Indonesian

Home > Indonesian > Continuers Course > How to Approach the Exam > Advice > Advice: speaking skills

Examination Advice:

Speaking

About the exam

The speaking or oral examination is worth 20 marks.

The exam will take approximately ten minutes.

The speaking exam is designed to assess your knowledge and skill in using spoken Indonesian.

The speaking exam will take the form of a general, unrehearsed conversation in Indonesian between yourself and an examiner. The examiner will not be your own teacher.

The questions asked by the examiner will cover a range of topics about your personal world e.g. your life, family and friends, school, interests and aspirations for the future.

For most students the speaking exam will be conducted face to face with an examiner. Under special circumstances, for example for students in isolated areas, the speaking exam may be conducted by telephone.

The speaking exam will be recorded on a tape recorder.

You may not use dictionaries in this section.

Go To Top

When is it held?

The speaking exams are held earlier than the written HSC exams. The Board of Studies sends out a timetable to all schools and about two weeks before the exam date you will be notified of the venue for your exam. If you have not received your exam details one week before the exam date, contact the Board of Studies immediately.

Take your advice letter to the examination centre. It will help with the registration procedure.

Go To Top

Preparing for the exam

The best way to prepare for the exam is to listen to and speak Indonesian as much as possible. Practise as much as you can with your teacher and, if possible, your fellow students and Indonesian-speaking friends.

Get into the habit of recording your conversations under exam conditions. By doing this you will become more confident speaking into a tape recorder. Furthermore, when you replay the tape you will be able to see which aspects of your speaking skills require further attention, for example, intonation, sentence structure, variety of vocabulary etc.

Make a summary of key words and phrases for each syllabus topic and sub-topic in the syllabus. You can download the Indonesian Continuers syllabus from the Board of Studies website (external website)

Revise these lists regularly and try to incorporate some of the words and phrases into your responses. As a guide see the resources section for each topic.

Remember that you will need to be able to understand and respond to the questions asked by the examiner. Improve your listening skills by listening to as much Indonesian as possible. See preparing for the listening and responding exam. Also, make sure you know the meaning of the following key question words and phrases:

You should also be familiar with phrases that examiners may use to change topics. For example:

Go To Top

At the exam centre

You may bring refreshments and study materials to the examination centre, however, nothing may be taken into the actual examination room.   You should be prepared to wait. Some students may have to wait several hours.

Go To Top

In the exam

The speaking skills exam is your chance to display your full range of vocabulary and knowledge of Indonesian language structures. You need to be able to adapt this knowledge to different situations.

There will be only one examiner in the exam room with you. A supervisor may be present as well but will not be involved in the exam.

During the exam, the examiner will not be marking you. Your recorded conversation will be marked at a later date by a team of markers.

You may not use a dictionary or refer to written notes in the speaking exam.

As you are speaking to a person in authority it is best to respond in fairly formal Indonesian. Refer to yourself as saya (not aku). Call the examiner Ibu (for a woman) or Bapak (for a man). The examiner will probably call you Anda.

The questions asked by the examiner will focus on Theme 1 - The Individual from the syllabus. However, if relevant to the questions asked by the examiner, you may choose to draw on knowledge from topics in Themes 2 and 3. For a list of the themes and topics in the Indonesian Continuers syllabus, go to the Board of Studies website (external website).

The number of questions asked is not fixed. If you are able to expand and elaborate your responses, fewer questions will be asked.

Speak confidently, clearly and at a steady pace.

Try to sound convincing by using appropriate intonation, emphasis and correct pronunciation.

There is no need to panic if you do not understand what the examiner is saying. If you let the examiner know that you do not understand, s/he will repeat or rephrase the question for you. If you are still having difficulty the examiner will move onto another topic.

If you do not understand you can say:

If the examiner is speaking too fast, you can say:

Don't worry if you make a mistake. You can say Maaf, maksud saya... then correct yourself.

Answer the question directly first to show that you understand it, then, expand your response.

Do not learn prepared answers by heart and recite them, regardless of the question of the examiner, otherwise, your response will sound unnatural and forced.

You do not need to tell the truth about your personal world.

Go To Top

What the markers are looking for

Go To Top
Neals logo | Copyright | Disclaimer | Contact Us | Help