Sunday 21 March 2010

Simple Stuff


A busy day examining yesterday - FCE and CAE students in a city near here. The students were good, and well prepared. But there were some simple errors which I really should not be hearing at this level. One girl, perhaps over-reacting to the Portuguese tendency to overuse articles, used none! Another student decided that there were only two prepositions in English (for and in)although might have been saved a fail by excellent vocabulary (which we suspected had been learned from computer games). The thought for today therefore is: cut out the simple mistakes. Much easier to say than do, but by focusing on the simple tasks, and with good exam technique, a really low level student can pass these exams.