The exam-style question
This is a directed writing: speech question, in the style of the First Language English papers. Read it as you would in the exam, then compare your plan with the model.
Using the points below, write the speech you would give to your school assembly persuading students to join the new peer-mentoring scheme. Use techniques that suit a spoken address. This is our own practice prompt.
Notes: Peer-Mentoring Scheme
Proposed scheme: older students ('mentors') meet a younger student for about twenty minutes each week. Aims: help new pupils settle in, reduce the number who feel lonely in their first term, and share study tips before exams. Findings from our own school survey: nearly half of Year 7 said they found the first month 'overwhelming'; a third said they had no one older to ask for advice.
Mentors would receive a short training session and a certificate. Time needed: one lunchtime a week. Concerns raised by students: some worry it will take up too much time; others feel shy about talking to strangers.
Teachers note that similar schemes elsewhere have improved attendance and confidence. Volunteers are needed from Years 10 and 11. Sign-up sheets will be outside the hall after this assembly.
Write to persuade fellow students to volunteer.
Model response: Directed writing: speech
A speech is written to be heard: it needs direct address, a clear shape and a rhythm the ear can follow.
A trial lesson can compare your child's own answer with this model on Directed writing speech.
Common errors we see
- Writing an essay or a flat list instead of a spoken address
- No direct address to the audience ('you', questions, imperatives)
- Ignoring the audience's likely objections
- A weak or missing call to action at the end
- Merely listing the points rather than shaping them rhetorically
How this maps to the mark scheme
Examiners mark against assessment objectives. These are the skills the paper rewards.
For directed writing: speech, the objectives in play are listed below. The wording is summarised for Cambridge IGCSE First Language English (0500) on our qualification page.
- Understand explicit meanings.
- Select and use information for specific purposes.
- Organise and structure ideas and opinions for deliberate effect.
- Use register and style appropriate to purpose and audience.
- Make accurate use of spelling, punctuation and grammar.
Take your points from the passage and shape them for a listener. Register, structure and accuracy are what turn those points into marks.
Other boards word their objectives differently, but the same skills earn the marks. Your board's official syllabus gives the exact weighting.
Where to go next
Learn the method in our guide to directed writing: speech, then try the directed writing: speech practice tasks. You can browse every annotated model response or see how we teach this in our First Language English tuition.
When you have written your own answer, take it to a paid one-hour trial lesson and the teacher who would continue will mark it with you.