Preparing Students for Trinity Exams

Preparing Students for Trinity Oral Exams

As many of your of your students will be taking the Trinity exam this year, we are invited Lisa Inskipp-Hawkins, from Trinity College, to the school to give us a training session on exactly what the exam involves and how to prepare your students. Here is a summary of what we learned.

1. Why should we recommend the Trinity exams to our students?
2. How to choose a level for your student
3. What the teacher and student need to know about the exam
4. How to integrate exam preparation into your lesson

Why a Trinity Exam?

1. Because they are useful and realistic. Nobody will ever ask if you can do a gap-fill in a real life situation, you will be asked if you can carry out a conversation, respond to a request, give information etc. This is what the Trinity Oral Exams help students learn.
2. An objective like this will get them taking their course seriously and working towards a goal
3. They will continue on with you until the end of the year – good for the students and good for the school
4. It will give them an internationally recognized title, improving their job opportunities
5. As you will see from the information here, preparing a student for a Trinity exam isn’t about teaching them exam skills, it’s about teaching them communication skills. Exactly what we should be doing in class anyway! Even students who aren’t going to take the exam will benefit from doing the activities suggested here.
6. You will get 5% for each student who you get to sign up!

So, you’ve convinced your students to take the exam.

Now what?!

How to decide which level your student should do:

There is a Trinity exam for every level so every student can do one. Here is a rough guide to the levels…

Beginner: Grade 1 & 2
Elementary: Grade 3
Pre-Intermediate: Grade 4
Intermediate: Grade 5 & 6
Upper-Intermediate: Grade 7, 8 & 9
Advanced: Grade 10 & 11
Proficiency: Grade 12

The Trinity Syllabus has very detailed information about each level, including the grammar, lexis, and type of discourse the student needs to be able to use. The information they provide will help you make the right choice for your student.

Become familiar with each stage and what the student is required to do.

Initial level – grades 1-3: Only conversation
Elementary level – grades 4-6: conversation and topic
Intermediate level – grades 7-9: conversation, topic and interactive
Advanced level – grades 10-12: conversation, topic, interactive and listening

Detailed information is available in the Trinity Syllabus.

Make sure the students know what is required from the level they will be doing.

Create a handout* for your students with the information about the level they are doing. You can take this straight from the Trinity Syllabus. It could include:

• Format of the exam (total time, the parts of the exam)
• Communicative skills
• Functions
• Grammar
• Lexis

Description of the different parts of the exam relevant to their level (i.e. a description of what happens in the conversation task, the topic, the interactive task, etc.)

* A handout like this would also be a great way of convincing your students that the exam is obtainable and worth doing.

Preparing THE TOPIC:
Brainstorm topics with students, have them come up with the idea. It can be ANY topic which interests the student. They should all choose their own topic.
Remember: Students are NOT graded on their knowledge of the topic, they are graded on knowledge of language. Make sure they have enough vocabulary to talk about their topic.
Suggestion: Use Wikipedia in Spanish and English to look at vocabulary and find “false friends” that students might not be aware of, or be tempted to use.
Teachers often spend too much time on preparing the topic section and not enough on the other sections. Careful not to “over-prepare” so students lose interest in topic.
Make sure the students don’t memorize or recite at the exam, they should only have notes and speak freely.
Suggestion: Prepare topic 3 months before exam, take topic away from students, give back 1 month before the exam, work on it again.
Create exam situation in class where students practice their topic with each other. Remind students not to correct every basic mistake but focus on the language necessary for the particular level.
Remember: It is allowed, even recommended, that the students bring pictures, graphs, objects etc. to the exam. Animals and dangerous objects are not permitted.


Preparing THE INTERACTIVE & CONVERSATION part:
Think of grammar, function and lexis for the level.
Brainstorm – what could the examiner possible ask? Have the students come up with the questions.
Practice initiating, maintaining and ending a conversation.
REMEMBER:
It is OK for student to check the question is understood correctly:
So what you’re saying is…
What (exactly) do you mean by…
NOT: Can you repeat, please, Sorry, I don’t understand

It is OK to use phrases to gain time:
Well, umm…
Let me think…
I’m thinking…
Give me a moment…

It is OK to steer away from the question if the student doesn’t feel comfortable talking about the specific question, as long as they stay within the topic chosen by the examiner:
I don’t know much about this, but did you know that…
Hmm, this I’m not sure about, but I’ve read/heard that…

Students will NOT lose points for using grammar, function or lexis from higher levels incorrectly. This is the chance for the students to show off what they know.

Students are NOT judged or graded on their opinion. They do not have to agree with the examiner.

Students and examiner should be at the same level during the interactive part. The students should be able to carry out a proper conversation, ask relevant questions, comment on what is said, give explanations etc.

Practice asking questions with the students so they know how the interactive part should be.

Remember: The student should NOT be doing all the talking in these parts, it should be a flowing conversation where the student asks questions as well.

Students should be aware of language required for their particular level, and should be able to read from the examiners questions which language production is asked for, eg. 3rd conditional, passive voice, etc