Higher Spanish Directed Writing Sample Questions

Directed Writing Prompts: Travel & Exchange

Ever wondered how to tackle Spanish directed writing tasks? These prompts ask you to write about specific experiences in Spanish-speaking countries. The first example asks you to describe a festival trip to Barcelona, staying in a youth hostel. You'll need to explain why you went, your journey there, impressions of Spanish people, favourite aspects, evening activities, and whether you'd recommend it.

The second prompt focuses on a school exchange in Barcelona. You must cover when you went, group size, journey activities, thoughts on the Spanish school, relationships with classmates, free time activities, and recommendations.

Pro tip: For directed writing tasks, tick off each bullet point as you address it in your response to ensure you don't miss any required elements.

The third scenario involves working in a Spanish hotel for two months. You need to explain your duration and purpose there, initial feelings, accommodation impressions, free time activities, impact on your Spanish language skills, and whether you'd recommend work experience abroad.

More Directed Writing Scenarios

Taking a gap year in Spain provides another common scenario for directed writing. You'll need to describe your accommodation, free time activities, relationships with locals, journey details, surprising discoveries, and whether you'd recommend the experience.

For the language exchange in Argentina prompt, you must write for your school website about your travel experience, relationships with other students, accommodation impressions, activities during your stay, what you learned, and if you'd participate in another exchange.

The employability scenario requires writing about summer work in Spain for your school website. Cover your workplace impressions, skills used, colleague relationships, free time activities, surprising discoveries, and why you'd recommend working abroad.

Remember: These writing tasks test both your Spanish language ability AND your ability to follow specific instructions, so pay close attention to the required bullet points.

Festival and Hotel Work Scenarios

Imagine writing about attending a Spanish or Latin American festival with friends! This prompt asks you to create content for your school website describing your accommodation, festival activities, impressions of people you met, other activities during your stay, how you used your Spanish, and your recommendations.

The hotel work scenario requires writing about employment in Spain for your school website. You'll need to describe your journey and feelings upon arrival, impressions of hotel facilities, relationships with colleagues, daily routine, skills used in your job, and whether you'd recommend working abroad.

Both scenarios require approximately 120-150 words (for the hotel prompt) or 150-180 words (for the festival prompt), giving you enough space to address all points without excessive elaboration.

Writing tip: Start planning by jotting down key Spanish vocabulary for each bullet point before drafting your full response - this ensures you have the necessary language at hand.

Employment Experience Writing Task

The final prompt focuses on summer employment in Spain, requiring a Spanish-language write-up for your school website. This task emphasizes the workplace experience and your impressions about working there.

You'll need to describe the skills you utilized in your role, how you spent your free time, and details about your accommodation. The prompt also asks you to share surprising discoveries during your time abroad—this is your chance to add some interesting cultural observations!

An important section of this task involves explaining why you would recommend working abroad to others. Consider mentioning language improvement, cultural understanding, and professional development as potential benefits.

Challenge yourself: Try to incorporate at least one complex grammatical structure per bullet point, such as the subjunctive mood or conditional tense, to demonstrate your Spanish language proficiency.

The word count for this task is concise at 120-150 words, requiring you to be efficient with your language while still addressing all required elements.