314 Part V: What Kind of Class Will I Have?
Your students must be prepared to do homework. If you plan your lessons
carefully you can usually incorporate some of the marking into the lesson
time without short changing the class. So for example, if the exam includes
a listening or reading component, you can set students a timed exercise and
mark work while they do it. Use a marking correction code and get your class
to redo their work. (Chapter 7 lists suggested marking codes.)
Remain upbeat and optimistic even if the students are not quite there yet. Let
them know if there doesn’t seem to be much point enrolling for the exam this
time and focus on more appropriate timing. If enrolment isn’t optional you
can focus on the skills the students will gain by taking it. And beware of the
over confident students who rely on being clever rather than practising their
techniques. They sometimes fail.
Using English exam papers: Teaching what sounds ‘English’
The Use of English paper in Cambridge exams is probably the most difficult
to teach. Even if an exam doesn’t contain a paper with this name, there is
bound to a number of questions based on the same principles. The idea is for
students to demonstrate whether they have good overall knowledge of the
language and the familiarity to know what sounds correct.
The best way to test this kind of knowledge initially is by using a cloze test.
This means that you delete words from an appropriate reading text at regular
intervals, perhaps every eighth word, and ask students to complete it. By
doing this you take in all parts of speech and get an immediate impression of
your students’ abilities. From this kind of assessment you may discover that
your students have a particular area where they need more study – idioms
and prepositions often fall into this category – but on the other hand you
could opt for a more comprehensive training regime. This can include:
✓ Synonyms: Highlight synonyms (words that mean the same as other
words) all the time. You can do this during reading lessons if you decide
to dissect the text, and in addition, do a synonym brainstorming activity
before a writing task so that the students are less likely to repeat
themselves. As a stand alone activity you can set matching tasks for
synonymous pairs or ask the class to find the odd one out which is not a
synonym.
✓ Rephrasing: This is related to the use of synonyms and also syntax, or
how words in a sentence fit together. As a teacher, your own definitions
should include examples of rephrasing so that students become aware
of alternative ways of expressing things. A typical rephrasing task is like
this one:
