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The Shambles of CPE: a bit of a rant

2 Mar

I am not impressed.  For whatever reason, it simply seems as though both Cambridge ESOL and most of the major publishers seem to have shown and complete and utter disregard towards the students and prospective candidates studying at CPE level.

I published my analysis of the changes to CPE sixteen months ago and it’s proved to be one of the most popular posts I’ve written.  I simply do not understand why the corporate stakeholders in the process couldn’t achieve more in those sixteen months than they have done.

I appreciate that it takes a long time to put a book together and that some publishers were doubtless taking advantage of the exam changes to give some familiar titles a much needed overhaul, but I was shocked and frankly unimpressed when, at the start of the school year in September 2012, there were no titles available to prepare classes with.

What went wrong?  Is CPE really such a small market segment that you can ignore the needs of the students and teachers like this?  Are publishers unaware of when the school years of their target markets start?  Again, this is a euro-centric view and school years in other regions start at other times, but I think the first book that arrived on our school doorstep for the revised exam did so in January.  In our case, our preferred supplier also consistently lied to us about the imminent availability of our preferred coursebook, which meant that our students were essentially working with whatever adaptations our increasingly skillful proficiency teacher could come up with.

The first session of the revised CPE exam runs here next weekend.  The only practice tests for proficiency our students have seen are the two different versions that are available from the Cambridge ESOL website.  There is no task specific writing mark scheme available either for the free download materials or for the writing tasks in the handbooks, only a description of how the writing is assessed and some sample answers.

This is not good enough.

If you are an exam body you have not only a duty and responsibility to provide a secure, valid and reliable exam but you also have a duty of care to those other stakeholders who are involved in the exam process.  In other words, you have a clear and current responsibility to provide complete information about your exam, examples of the content and a full description of the assessment process.  Every coursebook and test book for the revised CPE I have seen gives equal weighting to the four parts of the exam.  It is only tucked away in a small corner somewhere in the handbook that Cambridge ESOL say otherwise and give the weighting as 40 / 20 / 20 / 20.  It is my view that Cambridge ESOL has let slip some of their responsibilities and it’s reputation as a full and fair provider of exams has been tarnished.

Neither are publishers free of criticism.  Why was it not possible to get the materials ready sooner?  The first revision bulletin published by Cambridge ESOL was released in October 2010 – was this not enough time to start getting projects ready and writers keyed up?  What about April 2011, when the “at a glance” changes to the specifications were published?  Let me think, that’s almost an 18 month lead in?  Is that really not enough time?  I don’t know what the full process of creating a coursebook is, from start to finish, though I am aware that there are a number of stages in the process, drafts and revisions and trialling.  I also appreciate that the reticence of Cambridge ESOL to share specifics probably doesn’t help.

Nonetheless – if you are in a materials business, if your core activity is the design, creation and publication of coursebooks, then I would hope that you also would take into account the needs of the people who buy your products and provide them in a timely manner.

Rant Over.  Normal service to be resumed shortly.

Keep Calm and Write On – #IHTOC3

5 Nov

For those that may have missed it, here are the slides (as pdf) from the webinar I gave at the IH Teachers’ Online Conference on 3rd November.

The session was a look at common problems learners have with writing for exam classes, particularly Cambridge exams (FCE etc), but also, I think, applicable to other exams and writing in general.  It then goes on to suggest a range of activities you can do with those learners to help them with these problem areas.  There’s about 36 different activities suggested – so there should be something in there for everyone!

The webinar was recorded, and if you have the time and the patience to sit through the 60 minute session, you can do so here:

Adobe Connect – Keep Calm & Write On

That should open up in a new window.  I don’t know how long that’s going to be up for, so apologies if you can’t access it.  I found the Adobe Connect software worked better in Firefox than Chrome, though that might just be me!

It’s worth taking a look at the video if you can, not just because you get an explanation of the activities, but also because there were loads of great ideas coming up in the chatbox – additions, extensions and adaptations to alternative contexts – so thanks to everyone who took part for the contributions!

Any problems, questions or queries – let me know!

