Tag Archives: exam classes
Exam Wrapper for Listening exams
Have you tried exam wrappers? I recently learnt the term ‘exam wrapper’ through some EduTwitter posts. In case you haven’t come across it yet, it’s a short form (or ‘metacognition worksheet’) that students fill in before a test, designed to help them evaluate their learning and think about what they can do to prepare for […]
Text type analysis
This activity could work for any course where students need to be able to identify and write a variety of text types. This year the IGCSE E2L got a bit more challenging: students had to be prepared to write two of the following text types: informal email/letter, formal letter, article, report, review, with the report […]
Using pictures to study Sentence Transformations
It doesn’t matter how often I go to Cairo, I´m always struck by the beauty of the Pyramids. No matter how many times I go to Cairo, I´m always struck by the beauty of the Pyramids. Some people say that there’s no place for an exercise like Sentence Transformations in an assessment of English ability, but there […]
Power Pose (How to pretend to be a confident speaker)
I’ve had a bit of a holiday from writing blog posts, but I’ve still got lots of ideas to share and I’m aiming to post something every week for the rest of the summer. Here’s the first: Before their FCE exams in June, my intelligent but quiet Spanish teenage students (all girls) all expressed that they were […]
A low-prep, low-tech, effective game for revision
In this activity, pairs or small groups of students compete against other groups to answer written questions. It could be called a low tech version of a Socrative quiz. It’s most easily done with a whiteboard and projector but it could certainly be done with a blackboard instead. You just need a list of 8-12 […]
Useful CPE sites (2013 exam)
There’s not as much useful stuff out there for Proficiency, is there? A lot of what’s there relates to the old CPE exam, too. In this post, I’m listing websites which are useful both for teachers and students of CPE (2013). I’ll try to keep adding to this list, so if you have any recommendations of sites or […]
Text summary and analysis
This is a great way to get Proficiency students (although it could be adapted for Advanced or FCE students) reading, finding useful vocabulary in the text and sharing it with each other. I got it from the inspiring Elspeth Pollock who gave a talk on teaching CPE students in Seville in February. She reminded us that […]
Spelling Bee: dictogloss and games
Whilst marking my students’ exams, I was thinking about how often they lose points not for lack of knowledge or comprehension, but due to misspelling the answer. Then I thought about how often we have spelling tests in class: never! So I came up with this lesson about spelling bees involving a dictogloss and spelling […]
Pas Cap (A spelling game)
I loved this game when I was learning French at school (probably because I was really good at it) and was delighted to be able to use it in class yesterday. I know it as Pas Cap (short for Pas Capable?), and I’m sure it has a name in English but I don’t know what […]
A Hive of Activities 