Individual oral - presentation and discussion based on a literary extract
At HL the individual oral lasts 12–15 minutes and is worth 25%. It is recorded by your teacher and moderated externally. You choose a short extract, in consultation with your teacher, from one of the two literary works studied, and bring it into the room with no notes. Roughly: you present the extract and its place in the work, the teacher discusses it with you and links it to the whole work, and the conversation then moves to another theme from the syllabus.
What the examiner rewards
- Close reading: what the extract shows through imagery, structure, dialogue, narrator, tone.
- Connection to the whole work: where the extract sits, what it foreshadows, how it develops a theme or character.
- Interpretation with evidence: every claim anchored in a quotation or a specific detail.
- Literary metalanguage: el narrador, el desenlace, el tono, la metáfora, el punto de vista, el personaje redondo.
- Spoken fluency and range, including the ability to repair a sentence without collapsing.
Method
Prepare a five-minute spine: two or three sentences of context, close analysis of two or three features, a link to the work's central themes, and a personal evaluation that is argued rather than declared. Build a vocabulary bank for each work (settings, characters, motifs).
Worked example
Suppose your invented extract ends: «No volvió a mirar atrás; la casa se quedó con las ventanas abiertas.» Analysis: the semicolon splits departure from what is left behind; the personification of the house and the unresolved detail of the open windows turn an ending into an unresolved image. Link: it rehearses the novel's pattern of departures that never complete. Evaluate: the ambiguity is deliberate, since the protagonist's decision is never confirmed.
Traps that cost marks
- Retelling the plot instead of analysing the writing.
- Reciting a memorised script; follow-up questions expose it immediately.
- «Me gustó mucho» with no supporting evidence.
- Ignoring the teacher's question and returning to your prepared points.
- Choosing an extract with nothing to analyse, or one too long to cover.