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Opposition debates for CPE Summary tasks

12 Apr

This was something that popped into my head the other day as a way to change the dynamic of a CPE lesson based around summary tasks – and which will also be useful for the 2013 revised exam (writing part one).

Frame the summary question (the last question on the exam paper, usually question 44) in more contentious, combative terms and write it on the board.

Set the class up in two groups and give each group one of the texts from the CPE part 5 task – so group a gets text a and group b gets text b.  Give the learners some time to process the input and to prepare their arguments, discussing what they found in the texts, developing any elaborations and predicting and preparing ripostes to any counter-arguments.

Usually with an opposition debate, I like to seat the learners in two lines down the middle of the room, so that learners are (a) facing each other and (b) up close and personal.

Begin the debate!

At the end of the debate, and before focusing on any language feedback, do some content feedback.  In particular ask the learners what the main areas of discussion were and get these listed on the board.  Point out that these are the (probably – obviously you’ll need to check with the task key) content points they need to identify for the summary task.

Make sure learners have a copy of both texts (a and b) and then with their debate partner, they can formulate a written answer to the summary task.

In defence of: The Test

13 Mar

There seems to be a lot of anti-testing sentiment prevalent in the teaching world at the moment.  There’s a particular degree of vitriol that seems to be reserved for standardised testing, but which has tapped a general anti-educational zeitgeist and spilled over, flooded even, into ELT.  In this piece I’m hoping to look at where some of these attitudes to testing might come from and think about what might be the best way forward.

Continue reading →

The Best Education Articles From “The Onion” | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

7 Feb

If you don’t know The Onion – you should take a look – it’s a satirical newspaper that sometimes hits the nail on the head.  It’s also a great source of articles for use with classes – the occasionally puerile sense of humour appeals to teenagers, whilst the (not always) sophisticated parodies of mainstream news events makes adults smile.  Also some great stuff for business English classes and I think they now have short videos which could be used for listening tasks.

Anyway – this was all prompted by a post from Larry Ferlazzo - The Best Education Articles From “The Onion” - with well – these are Larry’s picks for the best education related Onion material.  My favourite is the cost cutting decision to remove the past tense from school curricula….  after all – who needs to talk about yesterday?

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Do learners know what they need?

27 Jan

There is a lot of talk about learner needs, needs analysis and learner centred lesson planning and course planning.  But do learners really know what they need?  Or do they just tell us what they want?

The difference between “wants” and “needs” is neatly illustrated by the image on the right – a want is something that is desirable but unnecessary.  A need is something you have to have no matter what!  And do we always know the difference?  I know that I often say I need to go and buy something, when the truth is, I can probably do without it!

In education the reliance on needs analysis worries me, as I fear it might be misplaced.  After all, we go to our doctors and describe our symptoms but we don’t tell the doctor what to do next – why should we as language teachers rely on the input our learners give us?  Surely as a professional I am capable of spotting the problems a learner is having, communicating those problems to the learner and working out a set of solutions.

But we don’t always notice and the doctor analogy is perhaps right – the learners come to us and say “I’m having problems” before we then think about what the causes and solutions might be.  So learner input is valid – but can it be trusted?

Continue reading →

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Using Haiku for Summary Tasks

12 Jan

Summary task woes
Unfound ideas from the texts
Lacking clarity
 
What is a Haiku?
Distillation of ideas
Concisely worded 
 
This could go quite wrong
Haiku for summary tasks?
Might be worth a try 
 
 
 

Learners at CPE (Proficiency) level frequently have issues with the comprehension and summary task on the Use of English paper (click here for Cambridge ESOL’s candidate guide).

Answering the comprehension questions can be difficult enough, but the summary task is enough to turn teachers and students into gibbering wrecks, sobbing in the corner of the classroom and wailing at their own percieved inadequacy.  The truth is that they aren’t inadequate in any way – they just need some training!  Using Haiku is an approach I’ve used to try and help learners access the core ideas of the texts in a simple and succinct way.

