Exercises that help to build up confidence during exam time

Paul Davis and Mario Rinvolucri

Editorial: The exercises in this article come The Confidence Book, Davis and Rinvolucri, Pilgrims, Longman, 89. You will also find more exercises to prepare students for exams published by Judy Churchill in HLT. They are well worth a considered click across to.

Paul Davis teacher, teacher trainer, trainer of trainers and author. Has co-written: Dictation, CUP, The Confidence Book, Longman, and More Grammar Games,CUP, and Ways of Doing, CUP. Has worked in many kinds of ELT teaching and training in many countries. Regular Pilgrims trainer. His present ELT interests include Silent Way, Linguistic Psychodrama and Corpus Linguistics.
E- mail: Paul25Davis@hotmail.com

Mario Rinvolucri teacher, teacher trainer and author. Has worked for Pilgrims for 32 years and used to edit Humanising Language Teaching. Regularly contributes to The Teacher Trainer. His books include: Creative Writing, with Christine Frank, Helbling, Multiple Intelligences in EFL, with Herbert Puchta, Helbling, Unlocking Self-Expression through NLP, with Judy Baker, Delta Books, New edition of Vocabulary, with John Morgan, OUP, Humanising your Coursebook, Delta Books, Using the Mother Tongue, with Sheelagh Deller, Delta Books, Ways of Doing, with Paul Davis and Barbara Garside, CUP. Mario's first CDrom for students, Mindgame, was written with Isobel Fletcher de Tellez, and engineered and published by Clarity, Hongkong in 2000

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Good exams
Exam anxiety
A bad exam
Dealing with multiple choice
Students set an exam
Invisible pictures
Speed writing
Sharing the marks
The confidential placement test

Level Lower intermediate +

Time 15-25 minutes

Materials One copy of the Good exams questionnaire for each student

In Class
1. Give out the questionnaire and ask each student to complete the sentence stems either as themselves or as someone they know well who likes exams- a brother, sister, a friend.
2. Get the students to form threes and compare their completed sentences.
3. Each student then chooses someone else's sentence that they like and puts it up on the board.

Acknowledgement
Annie Oakes used sentence stems like these at Eurocentre in preparing students for the Cambridge exams.

Good exams questionnaire

Exams are________________________

My best exam was__________________

My funniest exam was________________

I can remember an exam when__________

My most surprising exam was___________

It would be good if exams were__________

I would do better in exams if_____________

Exams in English should be______________

Longman Group UK Ltd 1990

Level Lower intermediate-advanced

Time 40 minutes

Materials None

Preparation
Find a nervous person who, despite their anxiety, is willing to speak to your class on a topic of their choice.

In Class
1. The speaker talks to the class for ten to fifteen minutes. The speaker is thanked and goes.
2. Ask the group what they noticed about them. Elicit from the class what gave away the anxiety, the stress, the nervousness. Look at the gesture, stance, eye movements, voice.
3. Ask the class to work in small groups and bring back to mind test and exam situations in which they have felt nervous. Also ask them to explain how they did or did not cope with the situation.

Note
One of the scary things about exams is the feeling that you have to face the problem alone. This exercise allows students to share with others and realise that others also go through parallel emotions. Sometimes students offer each other excellent tips: in one class a twenty-year-old French girl described the final oral in her travel agency exams. There were two examiners, both of them professional from the trade. She imagined both of them sitting naked on the lavatory. This vision melted her tension away and she got properly into her stride!

Level Lower intermediate + ; teacher trainees

Time 30-40 minutes

Materials One copy of Longfellow's 'The rainy day' for each student

In Class
1. Give out 'The rainy day' and ask the students to learn it by heart for the next class. Tell them to get it word perfect- there will be a test on it.
2. In the next class have all the students sit either facing the walls or facing the back of the room. Bring out four victims to sit at the front of the class, facing the front. One by one they recite the poem to the blackboard.
3.You mark them out of 100. Take off thirty marks for not finishing the recitation within a thirty-five second time limit. (It is hard to fit a decent reading into thirty-five seconds.) Take off marks according to the following marking scheme:
Words omitted or wrong: 5 marks
Words mispronounced or wrongly stressed: 4 marks
Hesitations: 3 marks
Omissions of s at the end of words: 10 marks
Pass mark: 50
4.Ask the class to resume normal seating. Announce the victims' scores and write up your marking scheme. A discussion should ensue on the absurdity of this test and its marking scheme.

The rainy day

The day is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
And the day is dark and dreary.
My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the mouldering past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,
And the days are dark and dreary.

Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.

Longman Group UK Ltd 1990
(from The Poetical Works of Henry H. Longfellow 1982 Suttaby and Co.)

