An Exam Prep Cookbook

Lindsey Clark, UK

Lindsey Clark is currently based in the Durham, where she is studying for an MA in Applied Linguistics. She has been an EFL teacher since 2005, most of this experience gained in Italy as well as London. Next stop will be Greece. She is an experienced Cambridge ESOL speaking and writing examiner. Her interests include: student-centred teaching, task based learning, the flipped classroom and cultivating her own multilingualism. She writes a blog for developing teachers with her colleague Kyle Dugan: www.dynamiteelt.wordpress.com. Currently in the pipelines they have a book on the topic of EFL exam preparation. E-mail: linzjoclark@gmail.com twitter: @ClarkLinz.

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Are we practising what we preach when it comes to exams?
What about the research and methodology?
Filling their gaps: preparing learners for Cambridge English: First, Speaking part 3
Activities
Advantages of this approach
References

Are we practising what we preach when it comes to exams?

I’ve been teaching EFL exam preparation courses for some 10 years now, and it saddens me that there is the pervasive idea that exam prep courses must, by definition, be a tedious and often stressful affair for both teacher and student. Some in our field may question the usefulness of preparing students for exams at all, believing that class time could be better spent.

Perhaps this has come about because many of us find it difficult to see past the course books and test books. We struggle to liberate ourselves from (frankly) mind-numbing ‘fill the gap’ or ‘read/listen to the text and answer the questions’ exam practice activities. More often than not, this results in lessons where learners are sedentary, staring at or hearing texts which have little personal relevance. There is limited student interaction or real engagement with the language itself.

What about the research and methodology?

Clearly, our canonical schools of thought sit incongruently with this practice. Lev Vygotsky (1986) concluded that we construct meaning from social interaction (not from looking at a book). More than twenty years ago in The Lexical Approach, Lewis vehemently criticised FCE-type sentence transformation activities as ‘perverse’ for their lack of context (136:1993). Those of us who are practitioners of the ubiquitous Presentation Practice Production framework would hardly expect our learners to do only the ‘practice’ part - which is effectively what we are doing when we give them a test book. In fact, it's debatable whether using testing materials for teaching has any perceivable benefit at all. It is surely a contradiction to attempt to practise something you haven’t begun to learn yet?

So why is it that we don't practise (!) what we preach when it comes to exam classes? In my experience, most informed teachers are aware that the current approach is inadequate, but worry that anything that isn’t an exam-type exercise may not be perceived as beneficial.

Some may claim that their students are already ‘at the right level’, and a bit of exam practice is all they require. However, if this is the case, it does not necessarily mean that they have the right set of sub-skills to perform successfully in all parts of the exam….and why should lessons have to be boring?

Filling their gaps: preparing learners for Cambridge English: First, Speaking part 3

In terms of what to teach, I have learnt a lot from noticing what the learners are not able to do. Let’s take the collaborative task from the FCE speaking test. Students often produce a discussion which is unbalanced and disorganised. Their turns are too long or too short. Ideas are not linked to those of the other speaker. Answers are repetitive (The dreaded ‘I agree’) and not developed. To overcome this they would need:

Language

• exponents for agreeing and disagreeing
• discourse markers for contrast, cause and effect, adding points
• exponents for interrupting

Sub-skills

• effective turn-taking
• initiating and concluding
• encouraging contributions from other speakers

We know that developing automaticity requires repeated input and opportunity for focused output, so expecting students to perform such multiple skills simultaneously by thrusting a test book at them is clearly not going to work. I would therefore argue that the solution is to first use activities which develop these skills and language in isolation.

Activities

Following are some tried and tested speaking activities intended to address some of the issues outlined above.

Activity A - agreeing and disagreeing

1. Ask your students what they want to talk about, tell them they can choose any topic they like, and board the topics they suggest. You’ll probably end up with something like this:

music, food, films, sport, fashion, travel

2. Ask students in pairs to very quickly give each other an opinion on each of the topics, saying for example who their favourite actor/football team/singer is and why. This gets them thinking about the topics and ‘scaffolds’ the main activity. As they're talking, monitor and give support.

3. Cut up and distribute the following expressions so that they have one each. You can add your own to this collection as you think of them

Ask students when these expressions would be used (to agree and disagree). Elicit which ones are which and help anyone who isn't sure. If you have a small class or make multiple sets, you could have them sort the expressions into two categories. Drill them as necessary for intonation and word stress. I use finger clicking to highlight the stress patterns.

4. Now they stand up, mingle and find a partner. You shout out one of the topics. They give their opinion on the topic in pairs, agreeing or disagreeing with one another regardless of their real opinion, using the expression on the card. Monitor and collect examples of accurate and inaccurate learner language, but don’t interrupt the activity.

5. After a few minutes, stop the discussion and ask them to swap their cards over so they have a different expression. Then tell them to find a new partner. Call out a different topic and repeat. Keep going until they start to lose momentum.

6. Deal with any language issues that came up and give some positive feedback too.

Activity B - contrasting (to be used after activity A)

Students repeat the above activity, only this time student B has to add another contrasting piece of information after the agree/disagree phrase using ‘Having said that.…’ . For example:

Student A- I’d say that fashion is a waste of time.
Student B- You’ve got a point. Having said that, I do appreciate good quality.

Remember to drill the stress: ‘Having SAID that…’.

Advantages of this approach

Meeting the Exam Criteria

In Cambridge speaking exams a mark is awarded for ‘Discourse Management’. To achieve B2, a speaker must be able to use ‘a range of cohesive devices’ (multiple authors, 82:2015). Using the contrasting expression ‘Having said that…’ will give them a useful tool to weigh different arguments and help produce long developed answers.

The exponents used in activity A would come under ‘initiates and responds appropriately’ (ibid.) in the marking category: ‘Communicative Achievement’. While activity B supports their ability to ‘maintain and develop the interaction and negotiate towards an outcome’ (ibid.).

Repetition

Students have the opportunity to discuss a variety of topics and using various exponents, but are learning/developing/practising the same skill(s).

In activity B, the repeated use of only one linking expression means that intake is more likely to occur. Too often we expect our students to memorise endless lists of linking expressions and discourse markers. Nuances of meaning and differences in use mean that even if the expressions are remembered, they are rarely reproduced in spontaneous speech.

Personalisation and focus on the learner

Learners are able to choose subjects they’re interested in instead of discussing an imposed topic. Using a mingle activity means this interaction takes on the characteristics of an informal chat with one of their peers, rather than formally practising for an exam.

Focused on specific skills

The performance load is limited and therefore more realistic, giving the students a higher chance of success, resulting in (we hope) a higher level of motivation.

Similarity to L1

The decision to use having said that was inspired by the group I was teaching, who were all Italian speakers. In their language the expression detto questo (literally ‘said this’) has almost exactly the same meaning and use, and so was suggested as a translation. After this short activity, I was surprised to notice that many students were immediately able to produce having said that spontaneously. It certainly appears that there is the case for ‘matching’ target language to the L1 of monolingual groups, but perhaps this should be the topic for another article.

References

Lewis, M. (1993). The Lexical Approach. London:LTP

Multiple authors (2015). Cambridge English First:Handbook for Teachers. Cambridge:UCLES Retrieved from: www.cambridgeenglish.org/images/cambridge-english-first-handbook-2015.pdf

Vygotsky, L. (1986). Thought and Language. MIT Press:Massachusetts

Please check the Methodology & Language for Secondary course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Teaching Advanced Students course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the English Improvement course at Pilgrims website.