Continue reading →

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The Twelve Days of Geekmas: eleven tips for writing

2 Dec

On the eleventh day of Geekmas, teflgeek gave to me:  11 tips for writing

Welcome to the teflgeek Christmas celebration!  Themed around the classic Christmas carol – but going backwards, mostly because it’s more like a countdown that way:

12 blogs worth clutching

11 tips for writing

Although to be more accurate this should be called “11 tips to give your students to help them develop their writing (for exam classes)”, but again, that just wouldn’t scan properly…

Teachers – feel free to cut and paste and print out (some editing may be required!)

  1. Read the question!  It shouldn’t need saying and I’d be willing to bet this is a constant cri-de-coeur for many a teacher, but failure to read the question – or more importantly failure to respond to the required aspects of the question – is what costs learners the most marks.  Cambridge exams are lovely and kind.  They tell you what to write about – massive amounts of thought not required – just good identification technique….. (see below)
  2. What’s important here?  Every question has “content points”.  If you miss one you fail.  But on the plus side they’re easy to spot – they usually appear in sentences that read:  ”You should write about….”  /  ”Include information on”.  Or sometimes they have little arrows pointing to them (only in part one).  Teachers – give your learners a copy of the sample writing paper from the handbook and a highlighter pen – take the time to go through it step by step.  It won’t be wasted time.
  3. Don’t get word fear!  Word fear is when learners worry too much about how many words they need to write.  Key symptoms include:  (a)  obsessively counting the number of words they’ve written to make sure they have enough.  (b)  Using a lengthy and inappropriate style to try and increase the number of words in a sentence.  (c) adding additional random sentences and paragraphs to the end of your text upon realising they don’t have enough content.  There is a simple cure:  relax.  No-one’s going to count the number of words.  Examiners have lives too!  Besides – the only true way to eradicate word fear is in proper planning.
  4. PPPPP – PROPER PLANNING PREVENTS POOR PERFORMANCE.  Very very few learners actually plan their writing.  This also explains why very very few learners get top grades for exam writing.  Having insisted all my learners submit a plan along with their compositions, I was once accosted by a worried student before class:  ”I’m really sorry I haven’t finished it all.  I can give you the essay now, but can I give you the plan next lesson?”  I don’t insist anymore.  If you can’t be bothered, then fine.  It doesn’t work for everybody, and I hope you’re happy with your “c” grade.
  5. Know your genre.  Again, it seems silly to state it so obviously, but learners need to know what the different texts types (a) look like, (b) feature stylistically.  If learners have a clear visual representation of the text type, it makes the planning process easier.  I tend to do block diagrams of the different text types as a labelling task, so that learners get a clear idea of what all the different sections involve.  This then leads into a language matching task, with key phrases matched to the relevant sections.
  6. Who’s the reader?  A mistake that many writers make is in mis-imagining the reader.  A letter for publication in a newspaper or magazine is written as personal correspondence between the writer and the editor – but not written for the wider audience who’ll read the published letter.  Another common fault is writing for the Examiner, not for the target reader.  Knowledge of who the reader is also affects register choice (as well as genre does).
  7. Leave a blank line.  This is possibly a personal bugbear of mine, but I speak as someone who’s sat down and gone slightly insane whilst attempting to mark over a 150 FCE writing scripts in a single afternoon (with some help).  The blank line is a psychological trick.  Learners need to leave one blank line between each section of their writing text as it is more pleasing to the eye, clearly indicates attempted paragraphing (and hence organisation, even if the organisation doesn’t actually exist) and basically puts the examiner in a much better frame of mind.  Generally, you want a better disposed examiner marking your paper – they tend to give higher marks!  (Apparently research bears this out, but I don’t know whose.)
  8. Don’t draft – plan.  It’s not unknown for learners to write out an entire first draft of a text and then copy it out again neatly.  Fine, if you can get away with it and not run out of time, but why go to all the trouble of doing twice the work?  Couldn’t you just do the work once, but twice as well?  If you plan, you don’t need to draft (at least not in an exam situation).  Also, planning gets rid of all those unsightly crossing outs and substitutions and insertions.  If you know what you want to say before you start writing…..
  9. A brief note on paragraphs.  Earlier, I may have given the impression that a paragraph is a collection of words separated from a similar collection of words by one blank line.  Psychological trickery will only get you so far – there does also need to be some substance behind the style.  In an attempt to help with paragraph structure, I’ve been talking to my learners about TARS – Topic Sentence / Argument / Reason / Specific Example.  As a basic paragraph structure it works quite neatly, though obviously there are variations…
  10. It’s the way you tell ‘em.  With some answers, you feel really engaged, as though the writer really cares about the topic and wants to share that with you.  With others, you feel as though the writer is going through the motions.  And let’s face it – why shouldn’t they?  It’s an artificial situation that wouldn’t occur to them in the real world.   But to get the top marks, the writing needs to make the reader feel loved.
  11. Role play it then write it.  Which is why, I like converting writing tasks into role plays.  If, for example, a task asks the learners to write a report for the principal on the use of technology in the college, it can be nice to put half the class in the position of the principal and half in the position of the writer and ask them to converse on the topic.  It can give both parties a new appreciation of the roles and requirements of the task!

