

The Present Perfect

This is another Spanish past tense to go along with the Pretérito Indefinido (Preterite or simple past) and the Preterito Imperfecto (Imperfect past or things you ‘used to do’).

Whereas the Preterite and Imperfect are used for events in the past that are considered completed the Present Perfect is used more to describe things that started in the past but continue into the Present.

Basically it’s the equivalent of the tense ‘I have done something’ in English and is made up of two verbs as in English, those being the verb to have and then the ‘past participle of another verb i.e. to eat = eaten, to dance = danced, to speak = spoken.

In Spanish though we use the verb Haber + past participle and so it works like this. NOTE that we do not use Tener in Spanish for this tense:

Haber = to have (done something)

he                                                                                      hablado (from hablar)
has
ha                                  +          Past Participle         comido (from comer)
hemos
habéis                                                                             vivido (from vivir)
han

As you can see to form the past participle you simply remove the -AR from the verb and add -ado, or removed -ER/-IR and add -ido.

There are also a number of irregulars you need to be aware of:

abrir (to open) – abierto (open)

cubrir (to cover) – cubierto (covered)

decir (to say) – dicho (said)

escribir (to write) – escrito (written)

freír (to fry) – frito (fried)

hacer (to do) – hecho (done)

morir (to die) – muerto (dead)

poner (to put) – puesto (put)

resolver (to resolve) – resuelto (resolved)

romper (to break) – roto (broken)

ver (to see) – visto (seen)

volver (to return) – vuelto (returned)

Below are a series of links which summarise the tense well and allow you to practice with it:

Spanishdict.com gives a decent summary here but it doesn’t specifically mention the irregulars

There is a good summary from studyspanish.com here of the past participles.

And more from studyspanish.com here on the present perfect tense itself. Be sure to do the practice quizzes available on the left hand side.  

Here’s a good practice exercise on BK Nelson.

Leaving Cert HL Reading Practice

Below are a series of links that you can go to to practice reading Spanish and in order to do well at HL Spanish you need to read as much as possible.

Remember it’s as important if not more important to focus on vocabulary as opposed to grammar. Knowing the rules of grammar is only of a benefit to you if you have the vocabulary to apply them to.

As such when studying Spanish you should incorporate as much  reading and listening as possible. Reading refreshes vocabulary already acquired as well as introducing you to new vocabulary. Also try to identify any grammar that you have studied, observe sentence structure and see how this translates to English. Doing so will help not only with Reading Comprehension but also with Written Expression. Some of these sites also have review exercises to test your understanding.

A possible form of written practice would be to rewrite in summary form each paragraph from an article you’ve just read. This is excellent practice for opinion piece writing.

http://www.veintemundos.com/en/

http://www.20minutos.es/

http://www.bbc.com/mundo

http://paper.li/THWprofesora/1353097661

http://www.practicaespanol.com/

http://www.scoop.it/t/spanish-as-a-second-language-1

http://practicopedia.lainformacion.com/

http://www.muyinteresante.es/

http://www.efefuturo.com/

Key Vocabulary/Verbs Revision

The following link will lead to a list of key vocabulary by topic. Just click the topic you want to revise and work you’re way down through the list. It makes sense to follow the order of topics according to number so make a start there.

Basic Vocab by topic

Some More Basic Vocabulary by Topic

Key Verbs Conjugation Activities

For more advanced sets check these links:

Spanishdict.com Flashcards – Browse the pages to find the set your looking for then learn and practice with activities.

Studyspanish.com Vocab Lists – Some of these you need to pay for but the basic ones are free anyway.