Rationale
In preparing students for exams and tests it is essential that they realise how odd and arbitrary these are. Students often do realise, in quiet, unexpressed ways, but it does good to bring these feelings out into the open. Among the hundreds of thousands of German Abitur students penalised for omission of third person s there must have been some who wondered why this particular slip should be considered a mortal sin by their teachers. When professionals act in seemingly arbitrary and irrational ways it is important that their clients/ victims should reach a mature understanding of this.

Level Intermediate +

Time 20-30 minutes

Materials A copy of the June 88 FCE exams of the decontextualised multiple choice sentences of the sort you get in the Cambridge First Certificate in English.

In Class
1. Give out the sheet of ten sentences from the June 88 First Certificate in English Reading Comprehension paper. Ask the students, in pairs, to choose the items the examiners expect them to choose but to also pick out all the other possible ones and to provide contexts in which they would be possible. Give the group these examples:

a) I'd rather you _______________ your dog outside.
A leave B left C leaving D to leave

C and D are grammatically impossible. B is the one the examiner wants because in the grammar of EFL. I'd rather......is followed by a stem + ed form (past). A is not what the examiner wants but is quite possible; the register is direct and fairly familiar.

b) How__________________ of you to bring presents for everyone!
A grateful B hopeful C successful D thoughtful

The examiner is expecting the answer to be D for two reasons: a. thoughtful slots into the phrase with the neatness of a cliché; ii) a student who thinks thoughtful means pensive will not choose it. But How hopeful of you to bring presents for everyone could well be said by a sarcastic speaker who feels the presents are being offered to curry favour. And C might be said by a sarcastic speaker to a person who normally forgets to offer people presents.
2. When the students have picked the items the examiner wants and the other possible-in-context items, bring the group together and compare notes.

Rationale
This way of dealing with decontextualised multiple choice sentences in class allows the students to evaluate the examination paper. It puts them in a position of power over the paper. It trains students to realise that, though the examiner only wants one choice, the language is a much more open system than the exam.
You will find that the firm reasons for ruling out a particular multiple choice item are either grammatical or collocational. If the choice is mainly semantic there are often contexts in which two, three or even all the items will fit.
This critical way of viewing past papers in class enables students to have a much better go at pleasing the examiner in the exam itself.

FCE June 1988

1. I'll come over to lunch when I ________________________ typing this report.
A have finished B will have finished C had finished D having finished

2. I'd rather you__________________ your dog outside.
A leave B left C leaving D to leave

3. Did you remember_________________ the letters.
A post B having posted C to post D to have posted

4. I can pronounce that word but I can't _____________ it.
A mean B spell C describe D say

5. Susan looked _________________ to see who had come into the office.
A for B after C up D out of

6. How _____________ of you to bring presents for everyone!
A grateful B hopeful C successful D thoughtful

7. It was very kind of you to bring me flowers, but you ______________ have done it
A don't need B needn't C hadn't to D oughtn't

8. I returned home to ________________ some papers I had forgotten.
A take B bring C gather D fetch

9. It was hot yesterday but today's ___________ hotter.
A more B less C even D also

10. They're __________ arriving at six o'clock, but we don't know whether they're coming by coach or train.
A absolutely B surely C presently D certainly

University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate 1988

Level Post-beginner + (the example given is upper intermediate)

Time First class: 20-30 minutes. Second class: 15-20 minutes.

Materials
A reading passage with test items but without multiple choice components - the one offered here is taken from Cambridge FCE, June 88

Preparation
Students need experience of past papers with reading comprehension multiple choice questions.

In class

Lesson 1
1. Explain to the students that you are giving them a reading passage with comprehension items but without the multiple choice components. Ask them to work in threes and to invent their own sets of four multiple choice components; one is the correct answer and the other three are distractors. Do one with the class to make sure everybody has the task clear.
2. The students produce five sets of multiple choice items.

Lesson 2
1. The students do each others' tests. Compare results.
2. Let the students compare their items to those originally set by the Cambridge examiners.

Rationale
By creating a part of an exam paper the students put themselves in the examiners' shoes. They are simultaneously getting one over on the examiners and empathising with them. Students enjoy the exercise in the same way that play-goers like going behind the scenes and seeing things a bit from the actors' point of view.

Variations
If you normally write an end-of-the month test for your students, why not hand it over to them? Divide the class into, say, five teams and ask each team to create one fifth of the test. You take in their work and correct it.
The students then all sit the four fifths of the test that they did not create. Each team marks their fifth of the exam..
Writing their own test is a major way of getting people to revise the work they have recently done. In the frame proposed you have to check the tests created by the sub-groups, but you save yourself the drudgery of writing a test and of then correcting the students' papers.

Acknowledgement
We learnt the variation above from Jean-Paul Creton.

