Teaching CAE Use of English
Posted: 23 Sep 2009, 12:14
Hi Lucy,
I'm leading a small (6 adults) CAE prep course for the December exams and I was hoping you had some suggestions about how to help the students approach the vocabulary tasks in the Use of English paper.
The students all passed a pre-test so ensure they were at the right level for the course, which meets for 2 hours per week (with 2 hours homework). The emphasis of the course is on familiarizing the students with the exam and the requirements of all the sections rather than making major improvements in their language skills.
I have taught FCE prep classes before so I'm familiar with strategies for the first 3 parts (the multiple-choice cloze, open cloze, and word transformation), and the last (sentence transformation), but I haven't taught anything like the fourth part before (where students need to find which word can be used in 3 different sentences, for example: I can't see the ________ of all this paperwork, can you? I was so frustrated that I was on the _________ of giving up, but my piano teacher persuaded me to keep on practising. Now, let's move on to the final __________ for discussion at this meeting. point). What kind of exercises can I use to help them practice this and gain confidence?
Thanks for your help!
Ben
I'm leading a small (6 adults) CAE prep course for the December exams and I was hoping you had some suggestions about how to help the students approach the vocabulary tasks in the Use of English paper.
The students all passed a pre-test so ensure they were at the right level for the course, which meets for 2 hours per week (with 2 hours homework). The emphasis of the course is on familiarizing the students with the exam and the requirements of all the sections rather than making major improvements in their language skills.
I have taught FCE prep classes before so I'm familiar with strategies for the first 3 parts (the multiple-choice cloze, open cloze, and word transformation), and the last (sentence transformation), but I haven't taught anything like the fourth part before (where students need to find which word can be used in 3 different sentences, for example: I can't see the ________ of all this paperwork, can you? I was so frustrated that I was on the _________ of giving up, but my piano teacher persuaded me to keep on practising. Now, let's move on to the final __________ for discussion at this meeting. point). What kind of exercises can I use to help them practice this and gain confidence?
Thanks for your help!
Ben