Job Discussion Forums

[Grimace420]

I've noticed that many English learners in Spain are obsessed with getting official certificates, such as the First Certificate, the Cambridge Advanced Exam or more rarely the Certificate of Proficiency. As such, there's a real opportunity in the private class market for specialising in the preparation of these exams (and being able to give group classes more easily). The only problem is that despite about 5 years of teaching English in Spain, I've got next to no experience in helping people get ready for these exams. How would I go about learning what's required for each one so that I wouldn't feel like a bullshit artist trying to help students study for them?

Any help would be appreciated.

[RoisinDubh]

My top tip is not to go NEAR a Cambridge exam class or teach exam classes to private students until you have a solid background in the structure of the exam and understand what is required to pass. I have two private CAE students here in Valencia who came to me after trying several cheaper teachers who didn't have a clue about the exam.

Apparently, the other teachers told them their English was 'really good' and that they didn't need to worry about the speaking exam, which is just shocking. Every Cambridge teacher knows it's all about the exam technique - 'speaking well' isn't going to get you anywhere unless you know what you need to do. Their writing had been really badly corrected, with half the mistakes left there, no explanation about why they were wrong, no suggestions of how to improve and worst of all, no concept of 'task achievement' - whether or not the students had addressed every part of the question.

I've been teaching Cambridge in language schools since 2008 and only now do I feel ready to take on private students and be their sole teacher. It's a serious commitment - they pay a lot of money to sit the exam and a lot of the time, they really need it for a job or internship. It's not something to be taken lightly. Sorry for the rant, but it annoys me so much that some teachers take on exam students for the money but have no idea how to teach them!

Anyway, I'd recommend buying the Teacher's Handbook for the exam you're interested in, getting one or more decent coursebooks and just familiarising yourself with the exam and what's required. If possible, talk to a colleague with lots of Cambridge experience and have a look online at sample writing answers and speaking exams (there are quite a few on YouTube) to give you an idea of the standard required. And don't take on exam students until you feel really confident that you understand what they need to do!

[spiral78]

Ditto. The outcomes of these tests can be very high-stakes for the students, so as you are clearly already aware, Grimace, it's really important to know clearly what you're doing.

IELTS publishes their band score descriptors on their website; that's a good place to start for IELTS. They also describe test procedures and strategies pretty clearly, and give a range of models relating to different band scores.