Professionals who invest in exchangeoften opt for English proficiency courses. The certifications serve as a guarantee of language proficiency in universities and, often, in job opportunities.
Among the most popular courses is Cambridge. Valid for life, the test assesses students in four sections:
*Reading and using English
*Writing
*Understanding/Listening
*Conversation
Classes are usually offered in packages of 12 weeks - may vary depending on the date of the official exam.
Second Mark Whitehead, Cambridge teacher at Discover EnglishThe course begins with an orientation session where each student has their level assessed with a test. From there, recommendations and individual conversations take place. "We offer FCE e CAE" he says. "If we get enough students for classes CPEWe offer them too," he adds.
FCE students are probably among the highest intermediate e upper-intermediate. According to Mark, "at the end of the course, the student will be in the advancedThe testing program is progressive". Discover uses official material in all classes. For the teacher, who has been teaching the course for 20 yearsShe said that "the factor that determines whether or not a student will pass is the amount of work they put in during the 12 weeks". According to the Brazilian Beatriz Teixeira, 24The school has made a big difference to his English. "Cambridge helped me improve a lot," she says. "I used to find it difficult to express myself and today I certainly communicate better," she adds.
Students need grades above 60% to achieve satisfactory resultThe school, however, focuses on higher percentages. "We work to ensure that students achieve at least, 70% in all rooms", explains Mark. The lessons cover each section on a daily basis. There are at least two essays a week equivalent to the real exam.
At the end of the fifth week, when the course is halfway through, there is a full round of simulations - This is the phase where teachers assess and estimate the probability of each student passing. "If you don't reach 60% in each subject, you still have 6 weeks to training or change your working practiceYou have to work hard in areas where you are particularly deficient," he says. Unlike IELTS, the Cambridge test allows students to pass even if they have an unsatisfactory result in one of the sections. "I like to tell people that if you don't get 60% in all the divisions, you should be very strong in others and make up the difference," says Mark.
The last 2 weeks of the course are intensive. Every day is exam day. "We literally make the 4-hour test under the same conditions as Cambridge so that, in the end, the students take the test automatically, without too much stress," he comments. "I believe that if the same technique and the same environment are repeated several times, at the moment when everything really matters, the sensation is not new, it's not scary and the students tend to perform better," he explains.
Recently, Cambridge has begun to be accepted as proficiency test for immigrationThis made the test more like IELTS. "For me, the big difference between the two is that Cambridge, hardly the student will raise their score on their own, because the lessons are based on constant feedback," explains Mark. "That's why our classes are small, it's easier to assess smaller groups," he adds.
According to the teacher, a common difficulty between different cultures is the written test. "Writing is the skill in which progress is the slowest" he says. To help students, Discover highlights the mistakes in each essay, but does not correct them. "When you fix your own mistakes, you learn twice," laughs Mark. Beatriz took advantage of the opportunity and, having finished the FCE, feels comfortable with her texts. "I feel confident writing because I've practiced and improved a lot. dissertations, reports and letters" he says.
Some students, however, "stall" precisely because of the way they developed their learning methods in their home countries. "Part of our role is breaking the shackles these people and teach them how to study efficiently," explains Mark.
The conversation part, on the other hand, is closely linked to the personality of each participant. "We focus more on cultures that don't expose themselves very often, where the students are more shy," explains the teacher. "In the case of Brazilians and other South Americans, we emphasize vocabulary e grammarIt's a lot of work," he adds. "I, for example, used to speak in a informalToday, I use the language more sophisticated"says Beatriz. With a degree in literature, Beatriz taught children in Brazil and is studying in Australia to achieve her dream. "I always wanted to work in a school bilingual and, in order to practice my profession well, I dream of becoming certified CPE (the highest in Cambridge)," he says.
The teacher's tips for those taking the exam include: don't write anything in your own language during the 12 weeks and speak only in English. "When possible, we pair students from different cultures during the course," he says. "As we have a close relationship with Cambridge, we can suggest our students' pair for the exam, but it's not guaranteed that we'll be matched," he says. "So, as soon as we find out who the student will be taking the exam with, we make sure to keep in touch with them until the end of the course," he adds.
Sometimes students from different schools are paired up. "We get in touch with the other school and work on getting them to practise together," comments Mark. "Our idea is that at the end of the course, no matter who you speak to, you'll do a good job - because if a student misses the exam, the order will automatically change," he adds.