FCE reading passage

Notes on Your New Driving Licence
1. We (like other countries in the European Community) are now issuing new-look driving licences. Your licence is in the new-style but there has been no change to the driving licence groups or duration of licences. Old-style green licences will stay valid up to the date shown on them. They will not be replaced before that date unless a new licence needs to be issued (e.g. following a change of address).

2. Please check the licence carefully. If you think everything is correct, sign it in ink and put it in the wallet provided so that the name and address can be seen. If you think anything is wrong, please send the licence back to the Department, stating what you think is wrong. Your licence runs from the date you asked for it to begin or the date your valid application reached the Department, if later.

3. Whenever you telephone or write to the Department about your licence always give your Driver Number, which is on the front of the licence. The Driver Number helps us to find your record. It contains the first five letters of your surname, your date of birth in coded form and the initial letters of your forenames plus other characters which are unique to you. Make a note of your licence details below in case you lose the licence. Then keep this leaflet in a safe place.

4. Fees
The fee you have already paid will cover the cost of all future renewals. But you will need to pay a fee for:
- a duplicate licence;
- removing endorsements;
- adding permission to ride a motorcycle ( as a learner).

1. What is the leaflet for?
A
B
C
D

2. Drivers who have old-style licences
A
B
C
D

3. The licence should be
A
B
C
D

4. You must pay extra if you
A
B
C
D

5. The leaflet is for people who have
A
B
C
D

University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate 1988

Questions set by FCE examiners

1. What is the leaflet for? A to tell you how to apply for a new licence.
B to give more information about the new licences.
C to be used as a driving licence if the original is lost.
D to explain the new traffic laws in the European Community.

2. Drivers who have old-style licences
A must exchange them immediately for new-style licences.
B must apply for a new-style licence before the date shown.
C will receive a new-style licence if they move house.
D should write to the Department for a new Driver Number.

3. The licence should be
A returned to the Department after it has been signed.
B returned to the Department if any information is incorrect.
C renewed every year
D kept with the signature visible.

4. You must pay extra if you
A renew your licence.
B buy a new car.
C take up motorcycling.
D have a road accident.

5. The leaflet is for people who have
A special licences.
B old-style licences.
C new-style licences.
D lost their licence.

Level Post-beginner +
Time 10-15 minutes
Materials None

In class
1. Ask students to bring to mind a picture that they know very well - it could be a snapshot, a poster, a book illustration - the main thing is their familiartity with it.
2. Group them in threes, A, B and C. A has a timed two minutes to describe their picture to B and C. B and C are asked to listen and only intervene if they really don't understand the speaker. The listeners then get another timed two minutes between them to describe to A the way they imagine A's picture.
3. Using the same procedure, B and C describe their pictures.

Rationale
This is specifically useful in preparing for the oral section of the Cambridge FCE exam. In this exam, candidates are asked to talk about a picture the examiner gives them. In the exercise above you have them describe a powerfully familiar picture - the need to talk is provided by the fact that the listeners do not have the picture in front of them. The absence of the physical image facilitates visualisation on the part of both speaker and listeners.

Acknowledgement
We learnt this exercise from John Morgan.

Level Lower intermediate +
Time 30-40 minutes
Materials None

In class
1. Lead the group in an energy raising, one-minute physical exercise.
2. Tell them to sit down and to write for tour minutes on a topic you give them. This is a competition to see who can write the most words in four minutes. The words must be in meaningful sentences. Time them. Them ask them to add up their words and shout out the numbers.
3. Lead the group in a second short physical exercise that relieves the tension of fast writing. Ask them to write again, this time for a timed three and a half minutes. Tell them to write about anything they like. They add up the words and shout out the number.
4. Give them a final three-minute speed writing stint. This time prescribe a topic.
5. Ask everybody to revise their three bits of writing and read them to their neighbours.
6. The first time you do this exercise, allow time for feedback. The exercise appeals to some students a lot while others will dislike it.

Rationale
For some students a bout of speed writing at the start of a written composition exam is an excellent way of letting ideas come up from below spontaneously. The technique stops students thinking about what might go wrong and loosens constraints. The concentration involved frees students from the nerves of those around them in the exam room. This is the case of some students, not all.

Acknowledgement
We learnt this technique from Katie Plumb.

Level Beginner +
Materials None

In class
1. Explain to the students that you want them to revise for the next class test in groups of three. Organise them, if possible, so that there is a good, an average and a poor student in each threesome.
2. Explain to the students that although they will do the test individually, each person in a given threesome will receive the average of their own mark and the marks of the other two, e.g. if A gets 60%, B 40% and C 27% each of them will receive 42.33%.

