The single most important thing students need to know about the listening and reading papers!

A colleague asked me last week: ‘I’ve only got 20 hours to prepare students for the First exam.  What should I concentrate on?’

I thought for a moment, and then realised that I knew the answer.

‘UNDERSTANDING PARAPHRASE!’, I answered.

I don’t think it was the answer she was expecting…  Let me explain.

This is something I’ve been thinking about for some time.  The thing about Cambridge English listening and reading papers is that you will never read/hear what it says in the question.  It’ll be paraphrased – they’ll say the same thing, but in a different way.

Let’s look at an example from a Cambridge First listening – Part 1 (where there are 8 short recordings with a multiple choice answer):

You hear a young man talking. Why did he go back to college?

a)      He needed a better job.

b)      He needed an evening activity.

c)      He needed new skills.

This is what we hear in the recording:

I’d been thinking of starting on a course at college for a while.  It’s not easy to study when you are working full time…and my only free time was after 6pm… Then the company where I work gave me a promotion, and my new job involved managing staff, which I had no experience of.  That’s why I chose this subject.  My degree is in engineering, you see. I still wasn’t too sure I wanted to give up the only part of the day when I did absolutely nothing, but I’m actually enjoying going to college after work!

It’s full of paraphrases!:

go back to college = starting on a course at college / chose this subject

a better job = a promotion

an evening activity = my only free time was after 6pm / the only part of the day when I did absolutely nothing / after work

new = which I had no experience of

skills = managing staff (this is an example of a skill, not a paraphrase, it’s true)

Of course, understanding paraphrases won’t get you all the way.  You still need to understand whether a better job (a promotion) is the reason why he went back to college.  But at least you know that it was mentioned.  By the way, the answer is c).

So I’ve started getting my students to brainstorm possible paraphrases before they listen / read.  I give them the question paper, put them in pairs and give them 5 minutes.  Then we pool our knowledge as a class, writing their suggestions up on the board.  Then we listen / read and see if any of our paraphrases were mentioned.

It seems to help.  I think they start to see how the exams try and ‘trick’ them!

Now you have a go and let me know how it goes…

In a future post, I’ll talk about paraphrasing can help in the speaking and writing papers.