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Ideas for how to use online resources to support exam preparation classes By Poddy Peerman The benefits and reasons for incorporating online resources into EFL lessons are outlined in a separate paper. Practical classroom issues are explored and examples given of online tasks to meet lesson objectives, with an additional focus on using the BBC Learning English website. The resources of the TED Talks website are also covered in a different paper, in particular their usefulness in developing listening skills. The ideas in that paper are also relevant for exam preparation classes, in particular for those with an academic focus. This paper looks at some of the online resources that have been created specifically for students preparing for English language exams, in particular IELTS (International English Language Testing System), Cambridge First Certificate (FCE, B2) and Cambridge Advanced (CAE, C1), and, to some extent, resources for Cambridge Preliminary (PET, B1) and Cambridge Proficiency (CPE, C2) students. Although the resources are aimed at exam students, clearly they can prove useful in General English classes as well. There are numerous websites out there claiming to help those who are studying for English exams and, to some extent, it is a matter of personal preference which ones students and teachers decide to use. Some of them contain good resources but you have to subscribe and pay to use them. Some are full of adverts which can make the site confusing or annoying to use. Some contain useful resources that are free, but mostly need to be to downloaded and printed. These could be useful for teachers to use in class as you would use resources from any printed source. However, the websites I focus on here provide resources which are interactive or in some other way exploit the potential of digital technology and therefore offer something different from the standard classroom experience. Students tend to engage well and benefit from such interactivity and these methods lend themselves well to self-paced study. However, it is important to remember that currently most English tests taken in the UK are done so using the traditional paper format. So, when it comes to mock exam exercises you still need to give students the opportunity to practise under conditions that more closely mimic the exam environment, i.e. with written test papers to be completed by hand. Like many teachers, I usually provide a handout for exam students with a list of useful websites to guide and encourage them with self-study. I have found that they are more likely to use these websites if we have spent some time in class exploring the sites, demonstrating how they might use them and providing the opportunity to try this out. This practical encouragement can help establish good habits.

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Example A: The Flo-Joe website www.flo-joe.co.uk

Among its many resources Flo-Joe contains a lot of grammar, vocabulary and use of English exercises that are available in an interactive ‘online’ format. It contains mock papers for reading and use of English that you can complete online and then retrieve the answers. It doesn’t include listening exercises or practice papers. However it does have a voice recording facility, which allows students to practice the speaking element of an exam. To take advantage of this facility they would need to set up a ‘VoiceThread’ account, which is free, and to connect headphones and a microphone to their device. It is often difficult for students to practise for speaking tests outside of class, but this option is something that many students could find useful. Please see below some outline descriptions of example activities: Flo-Joe’s resources are organised by level of exam. Resources for Advanced C1 (CAE) students can be found at: www.flo-joe.co.uk/cae/students/index.htm They include practice tests, writing resources, use of English interactive

exercises, example questions for the speaking test with tips on how to answer them and the technology to practise the speaking test.

Example… Writing and Speaking test practice for CAE students: 1. Watch a video with tips on how to organise a piece of writing (in this case a formal letter) www.flo-joe.co.uk/cae/students/writing/organising-formal-letters.htm 2. Revise or practise the use of linking words with these exercises: www.flo-joe.co.uk/cae/students/writing/linking/index.htm 3. Watch a video about using the formal register. www.flo-joe.co.uk/cae/students/writing/formal-language.htm 4. Practise choosing the correct register: www.flo-joe.co.uk/cae/students/writing/register/index.htm 5. Then for a change from writing, practise the speaking test from this page: www.flo-joe.co.uk/cae/students/speaking/index.htm If they are prepared to set up a ‘VoiceThread’ account and there is the facility for headphones and microphone to be attached to their device, then they could practise the part 2 (long turn). 6. Practise part 2 of the speaking test - record your answer and listen back. Think about how to improve your answer, record and listen again… www.flo-joe.co.uk/cae/students/speaking/cae_speaking_part_two.htm

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Resources for Upper Intermediate B2 (FCE) students can be found at: www.flo-joe.co.uk/fce/students/index.htm They include practice tests, writing resources, use of English interactive exercises, examples and tips for the speaking test. For example, FCE students could be given the opportunity to practise parts 1- 4 of the Use of English test and parts 5-7 of the Reading test, at their own pace:

Resources for Intermediate B1 (PET) students can be found at: www.flo-joe.co.uk/preliminaryenglish/index.htm These include grammar and vocabulary practice exercises, practice tests for reading, writing and speaking, and the technology to practise the speaking test. The grammar and vocabulary exercises are useful for intermediate students whether or not they are planning to take the PET.

