Hey there! Ready for your oral exams? Well, you'd better be, since they're just round the corner! I'd like to give you a few tips, though nothing new for you, really.
Well, the first thing is about your nerves.The less nervous you are the better you will perform, so do whatever you need to do to stay as calm as possible, breath in and off you go!
You will pick ONE CARD ONLY, both for presentation and interaction, so there's no choice really, as there used to be.
You will have around 15 minutes to prepare both tasks, while the previous couple is doing the exam. You can take notes, as a way of outline, but don't write long sentences. This way you won't be tempted to keep looking at your notes searching for that wonderful structure you came up with.
You are supposed to give a continuous coherent speech, linking one idea with the following (cohesion), by using a variety of structures and connectors. So the questions or prompts that you find on the cards are to be used as a guide. Of course, you can add ideas of your own, as long as you stick to the topic.
Control your timing, as it will help you produce a coherent speech. Ideally you will provide some sentence as an introduction, then you will refer to the topic for a couple of minutes or a bit more, and then conclude. However, if your nerves just make you forget about all this, don't panick! You can still pass the exam anyway. You will speak for 3 minutes on your own.
As regards your interaction task, a key point is to respond to your partner's interventions as naturally as you would in real communication (of course I agree that it is quite artificial anyway), so remember to use question tags, and sentence fillers such as you know, like I said, really?, sounds great, wow!, no way!, and so on.
Well, and I think that's about it! Good luck when picking your cards!
And remember to STAY COOL & CALM!
You will pick ONE CARD ONLY, both for presentation and interaction, so there's no choice really, as there used to be.
You will have around 15 minutes to prepare both tasks, while the previous couple is doing the exam. You can take notes, as a way of outline, but don't write long sentences. This way you won't be tempted to keep looking at your notes searching for that wonderful structure you came up with.
You are supposed to give a continuous coherent speech, linking one idea with the following (cohesion), by using a variety of structures and connectors. So the questions or prompts that you find on the cards are to be used as a guide. Of course, you can add ideas of your own, as long as you stick to the topic.
Control your timing, as it will help you produce a coherent speech. Ideally you will provide some sentence as an introduction, then you will refer to the topic for a couple of minutes or a bit more, and then conclude. However, if your nerves just make you forget about all this, don't panick! You can still pass the exam anyway. You will speak for 3 minutes on your own.
As regards your interaction task, a key point is to respond to your partner's interventions as naturally as you would in real communication (of course I agree that it is quite artificial anyway), so remember to use question tags, and sentence fillers such as you know, like I said, really?, sounds great, wow!, no way!, and so on.
Well, and I think that's about it! Good luck when picking your cards!
And remember to STAY COOL & CALM!
No comments:
Post a Comment
Don't be shy and share your ideas!