Descripción breve de las entrevistas orales:

Los estudiantes van a hacerte la mayoría de las preguntas.  Yo sólo hago preguntas para examinar un aspecto específico o para hacer una prueba (probe) de nivel.  Es importante que todos escuchemos bien el nivel de las respuestas.  Si la persona no demuestra facilidad con un nivel, no deben hacerle preguntas de un nivel más difícil.  No tortures a los otros.  

Las entrevistas van a consistir en una serie de preguntas que eliciten vocabulario y estructuras del texto entero.  Vamos a empezar con preguntas fáciles del primer semestre, tales como:

¿Cómo te llamas?  ¿Cómo estás hoy?   ¿Dónde vives?  ¿De dónde eres?

¿Qué te gusta hacer los fines de semana?   ¿Dónde trabaja tu hermano?  ¿Cuándo es el cumpleaños de tu papá? ¿Cómo es tu mamá?  Descríbeme tu casa.  ¿Cuántos cuartos hay?  Descríbeme tu ropa.

¿Cuál prefieres, leer una novela o mirar deportes en la televisión?  
¿Puedes tocar un instrumento? ¿Qué pasatiempos tienes?  ¿A qué hora te levantas los miércoles?  ¿Qué haces cuando hace calor?  ¿Qué piensas hacer este fin de semana?  ¿Qué quieres hacer cuando te gradúes?  ¿Qué vas a comer después de clase hoy? ¿Por qué estudias el español?

¿Qué hiciste anoche?  ¿Con quién lo hiciste?  ¿Qué hacías los sábados por la noche cuando tenías 16 años?  ¿Qué comidas te gustan?  ¿Por qué?

Si puedes contestar las preguntas a este nivel con precisión, vas a recibir una A.  Pero, voy a seguir probandote para ver hasta que punto puedes alcanzar.  Las preguntas más avanzadas serán de este tipo:

Narrate a story of a bad thing that you did, or what you did last weekend.

Solve a minor problem at a restaurant

Give directions to your house, tell how to do some specific activity you seem to know about.

Describe an ideal parent, spouse, child---what must s/he do? Why?

Express your opinions about the future (fears, hopes, plans)--school, family, politics, environment, etc.

Compare the geography and climate of a Spanish-speaking country to ours and explain WHY you prefer one or the other.

The ACTFL Rubric

(Grade--F) Novice Low: Unable to function in Spoken Spanish.  Oral production limited to occasional isolated words or expressions that are common in English.  "Bueno, Olé, Taco, uno dos tres cuatro"

(Grade--D) Novice Mid: Able to operate only in a very limited capacity within very predictable areas of need.  Vocabulary is limited to that necessary to express simple elementary needs and basic courtesy formulae.  "Buenos días.  Me llamo Jorge.  ¿Cómo estás?  Syntax is fragmented.  Verbs are often in the infinitive form, or incorrectly conjugated most of the time.  Very short sentences.  Responses may be more like echoes of the question:  "¿Qué comes en la mañana?  A: Comes en la mañana cereal."   Frequent long pauses.  Cannot create real sentences and cannot cope with the simplest situation.  Pronunciation is often unintelligible.  Very difficult to understand, even by a patient and imaginative listener.  

(Grade--C) Novice High [University of Minnesota entrance standard for second year program]  Usually controls: Basic social formulae, basic topic areas like food, clothes, colors, weather, days of week, family members.  Uses a lot of memorized material to ask and answer simple questions.  Responses are very short, and tend to look like lists.  "Mi hermana es alto, interesante, guapa y fuerte."  Partial control: Characteristics of self and family members, simple activities (verbs are correctly formed about 1/2 the time).  Can order a meal, ask for directions, make a transaction at the store.)  Participates in very simple conversations, but not with extensive responses.  Present tense, adjective agreement and subj-verb agreement are at least 50% correct.  Forms complete sentences most of the time.  Can be understood by a patient listener.