Example… Reading & Use of English parts 1-7 for FCE students: From the page below, work through parts 1- 4 Use of English and parts 5-7 of the Reading test. As you answer each question you will be told whether or not it is correct. www.flo-joe.co.uk/fce/students/tests/tsindex.htm If you need more help in one element of use of English you can develop your skills with some exercises specifically designed to help with each test: www.flo-joe.co.uk/fce/students/strategy/index.htm For example, if you need to practise the multiple choice cloze test, work through the set of exercises to be found on this page: www.flo-joe.co.uk/fce/students/strategy/p3pt1a.htm

Example… Vocabulary and Grammar practice for a B1 class Theme: Health Language point: use of comparatives and superlatives 1. Find this page on the Flo Joe website: www.flo-joe.co.uk/preliminaryenglish/health-vocabulary.htm Work through the vocabulary exercises on health problems and health treatments. You will find out, as you go, whether your answers are correct or not and have the chance to correct them. 2. Then go to this page and work through the grammar exercises on comparatives and superlatives: www.flo-joe.co.uk/preliminaryenglish/comparatives-and-superlatives.htm Check whether or not your answers are correct, as you go.

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Resources for Proficiency C2 (CPE) students can be found at: www.flo-joe.co.uk/cpe/students/index.htm These include use of English exercises, writing classes and practice tests. If you want to encourage proficiency students to get into the habit of doing some quick exercises each day, introduce them to the ‘Wordbank’ where they will find a new phrasal verb, word formation or collocation exercise every weekday.

Example B: Exam English website www.examenglish.com

Exam English is a good place to find information about the different exams in English in order to make it easier to compare them and decide which might be the best one for a particular student to take. It also has the facility to do a quick level test in listening and grammar/vocabulary (but not including speaking or writing) www.examenglish.com/leveltest/index.php IELTS: Exam English contains a lot of useful resources for IELTS students www.examenglish.com/IELTS/index.html These include resources to help with the listening, speaking, reading and writing elements of IELTS.

Example: Skills development for CPE students 1. Find the Wordbank on the Flo-Joe website: www.flo-joe.co.uk/cpe/students/wordbank/index.htm Do the phrasal verb, word formation and collocation exercises for today. Set yourself a reminder to revisit this page every day to do similar exercises with a different set of words. 2. Decide which part of Use of English is your weakest area: www.flo-joe.co.uk/cpe/students/strategy/index.htm Choose that option and you will find exercises to work through that will help build your technique. For example, if you think you need to practise word formation exercises, work through the exercises to be found on this page: www.flo-joe.co.uk/cpe/students/strategy/p3pt2a.htm 3. Now that you have had some practice, test yourself with a full paper, or selected parts of the Reading and Use of English test: www.flo-joe.co.uk/cpe/students/tests/index.htm When you complete this online, you will get immediate feedback after each section telling you which answers are correct.

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IELTS students can find information about the writing test from this page: www.examenglish.com/IELTS/IELTS_writing.html The website has an unusual feature to help practise Part 1 writing tasks. A task 1 question is provided and students can choose to see a model answer to the question and then try to recreate it, with various options to help them.

Resources to help practise the IELTS Speaking test part 2 can be found on this page: www.examenglish.com/IELTS/IELTS_Speaking.htm

Listening resources can be found from this page: www.examenglish.com/IELTS/IELTS_listening.html There are three different listening practice tests, each with all four parts, which students can listen to and complete online. They can check their answers at the end of each part and see the correct answers. This is particularly useful in helping students to understand the precision required in their answers and what counts as a correct answer.

Example: Part 1 Writing practice for IELTS students 1. Go to the webpage below to practise a Part 1 writing exercise

www.examenglish.com/IELTS/IELTS_writing_part1.htm 2. Read the question and think about how you could answer it. Make some

notes. 3. Scroll to the bottom of the page and choose ‘see text’. A model answer

will appear in the box above. Read the answer. 4. Choose ‘hide text’. Try to recreate the model answer. Each line

represents a word. Choose ‘show first letters’ to make this task a little easier.

5. If you can’t decide what a particular word should be, click on the line

representing that word and the word will appear. 6. If you need to start again, use ‘refresh’ (or move to another page of the

website and then go back to this page again). 7. Now go back to your ideas for this question and write your own answer.

Borrow structures from the model answer and adapt them to your ideas.

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Students can listen to model answers to speaking test questions and if they have the facility for a microphone to be attached to their device, they can record their own spoken answer and play it back. Students can also practise the reading tests (general and academic) to be found on this page: www.examenglish.com/IELTS/IELTS_reading.html They complete them online and after each section they can check whether their answers are correct and, if not, find out the correct answers As well as practice tests there are various resources to develop the vocabulary and grammar skills required for IELTS. Vocabulary exercises can be found from this page: www.examenglish.com/vocabulary/index.html where they are separated by level into A2 topics, B1 topics and the Academic Wordlist. Each level then has a series of online quizzes. Grammar tests at B2/C1 level can be found from this page: www.examenglish.com/IELTS/IELTS_grammar.html

Example C: Take IELTS website http://takeielts.britishcouncil.org

The ‘Take IELTS’ website is one of many English language websites run by the British Council. In one section of the site there are a number of free resources to help IETLS students: http://takeielts.britishcouncil.org/prepare This site provides practice tests for the listening, reading, writing and speaking parts of IELTS, to be found from this page: http://takeielts.britishcouncil.org/prepare-test/free-practice-tests The method is not interactive and students will need to write their answers on paper. They do have the option to read the texts and questions on screen and listen to the audio from the website but they need to write their answers on paper. There is also the option to download and print off the questions and answer papers.

Example tasks for relatively advanced IELTS students Go to this webpage to revise vocabulary from Academic Wordlist, group 7: www.examenglish.com/vocabulary/academic_word_list_group7.htm There are 40 questions and after each you will find out if your answer was correct. If it is wrong you need to correct it before you can move on. Go to this webpage and work through the 20 questions in this quiz: www.examenglish.com/IELTS/ielts_grammar_test.htm After you answer each question you will be told if it is correct or not.

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A mock listening test can be found from this page: http://takeielts.britishcouncil.org/prepare-your-test/free-ielts-practice-tests/listening-practice-test-1 You can download a blank answer sheet for students to use as they listen. They could follow the questions online or from a downloaded question sheet. The answers can also be downloaded so students can check them for themselves afterwards. A mock reading test (academic) can be found from this page: http://takeielts.britishcouncil.org/prepare-test/practice-tests/reading-practice-test-1-academic and a general reading test from this one: http://takeielts.britishcouncil.org/prepare-test/practice-tests/reading-practice-test-1-general-training For both reading tests you can download a blank answer sheet, the questions and the answers. To help practise writing, there are a number of mock writing tasks for which model answers are given. http://takeielts.britishcouncil.org/prepare-your-test/free-practice-tests/writing-practice-test-1-ielts-academic To help practise the speaking test, there are various exercises designed to do with a partner, for parts 1, 2 and 3. Example audio clips are provided of students answering these questions. http://takeielts.britishcouncil.org/prepare-your-test/free-practice-tests/speaking-practice-test-1 These are just some of the exam oriented websites available to help English language learners. Many of the resources mentioned in this paper will be available in similar format on other websites and the task ideas suggested should be possible to execute using other websites. So, if you already have other favourite sites, you could hopefully adapt these ideas to suit the resources on those sites. Good luck! Poddy Peerman June 2015 For more general information about using online resources in class, go to the paper entitled Some easy ways to use online resources in EFL classes. For more ideas about using the TED Talks resources, go to the paper entitled Ideas for listening lessons using the online resource of TED Talks. For more ideas about techniques for teaching IELTS, go to the three papers by Vicky Waller: IELTS Writing 2 Task, IELTS Reading Task, IELTS Speaking Part 2.