This testing system makes helping the weaker students part of the stronger students' self-interest. It reduces the loneliness and isolation of the test situation. It puts the stronger students in an elder sibling position and shoves them into a teaching role. They can often be better at this than the teacher. We have met teachers who cannot accept the way this form of testing subordinates the individual to the group. The very idea of it makes them see red. Wide acceptance of this system would go a long way towards making secondary schools less lonely and competitive places.

Level Beginner +
Time 90 minutes
Materials None

Preparation
Six large signs to stick on the walls to divide the students into class groups, as follows: Very advanced; Advanced; Upper intermediate; Intermediate; Lower intermediate; Beginners.

In class
1. Assemble the students (not more than 100) in the largest open space you have available in the school. After welcomings and announcements, tell the students that they have ninety minutes before being split up into class groups. For the first thirty-five minutes they will do warm-up exercises.
2. Each person from the teaching team then leads a short warm-up exercise. These should involve movement and plenty of short bouts of talking with many different people. A classic example of such an exercise is Inner circle- Outer circle. Half the group forms a circle facing outwards (everyone on their feet); the other half of the group forms an outer circle facing inwards. Each person should have a partner in the other circle.
3. For one minute the partners introduce themselves to each other. The inner circle is then asked to move round two people to the right, while the outer circle stays still. Each person now has a new partner in the other circle. A minute is allowed for mime introductions; no speaking permitted. At the end of the minute people are given another minute to check out the information they have derived from the mimes by talking to their partner.
4. Four or five rounds of the game are played with different communication tasks given for each round.
5. After thirty-five to forty minutes of warm-ups, ask the class teachers to put up their signs in order round the walls of the room with 'Very advanced' at one end of the scale and 'Beginners' at the other. Each class teacher stands below the appropriate sign.
6. Explain to the group that they are now going to choose their level and their class. Explain how important it is that they take time over this and get it as near right as they can. Also tell them that this morning's decisions are not irrevocable and that class changes will be allowed.
7. Their task is to go to the level that they think suits them and then to talk to everybody else who has come to this group and also to the class teacher. Tell them to take a good half hour over this. Explain that if they reckon they have chosen the wrong group they should go either up or down and again start talking to each person in this new group. The responsibility is theirs. The class teacher's role in this process will be to try and get a linguistically reasonably homogenous group, but she will also have the age and sex mix in mind. You and the other teachers should be ready to cope calmly with a certain amount of disorientation and chaos at this point. To many students the whole idea of placing themselves is novel and to some quite worrying.
8. Once the class teacher sees that a reasonably homogenous group of the right size seems to be forming, they may want to do a short oral exercise with them to further check their impression of the students' oral abilities.
9. The students go off to class with their class teachers.

Advanatges
The students take responsibility for their course from the word go.
- The warm-ups and the placement process are highly social; this is in stark contrast to the freezing, deadening effects of written tests.
- The time taken to place students is short.
- There is no deadening marking to be done by the teachers.
- This method of placement is about as inaccurate as more formal testing. Since some people come on courses not having used English for several years while others are in it up to their ears there is no hope of any first-day placement procedure being accurate. So accuracy of class placement should not be too great a worry, and the inevitability of class changes over the first two days of the course has to be accepted.
- Students are free to choose their groups using a whole range of inner criteria of which language ability will only be one.

Disadavantages
- In a range of six to eight levels the upper and lower groups seem to form easily but there is a lot of student and teacher uncertainty in the middle range.
- Some teachers and students are worried at the openness and informality of the procedure.
- You can't work this system with more than one hundred plus students - it gets too unwieldy. If you have two hundred people to cope with, they have to be processed in two batches. Barbara, a German teacher of English, came on a language refresher course at Pilgrims. The thirty teachers involved did a couple of warm-up exercises and were then asked to divide themselves into two groups: 'Very advanced' and 'Advanced'. The language tutors left the room for twenty minutes while this was going on. Barbara placed herself in the lower group, though both tutors privately agreed that her language level 'should' have put her in the upper group. They did nothing to influence her decision, though they worried about it. At the end of the two week course Barbara wrote this about her aims and her process:

Aim: To regain my self-confidence and my speaking skills.

Progress: At the beginning I felt very uncertain as to the level of my language skills. I did not want to be too much exposed because I had not been able to come up to my own expectations for the past five years. Considering my age and my duties I felt I should be better. But after the first three days I felt more confident and did no longer question everything I said.....'. It was a good thing that we offered no 'objective' test to force Barbara into the wrong group for her image of herself. She stayed in the 'lower' group and accepted the disadvantages and advantages of her decision.

Acknowledgement

This form of testing, which is frequently used on Pilgrims Summer Courses, was first introduced to us by Lou Spaventa. introduced to us by Lou Spaventa.

Please check the Humanising Testing course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Secondary Teaching course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Building Positive Group Dynamics course at Pilgrims website.