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Exams & Preparation

Find useful exam information and teaching ideas for your students.

B2: A stepping stone to the English language acquisition

  I find it really hilarious when people post tips on how to succeed in B2. Advice like 10 things to do in order to succeed in the exam is not only intimidating but also totally unnecessary.  For me, it is not about the exam, the practice papers, or keeping scores with mathematical accuracy. It is about really knowing the English language. If our...

Why Test and not Assess?

In the ELT community, there are so many opinions when it comes to Tests & Exams. There is a major revolution in Social Media where there are many educators who complain about Exams, Testing, Exam Preparation. Well, I believe that what is happening is amazing. It is time for us, as educators, to understand that YES our students take exams, YES our...

Teaching to the Test?

How many times have you taught students in Exam Prep classes and felt that your teaching has not actually improved their communication ability or their general command of the language but still they’ve passed their exams with flying colors? What I have known since the very early years of my career is that the specific tests do not fit perfectly with a...

Don’t Panic! It’s Just an Exam!

Five Essential Approaches to Test Taking Is it that time of the year again? My, oh, my, how time flies! After months and in many cases years of preparation, it all comes down to that final exam which will reward the test taker for all his hard efforts. It would be futile to debate the effectiveness of tests or question what the best way to assess a...

E Class? Who Cares! Let’s Just Skip over to Lower!

Since its conception, the CEFR (Common European Framework) has offered a reference for languages as regards learning, teaching and assessment. This has established a solid, yet immense network of services comprised of educators, publications and of course exam evaluation leading to the eventual certification of competency as regards the target language and...

Speak up!

  B2 is a scary level. It is the boss level in a video game that you and your students have been painstakingly practicing for years. You have trained your champions; you have groomed them to victoriously face any challenges. They have gone through the grind. They came to the school, young and bright and hopeful, copying “apple” with chubby fingers, toiling...

Exams, exams, exams stress…perhaps, perhaps, perhaps

It’s this time of the year! Again! Another examination period is coming and with that stress, pressure, anxiety, lack of sleeping or bad eating habits appear. Is this normal? Well, if you take it from the brain’s point of view, yes! Stress is the mental and physical state we face when we feel that something threatens us. We may feel either nervous for a...