KNOWING THE EXAM

It is so important to know the layout of the exam. You obviously have to know it but your students should to.

Firstly - what are the five parts of the exam?

Reading - 1 hour 15 minutes

Writing - 1 hour 30 minutes

Use of English - 1 hour

Listening - 40 minutes

Speaking - 15 minutes

My advice for the students on the day - DON'T SPEAK TO EACH OTHER DURING THE BREAKS!! Its only natural , the students have finished a section of the exam and it's break time. They walk over to a fellow exam taker and strike up a conversation about the test they've jst completed. In my mind it goes a little something like this:

A ) " So, how was the reading exam"

B) "It was OK. Not as bad as I thought it would be"

A) "I thought part 2 was quite tricky"

B) nods

A)" What did you choose for number 8?"

B) "uummmmm...D"

and then this is where the absolute panic starts to set it, followed by questioning and second guessing, where the student starts to think that maybe every answer is wrong.WRONG!!!!

Why does this happen? Because student A knows for a fact that for number 8, the answer he gave was "B" and not "D".

Now you have one very stressed student, who has to go back and finish writing another three exams, and their mind is on the Part 2, number 8 of the reading exam when they should be thinking about the next exam.

Simple solution, tell your students from the first day, and keep reminding them that THEY DO NOT TALK ABOUT THE EXAM DURING THE BREAKS.

DAY 1

OK - before you step foot into the classroom you have to accept some universal truths. Even though this is an advanced exam, the students are not advanced yet. Some of them are almost there, but others need a lot more work to get them to the required level to be able to do the exam. Who is in your class? Personally, I always check to see which students are going to be in my class. I know some of them because I've taught them before and I know their strengths and weaknesses but for those students who are completely new, I find it important to get to know their learning styles as quickly as possible.

With all the new teaching techniques and models being introduced - communicative approach, lexical approach - grammar is not something that requires a lot of focus but because the students need to know how to use it correctly, I always think that it will save a lot of time during the course if you give students a glossary of terminology that they will be hearing throughout the course. Picture the scene, you're a week before the exam, doing the last bit of revision and a student puts up their hand and says " Whats a verb?". It's happened. Now I don't care if a student knows what a verb is or not,I only care if the student knows how to use the verb. Therefore, In my humble opinion, if students know from the get go what you're talking about, there will be no mental block to grammar.

GLOSSARY FOR CAE

Grammar

5 VERB FORMS

	REGULAR VERBS	IRREGULAR VERBS
BARE INFINITIVE	walk	take
3RD PERSON SINGULAR	walks	takes
PAST SIMPLE	walked	took
PAST PARTICIPLE	walked	taken
PRESENT PARTICIPLE	walking	taking

Grammar Term	Definition	Examples
Common Nouns Proper Nouns Abstract Nouns	People, places, things, things with a physical form. The proper names of people, books, songs, cities – always start with a capital letter These are nouns that don’t have a physical form. Generally things like emotions.	Desk, window, tree, building, city Tracy, Cape Town, Harry Potter, the Bible Love, hate, advice
Main Verbs	Actions, physical actions, doing verbs	Drink, eat, laugh, cry, take
Auxiliary Verbs	Also called “be” verbs or being verbs	Do / does / is / am / are / did / was / were / have / has / had / be / been / being
Modal Auxiliary Verbs	Each Modal Verb performs different functions such as ability, permission, obligation, advice	Can, could, shall, should, will, would, may, might, must, ought to
Stative verbs	These are NOT used in the - ing form. They are generally emotional states.	Love, like, hate, belong, know, prefer, understand
Adjectives	Words that define nouns. They describe people, places things	A beautiful woman A boring lecture An exciting event
Adverbs	Adverbs have three functions 1. Qualify verbs 2. Qualify adjectives 3. Qualify other adverbs	1. I run quickly 2. She has extremely long hair 3. Manchester United win fairly frequently
Prepositions	These are small words that tell us the position of something.	in, on, at, next to, under, over, below, across
Phrasal Verbs	A very common structure in English. Formed by combining a verb+preposition	Wake up, take off, make out, sit up, watch out
Countable Nouns	Nouns that can be counted. Can either be singular or plural.	Chair – chairs, dog – dogs Irregular plurals: man – men, child – children, mouse – mice, tooth – teeth
Uncountable Nouns	Nouns that CAN’T be counted. These nouns are always singular.	Advice NOT advices, information NOT informations, water, metal, sand, time, money.
Paired nouns	These nouns are always written in plural as they normally come in pairs.	Shoes, socks, earrings, scissors, pyjamas, binoculars, pants, gloves
Literal	You do what exactly what is written or said.	Sit down.
Figurative	Having an idiomatic meaning. The word, sentence, or phrase has another meaning	To stab someone in the back (to be dishonest, to break someones trust)
Conjunctions	Link / connect two words, clauses or sentences together	Co-ordinating: for, and, nor,but, or, yet, so (FANBOYS) Subordinating: if, though, until, while, when, because
Synonyms	Words with same or similar meaning	Near – close, big – large, small – tiny
Antonyms	Words with opposite meaning	Near – far, big – small, tall – short

Homonyms

There are two types of homonyms: 1. Homographs – words with identical spelling but have different meaning. 2. Homophones –words that are spelt differently but are pronounced exactly the same

1. Polish (nationality) – polish (verb) 2. Would – wood, horse - hoarse

CAE Classes

I love teaching CAE. Its fast, intensive and you generally have the most fun and connect with your students more. You're in this together whether you like it or not and on the day of the exam, I'm just as nervous as they are. Because there are so many things to consider and take in, I've tried to create some materials that would facilitate their learning...make it a little easier.

Firstly - vocabulary. Students need to improve their range of vocabulary considerably to be able to pass this exam. I always get my students to aim high. Why only aim for a C when with a little more hard work, dedication and effort, they could achieve a B or even an A

OK - so let's start with the first thing that I ever wrote. I wrote it just to give to my students but I came up with a great idea. I know what students are like. You give them a piece of paper and they put it somewhere and forget about it. A lot of the learning needs to be done in class. This is a story using a number of idiomatic expressions and it has been divided into different paragraphs.

Step 1: Read the story out aloud - twice. The students are not allowed to write anything down or take any notes to assist the.

Step 2: Hand out cut out paragraphs to each student. Depending on the size of your class, the students will only get one, but for smaller classes, the students will probably get more than one.

Step 3: Students write their name on the piece of paper as soon as they get it and then work together as a class to try and put the story together from beginning to end. If you have a very big class then you can divide the class into two teams and get them to compete against each other

Step 4: