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benhilo · Joined: 30 Sep 2012 Posts: 8 Location: Tripoli, Libya

Any one know the recommended hours for these preparation courses? Is there a standard? For the hours you recommend, what book would you recommend? Thanks! Shocked

HLJHLJ · Joined: 06 Oct 2009 Posts: 1218 Location: Ecuador

Do you mean test prep courses (i.e. the students already have the level) or do you mean to move from one level to the next?

benhilo · Joined: 30 Sep 2012 Posts: 8 Location: Tripoli, Libya

Test prep courses

HLJHLJ · Joined: 06 Oct 2009 Posts: 1218 Location: Ecuador

Round here they are usually about 40 hours. The Cambridge Objective and Complete coursebooks are OK, nothing special, but they cover the test thoroughly. I prefer the Complete series.

Teacher in Rome · Joined: 09 Jul 2003 Posts: 1286

This is a wide-open question! You need to look at the level your students are starting from before you can decide how many hours your course should be.

There's not so much of a jump from KET level to PET, but I'd definitely do more than 40 hours. From PET to FCE you're looking at a much bigger jump in my opinion. Even if your students are hard-working, motivated, and with a high mark at PET, I'd still advise a 120-hour course to cover grammar, vocabulary, listening (though they should do as much as possible of this at home) and speaking. The FCE is a bit unpredictable in what's covered (ie phrasal verbs / lots of grammar / set phrases) so a fair amount of exam practice will really help.

I'm not a great fan of the Objective series, as I think that firstly, the books are long; but secondly, they start at quite a low level.

HLJHLJ · Joined: 06 Oct 2009 Posts: 1218 Location: Ecuador

The OP clarified that the students already have the language level and that this is just for test preparation. Obviously you would need way more than 40 hours to move between levels. But 40 should be sufficient for test prep, including time for a couple of mock tests + review.

Teacher in Rome · Joined: 09 Jul 2003 Posts: 1286

So the OP did! But I still read "test prep course" as the longer preparation course!

Anyhow, I like students to be super-prepared and I'll always try to squeeze in more hours if I can, but 40 hours is also generally the norm here. I like Practice Tests Plus (Longman) for PET and they have a similar one for FCE. I also quite like First Certificate Gold Maximiser, but I also end up using supplementary materials depending on the students' particular weaknesses.The Testbuilder series is also quite good, but a little low on the level side in my opinion.