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Paper two task three carries 40 points for it (out of 100 for paper two altogether). They provide you
with material quotes from teachers, extracts from methodology books, copies of resources or
tasks - and then ask questions about it. It is wide ranging, the syllabus document says that it will
focus on current issues in ELT.
Analysis of resources, approaches and methodologies, learners and contexts, language acquisition and
teacher roles
This paper is to give you an overview of the kind of thing it might include, some pointers for what
you could do to prepare for it and to get you to practice one or two possible questions.
Your first attempt at one of these in your individual exam practice will be this week.
It is common for me to see forum messages saying I cant do this exam practice as we havent
studied this subject yet, but my message is that there is no prescribed list of subjects you should
have studied. In the exam a wide range of different things could come up. You need to practice
generating ideas systematically (and to read widely to help with that).
Remember you have 90 minutes altogether and this is for 40% of the marks, so you should be
spending about 35 minutes on this.
You can get two marks for each of up to 15 ideas that they see as relevant.
The questions always seem to come with sub sections (here you can see there are three).
You dont have to put in equal numbers of ideas for each sub section, but it can give you an ideas of
what to aim at (here you need to make at least 5 differentiated points for each thing. Try it now -
make a list. Write some things down in another document or on a piece of paper.
When you have a respectable number of things on your list, compare it with the ideas in handout 2.
When groups of markers are looking at these they often number off the points (as then if you tick
something and give it two points, you write the number beside it so you remember not to give it
twice). See which of your ideas you can match against the Cambridge list (number it) and if your
ideas dont match anything on one of those lists, they dont get marks.
Look down to handout 2 and you can see the instructions the markers are given.
Now look at what you wrote again how many marks would you get for depth ?
Subjects that have come up so far (so some of these you will see in your exam practice)
Remember each of these has been introduced with a description of something or an extract from a
book and then has a couple of questions about the ideas presented.
They asked about
..using L1 in the classroom (when / why).
..meta-language and working out grammar rules.
.. listening and what teaches it or what tests it
.. teacher talk time (benefits, dangers etc)
...different ways of presenting / dividing up vocabulary sets
.. dicto-gloss and traditional dictation
.. different kinds of drills (uses / reasons )
.. natural speech (versus course book recordings)
.. cold correction techniques
.. using graded readers with learners
None of those subjects is unusual or something you would never have heard of, but if you want to
say up to 15 intelligent things about any of them you have to rack your brains a bit.
How to practice
Or start a thread asking what subjects the others think are likely
Handout 1
Seven
Two
Eight
Three
Nine
Four
Ten
Five
Handout 4
Activity A
Doing the three units from Murphys Essential Grammar in Use that cover comparative and superlative
structures (or the equivalent from Azar or any grammar practice book of your choice) in class.
Activity B
Brainstorming adjectives to describe people (physical and characteristic) as a group to the board, then
learners work in threes and write ten sentences comparing themselves within the three.
Feedback by trying to establish the shortest, longest, funniest sentence.
Write down four ways in which activity A and B are (or could be) the same.
Write down four ways in which activity A and activity B are (or could be) different.
Write down five ways in which activity A and B are the same.
Both provide controlled practice of the target language
Both ask learners to produce something
Both are quite restricted (you are telling them what to say / write)
Parts of both could be done orally or in writing
Both could show the teacher where there are still problems
Write down five ways in which activity A and activity B are different.
The sentences are personal so they are more likely to remember them
The activity as a whole has scope to be fun with a fun class.
The sentences mean something real (you can see who is taller)
There is opportunity for real interaction (disagreement about sentences)
Requires them to produce all the elements in a comparative