Reading List — Warminster School

How to prepare over the summer?

You already know that it’s impossible to suddenly speak a language fluently over night; it takes a long time and a lot of dedication to be able to speak a language at whatever level you’re aiming for.

Handy hint:

”Aim to do something in your foreign language once a week so you don’t forget everything you know by the time September comes around again.”

The main reason people find A-level study a big step is because they’ve gone the whole summer without speaking, listening or reading anything in the language, and it’s simply been forgotten. You're great in English because you speak, listen, read and probably write a bit of it everyday, so that’s just what you have to do in the foreign language too. Here are some tips of small things to do every few days during the summer to keep your language skills top notch:

Look over your GCSE vocabulary, use your vocabulary book or Memrise.
Keep progressing with the Memrise A Level vocabulary list, if you have started already. This will give you a great head start.
Watch a film or TV show with Spanish subtitles or in Spanish. Don't forget the 'Language Learning with Netflix' extension.
You will still have access to your This Is Language account over the summer holidays, so log in and get practising your grammar and listening skills.
Read articles online (see the suggested list on the right hand side)
Aim to read a book in the foreign language over the holidays (see the suggested list below)
Listen to Spanish music - look at the lyrics. How much do you understand?

Which books will be useful?

Read any books about Spain that you can find, even if they are in English. Books like Dave Boling’s Guernica and Victoria Hislop’s The Return give you an insight into Spain at the time of the Civil War. Ian Gibson’s Fire in the Blood: The New Spain has an enormous amount of information on Spain over the last century up to modern times. The more you know, the easier it will be to come up with ideas in an oral, and understand reading and listening texts in an exam.

Spanish literature – García Marquéz, Vargas Llosa, Antonio Gala, Arturo Perez Reverte and Alberto Vazquez Figueroa.

4 KEY RECOMMENDED BOOKS:

1. Spanish Short Stories; Cuentos En Español. Edited by John R. King

2. Spanish Short Stories; Cuentos Hispánicos: Volume 1 (Penguin Parallel Text Series). Jean Franco.

3. Spanish Short Stories; Cuentos Hispánicos: Volume 2 (Penguin Parallel Text Series). Edited by Gudie Lawaetz

4. Como Agua Para Chocolate. Laura Esquivel. This is the novel studied as part of the Spanish A Level curriculum.

Why read in Spanish?

It is essential that you get into the habit of reading independently in Spanish on a regular basis in order to broaden your vocabulary and gain a fuller understanding of the issues covered in the A Level specification.

Available in the library when we're back at school:

You could look at the Mary Glasgow magazines in the library which give a lot of topical articles.

In addition to these, the library holds a wide range of fiction and non-fiction titles in Spanish that are worth exploring.

At least once a month, you should complete some independent reading using the sheet in this handbook. You are of course more than welcome to do this more frequently. Select an article which interests you, read it carefully and select at least 10 new pieces of vocabulary to look up. The choice of topic area is limitless. The temptation may be to pick an article on fashion, but you should avoid doing this every week as they are not so easy to understand. It is a good idea to vary the topic area and to choose articles related to the syllabus topics so that you encounter a variety of vocabulary.

Independent Reading Sheet:

Independent Reading Sheet.docx