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Say that again? avoiding repetition & developing paraphrase

25 Nov

Trying to come up with new and interesting ways of saying the same old thing is a skill that taxes most of us on a daily basis:  ”I like your hair.”  ”Your hair looks nice.”  ”Wow!  Have you had your hair done?”  ”That new style really suits you!”

For language learners, it’s obviously even more difficult.  For learners preparing for exam classes, where displaying a wide ranging linguistic resource helps garner improved scores – it’s an essential skill.  It’s useful for all those writing tasks (avoid using words or phrases from the questions) and particularly useful for CPE comprehension and summary tasks where the questions state “in your own words”.  But it’s also a handy skill to have for those speaking tasks, where demonstrating ”range” is almost as important as actually having range.  After all, there’s no point learning all those different words and structures if you don’t actually use them?  Right?

So here’s an activity which needs no (only a very small amount) of preparation, but which helps extend and develop the paraphrase skill.  I call it “Say that again?”

Materials:  As much scrap A4 paper as you can find chopped down into either A6 or A7 sized slips – ideally it’d be about six bits of paper per student.

Students write a single (short) sentence on each bit of paper – ideally something they might say in everyday life.  You can model this with “I like your hair.”  or “Local football team played well/badly at the weekend.”  Students can work together in pairs during the sentence creation phase.

Collect all the slips of paper up and ask the learners to form small groups (three or four people per group).  re-distribute the slips of paper with the sentences on evenly between the groups, placed face down (i.e. sentences not visible) in a pile in the middle.

One learner takes a slip and turns it face up and reads the sentence.  They then have to produce a paraphrase of the sentence, as does the next person and the next etc, until someone can’t come up with something that hasn’t already been said.  So if we go back to our example:  Learner A turns over the slip of paper and reads out ”I like your hair.”  Learner A paraphrases thusly:  ”Your hair looks nice.”   Learner B comes up with “Wow!  Have you had your hair done?”  and Learner C with “That new style really suits you!”.  Learner D however can’t think of anything new, so gets to keep the slip of paper.

The winner is the person in each group with the fewest slips of paper at the end of the activity.

Feedback can be given on any errors that were overheard during the game, but also content feedback on any sentences they found particularly difficult to paraphrase.

As an extension, for those classes preparing for an exam, the teacher could take the input from one of the writing paper questions and divide it up into sentences on separate bits of paper and ask learners to come up with alternative phrasings.

“The candidate demonstrated an impressive range.”

(Bonus points for anyone who can identify the “impressive range” featured!  Post your answers below!)

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From Riddle to Twittersphere: David Crystal tells the story of English in 100 words

22 Nov

Following on from the success of the recent Radio 4 series “A History of the World in 100 objects“, linguist and novelist David Crystal attempts to do the same for the English language.  An interesting read for any and all language teachers and language historians out there!

From Riddle to Twittersphere: David Crystal tells the story of English in 100 words – Telegraph.

If you were looking for a particularly challenging lesson for one of your advanced classes…..   you could give them a selection of these words as a spelling test!  And then divide the list and the class into four or five groups and set them off to discover what their words mean (and provide contextual sentences!).

Or they could just choose their favourites.  Mine are numbers 43 and 49 – BODGERY and FOPDOODLE respectively.

 

 

(Thanks to Cherry M Philipose for sharing this via facebook)

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