Category Archives: Exam Preparation

Improve EFL Listening Skills – Tips and Activities

Exam season has rolled around again! Hopefully you’re prepared for all the marking, extra hours and special planning you may be required to do in order to get your students up to scratch.

Today I am focusing a post on improving listening skills for exams. Especially the gap fill exercises that pervade official examinations these days. There is often little time available to practise listening in class, and students hate doing it at home. So how to improve their skills quickly and effectively? Well, with the simple 3 step method, with some other tips and activities included at the end!

101 CAE Part 1 Speaking Questions For Busy Teachers!

Help your students improve their speaking ability with the following questions. Speaking part 1 of the CAE exam can cover a wide range of topics. Use these example questions throughout the course, to make sure that they take the exam completely prepared for whatever subject they might throw!

FCE and CAE Speaking Practice Activities

I have put together a little list of activities that I find useful for spicing up my lessons and getting some good speaking exam practice in there! Watch this space and look around my other posts for more activities related to exam practice. 🙂

FCE and CAE Speaking Practice Activity – Just A Minute

In the game the panellists, in this case your students, are invited to speak about a topic for one minute without hesitation, deviation, or repetition. Exactly the things that they should avoid doing in their speaking exam. It’s the perfect game!

Appropriate Language For Essay Writing

If your students are taking an official exam, it’s likely that they will need to produce at least one longer piece of writing. Whether it be an essay, a letter, a report, a story, or even a complaint or an application, there are lots of possibilities. Chances are that one of these will need toContinue reading “Appropriate Language For Essay Writing”

Teaching EFL Writing

Any good language course will, at some point, focus on writing skills. Whether it’s simple, short notes, or longer essays and editorials. A lot of this might depend on the learner’s real world needs. Maybe they’re doing a course tailored for their job, in which case they might need direction on how to write businessContinue reading “Teaching EFL Writing”