Teacher Discussion Forums

I now have a BEC preparation course and we are using the book "Pass Cambridge BEC Vantage" (Summertown publishing). I am wondering if anybody has experience with it. The thing is, the book is kind of easy. I have one advanced student who is not really challenged by it, and three others who aren't challenged too much by it either. What do you think of its level, is it appropriate preparation for the BEC test or not?

One of my students used BEC Vantage and passed the exam last year. He told me that the book was very good in that the exercises were very close to the real exam questions in terms of difficulty. I also use this series of books with my other students at different levels. A lot of them have told me that the grammar part in the books is too easy while the listening part appears to be greatly challenging. If your students attend such a course in order to prepare for BEC, I think this series might be a good choice.

You may want to supplement the BEC Vantage with additional reading and writing selections. I used it with adults in Poland and found the main problem to be running out of text before the end of the sixteen-week course. Fortunately, I had access to a lot of other business texts at my school, so was able to find materials on marketing, HR, finance etc.

See what your students are weakest in--speaking, writing, listening, reading--and give them extra work on that.

If the BEC Vantage book is too easy for your students, what about using the BEC Higher book (also Summertown) instead?

Amy

It is also worth noting that Chinese students study English for many years at school.

However they rarely practice speaking.
So oral performance is weak, but taking written exams is a doddle.

That is why they say it is too easy.

reetings,

I would like to bring to everyone's attention a very interesting and powerful resource: http://www.democracynow.org/.

What you will find is that they present a discussion of current social topics with the complete transcript in the same page.

On this site on the homepage, look on hte left column that says 'archives' and then click on 'browse archives by date'. Once there, click, for example, on May 2006, then click on Headlines for May 31, 2006. You will then find that the day's news is read with all the transcripts below...

This site's host is Amy Goodman. Her pronunciation of English is slow, clear and perfect for more advanced students...

The site is full of these transcripts and video files. I would greatly appreciate any feedback on the use of this resource.

Best regards.

Michael