(Grade--B) Intermediate Low:  Satisfy basic survival needs and courtesy requirements.  Can "hang onto the ball" in a conversation--bounces questions back, uses some inflection in voice, sounds like there is a real conversation happening.  However, vocab is limited to basic domains.  Probably can't solve a minor problem, or there are a lot of errors.  Adjectives and modifiers are lacking or not precise.  About 80% accuracy with present tense and shows ability to use irregular verbs like ir, estar, ser, hacer, poner.  Can speak of the future with "ir a".   Beginning to show small amount of ability with past tense with regular verbs, but unable to narrate.  Some usage of pronouns--reflexive, direct, indirect--that means about 1-2 uses in the whole interview--gustar or a reflexive verb.  Uses ser v estar correctly about 50% of the time.  Very broken speech, but able to converse.  Capable of using the language to ask the speaker to slow down, repeat, express lack of comprehension, ask what a word means.

(Grade--A) Intermediate Mid [University of Minnesota EXIT requirement/minimum standard] Description is just like the Intermediate Low, except that accuracy and frequency of the partial control areas must be greater--about 80%, and pronoun usage should be more evident--at least 4 examples (impersonal SE, passive voice, reflexive, indirect object pronouns)  Shows beginning of understanding of Preterite v Imperfect, but only about 50% accuracy.  Looks comfortable when speaking.  Has some ability to "talk around" unknown vocabulary, or ask effective questions to find out unknown words.   Also, there should be more effort to use accurate modifiers and adjectives.  Can use language to accurately request information on unknown words.  

Anything above that will be an automatic 100%

Advanced level: Able to satisfy routine social demands and limited work requirements.  Can narrate, describe, explain in past, present, future.  Can communicate facts and explain points of view.  Compare and contrast.  Support an opinion.  Argue.  Talk about current events.  Can handle a significant complication and has a broad vocabulary.  When an unknown word is encountered, the speaker can get around it without using English.  Still doesn't have perfect command of preterite/imperfect, but there is evidence of fluency with at least the present subjunctive.  Is using connecting expressions (relative pronouns, conjunctions) to create complex sentences.  

Superior level: Able to hypothesize and make contrary to fact hypothetical statements.  Comfortable with the vocabulary in a wide range of areas.  Has command of higher speech register words that can be used instead of verbs like tener, hacer, ser.  Grammatical accuracy is very high, but adjective agreement is still not perfect.  May misuse definite and indefinite articles too.  Significant usage of idiomatic expressions and slang, as well as natural sounding metacommunication remarks and exclamations.  Basically, an educated native speaker who still makes a few grammar mistakes and doesn't know a few really specific words.

What should I study for the Oral Interview?

I don't recommend studying much grammar at this point.  The effects of grammar knowledge on spoken Spanish is quite small.  As you learn grammar, it seeps very slowly into your speaking skills.  Therefore, it is not very effective to try to practice a lot of grammar before the test.  If you do work on grammar, I recommend focusing on object pronouns, past tense conjugation, or perhaps the usage of the subjunctive.  These are higher level skills.  Don't practice lower level grammar skills like present tense unless you have been having a lot of difficulty.  Just remember that there is a low rate of return on your investment in grammar practice for an oral exam.

Much more important and effective for preparing yourself are the following:

Drill yourself on vocabulary.  Try to increase the number of words that you can come up with very quickly.  If you have to think more than 5 seconds to remember the word, you probably won't be able to remember it under pressure.  Questions asked by the students will be based on textbook topics, or topics that you bring up.  I will mold the high level probe questions according to the vocabulary areas you seem to be most familiar with.  I will not try to surprise you with obscure topics unless I have the impression that you know lots of vocabulary in that area.  I want to give you the opportunity to show me how much you can do.  I am not trying to find which areas you can't discuss.  

Practice reading aloud texts that contain relevant vocabulary.  For instance, read various parts of the textbook aloud.  Not only does this give you practice with producing words with your mouth, it also gives you exposure to correct, natural Spanish.  Interestingly, most people have better ability to unconsciously assimilate structures they practice in this way than they do with trying to learn rules and memorizing the vocabulary alone.  It puts the vocabulary into context.  My theory about language learning is that the brain can comprehend and store complete sentences in a meaningful context much easier than it can memorize independent words and rules. By reading aloud, you imprint good structures and vocabulary in a much more effective way.

Consequently, I recommend making a list of meaningful or humorous SENTENCES that include the words you wish to learn.  Memorize those sentences. 

Practice structures that allow you to talk around words that you don't know.  It is more impressive to be able to use of the words that you do know to try to explain the word you don't know.    "La cosa que se usa para (infinitive....)" or "No sé cómo se dice, pero es un animal muy grande de África que se ve en el zoológico."   The less English you use the better it is.