At the moment I am teaching an FCE course at Westcroft Square. The First Certificate of English is one of the Cambridge exams we help students to prepare for at London School of English. It tests speakers of English at an upper intermediate level and if they pass it, they are awarded a certificate which proves their level of English. They can then add this to their CV or use it to show potential employers or universities that they have a good level of English.
The exam tests the four skills: reading, writing, listening and speaking. It is quite a tricky exam, so the students on our course do lots of preparation work on their vocabulary and grammar as well as important reading and listening skills. Also, we help our learners with important strategies to help them to deal with the difficult exam tasks they have to complete.
For example, last week in my class the students looked at skimming and scanning as ways of reading texts quickly for general understanding (skimming), and in order to find specific information in a reading text (scanning). We also looked more specifically at the different exam questions and how to deal with them. Multiple choice questions, for example, are often misunderstood by students. They often get distracted by the different answers they can choose from. I taught them that it was much more important to fully understand the questions first, ignore the given options, find the answer to the question in the text, and then pick the option that matches that answer.
For example, here is a typical multiple choice question which tests your understanding of the first paragraph in this blog post.
1. The Cambridge First Certificate of English is an appropriate exam for which type of person?
a. Learners of English at an advanced level
b. People who want some evidence of their English competence
c. Students who want to improve their interview skills to help them get a job
d. Students who study at the London School of English
First you should ignore the four options a-d
Then you should scan-read the first paragraph in order to find the answer to the question.
Then find the answer in the text.
Now read the four options carefully and choose the one that matches the answer you found.
Eliminate any options which are clearly not the correct answer.
Double check your answer carefully, and never leave a question unanswered!
The answer is, of course, b.
So far, I think the course is going well. I'm giving my students feedback when I can. For example, I think they have good written English, but they need to expand their vocabulary and take more initiative in the speaking part of the test. I think they are all capable of passing, and I expect them to.
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