Job Discussion Forums

[dmb]

Doesn't this happen too often. people actually agree but want to call it something different

[matttheboy]

Thanks for your responses. I just the met the girl in question and her spoken english is, i would say, upper intermediate. She fell down on the 'reading' part and 'useful english'. I think her failure may well have been due to the fact that she went on a week long bender with her mates to celebrate finishing high school right before taking the exam. She's wanting 4 hours a week for up to 4 months and will re-take in July.

One more question-is there anywhere that has downloable FCE listening tests? I'm guessing that to buy the tapes here in argentina would be very expensive and as this student will be my (first and) last FCE candidate before i go in a totally different direction with my life i'm not overly keen on forking out for them...any ideas?

Muchas cheers,

Mattelchico

[dyak]

The FCE listenings aren't too bad. A good way to practice for them is just to listen to a wide range of spoken English - plays, news, radio programs, weather, random conversations, different accents, conversations with technical vocab - that kind of stuff, as that's what they get in the exam. Same with the reading, which is worth spending much more time on. Though the Use of English part usually sorts the wheat from the chaff, you can judge how far off she is from her score on that.

[XXX]

I also had a student who failed the FCE. What sunk her was the listening test. Her spoken English was excellent as she had spent quite a bit of time in the US. However, since the tapes were all in the British accent, she couldn't understand a word. Even I had problems some of those tapes. Then again I ran into some people, I guess they were Brits, in Amsterdam. I couldn't understand a word they were saying. What ever it was they were speaking, it surely wasn't English.

[dyak]

Why would a Cambridge exam use American English?