By Kitty Lee on September 03, 2010
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Here, the main aim is to provide students with a framework for answering examiner questions and there are two considerations. Firstly, the marking criteria suggest that hesitation will be penalized and as anyone who has attended an interview knows, it is easy to slide into incomprehensibility if you can't assemble an argument relatively quickly. Secondly, the IE LT S test clearly operates in an academic context, so a candidate could expect that invoking an academic perspective would be suitable. In other words, by approaching examiner questions from a theoretical position, a candidate could justifiably feel that they were contributing appropriately within the parameters of the discussion.
Students are given a set of (IELTS style) questions and asked to consider how to respond to them. For example: What are the advantages of tourism? Do you think that the use of Replica Audemar Piguet computers in schools is a good idea? Do you think that women and men should be completely equal in the workplace? Do you think it is important to have good friends? Are you optimistic about the future of the planet?
Then students are encouraged to consider the questions from a variety of perspectives such as social, cultural, economic, political, philosophical, psychological, historical, and linguistic. Students are then paired up and asked to use these perspectives, if appropriate and to keep their discussions going for at least a minute. The aim is to help candidates feel comfortable in a sustained conversation, and to use the perspectives as props and stimuli for ideas. At this point, it is possible to feel the confidence growing and at a suitable time, students are invited to interview the class teacher, who then gives some model responses. For example: Well from a social perspective I feel that tourism can make contributions to international understanding and to actively encourage contact between different nationalities. On an economic level, clearly there are many benefits for the hotel and leisure business with positive effects on employment. Philosophically, it can make the world a more tolerant place.
This was in many ways the most interesting part of the programme. Students were given the criteria (see Appendix i) and asked to check whether they understood the key terms, which were then explained in detail by the class teacher. The next step was to provide students with some expressions taken from the criteria, which could be used in the real examination, as appropriate. For example, I am trying to sequence my argument. Have I made this clear? I am trying to express myself accurately. I hope I have been intelligible.
I am trying to encourage the students to focus on producing accurate sentences in an explicitly highlighted context and to use what could be called lexical sophistication (Read 2005:14). There is no attempt to 'fool' the examiner into over-assessing the candidate's performance; examiners can easily detect this anyway and producing rehearsed sentences is a waste of everybody's time. Rather, the emphasis is upon effective engagement with the criteria. At this point I sometimes refer students to the current research literature and ask them to consider this simple quote: ... as a general principle,cartier love ring yellow gold price, more efficient candidates use a wider range of vocabulary than less proficient ones, (ibid: 13)
Students are then asked to consider how they would use their knowledge of the criteria in the real examination and whether this would be of use to them. I then ask students to be examiner and candidate in a pair discussion with emphasis upon part three of the speaking test. A range of topics is suggested for discussion and the students can select the topics they find Breitling Replica interesting. (See Appendix 2 for some part three type questions.)
We end each class with another hot seat session where students are 'examined' by the teacher, in front of the class. This focus is on parts i, 2,cartier love, or 3 and lasts for about 5 minutes. At the end the class is asked to award marks in the four areas and the candidate is given a 'grade'. The class is also invited to suggest areas in which the candidate performed well, and where they could improve. The atmosphere at this point is one of healthy and constructive criticism. Students know that they are being evaluated by their peers, not by a real examiner, and that mistakes made in the classroom can have beneficial consequences. Errors, for example, can be highlighted and analysed in a non-threatening atmosphere, and the students sensitized to the mistakes they will make in the real exam. This can help the candidates to realize that they have made an error and correct it without undue panic. Once again it must be emphasized that all of this is optional and nobody is forced to do anything they do not wish to.
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