ENGLISH EXAM TIPS AND ADVICE WITH EXAM EXPERT FRANK! PART ONE. YOUR ENGLISH EXAM QUESTIONS ANSWERED.

hello everyone thank you for joining me again this is to the point english with me ben and i have a very special video for you today because this is part one of an interview that i gave to frank carriso now i would describe frank as an english exam expert basically what frank doesn't know about english exams isn't worth knowing now of course in my channel i share lots of tips and advice on how to pass specifically the cambridge english exams the b2 first the c1 advanced and the c2 proficiency and i have lots of experience of helping students pass those exams but frank can offer a different perspective a more insider perspective and so he has knowledge and insights that i learned a lot from and i'm sure that you will too now the questions that frank answers today were put forward by members of my telegram group and there's some very good questions i have to say but if you would like to join my telegram group then click on the link in the description send send me a message and i'll add you to the group it's completely free now frank also has a fantastic podcast called what you say in english so i'll also link to that in the description i really encourage you to check that out if you're planning on taking an english exam in the future so this is quite a long interview that's why i decided to break it into two parts but i think you'll find it extremely useful and the insights that frank shares are invaluable really before we start the interview i should just explain my zoom background that you'll see in the interview it's a photograph i took of my favorite pub in cambridge a few years ago it's the pub i always meet my friend in when i go for a couple of drinks in in cambridge but as i haven't been able to visit england or any pubs recently i thought that was the closest i could get to it okay let's get on with the interview don't forget to subscribe if you haven't already and enjoy [Applause] [Music] so frank many thanks for for agreeing to do this for for sharing your insights and answering some questions from some of my telegram members um i just want to explain to the viewers how we first got in contact um you made a comment on on one of my videos that i had posted on the chat box facebook group which is administered by the lovely catty yes um and that was a few months ago but we've uh i've always had you in mind to to have to make to have an interview with so that we could uh get some some of your insights into the exams so to start with if you could just tell us about yourself some of your your background because for all intensive purposes you're a native speaker as far as i can see so but i think your background is a little more it's a little more complicated yeah um well actually my first language is uh spanish because that was the language that we spoke at home and that was the language my parents spoke to me um and since i was a little kid i mean i i started you know having contact with english and my school years were in english and and i lived in the united states for a number of years and that's probably why my accent sounds more american even though after so many years because last time when i left the us it was basically in 2000 then i went back to venezuela because of the world trade center you know the attack in new york and um situation the economy because i was living in florida and the economy had you know gone to the and i went to venezuela again i worked as a teacher there and in 2007 i came to live here in spain but yes i mean i i you can say that i have a c2 level in both english and spanish right so yeah you sound pretty and when people ask me like what is your first language or i i don't know i mean it depends for example if i have to do maths for example i would probably count numbers faster or it would come first in spanish to me but when i do have to do like reasoning like write something english is my language i mean i feel more comfortable writing something in english i i when i write something in spanish i always doubt you know like right i don't know how to do how should should i say this or that's interesting i i understand especially the counting thing because i i speak spanish but nowhere near bilingual but um but when i'm speaking in spanish i could be having a nice conversation but the moment i have to count with money or anything immediately into english it's very difficult to make a smooth transition from one to the other so it's interesting to know that yeah your level you you do that too so and and i think it's probably because um whenever i had to study maths for example it was my my one of my older brothers who actually sat down with me to explain you know everything to me and he did it in spanish so i think it has to do for example when you learn something the first time or when you do it on you know on a constant basis um it's i think it sticks you know you can i can actually force myself and use english for you know maths or counting you know one two three four five but but i would say that it comes to me easier like it's it feels more natural if i do it in spanish yeah as you said you have to force yourself you have to make an effort whereas all the speaking with vocabulary it's it's natural so yeah it's interesting but yeah you're bilingual obviously so that's it's uh but you said yeah you came to madrid in 2017. yes so it's been almost 14 years yeah quite a while it's difficult to leave madrid once you're here as well yeah such a such an incredible city yeah so from there from coming to to madrid um obviously you have a podcast um so you can tell us more about that because i've listened to some episodes it's fantastic so well thank you very much that's very nice of you to say that um well uh basically the idea came last year because for a long time um i've you know i wanted to do a podcast but i wasn't sure about what i mean like i wanted to um create something that would help people that would give them you know like guidance and and i remember once i was at work and and one of my friends co-workers said frank you should have a podcast because you have you have a beautiful voice i mean i didn't say that i mean he said that you have a beautiful sweet voice and i think it would be lovely for people to hear you on a podcast and i was like really you think so um you know that no one likes to hear themselves no talk i mean i listening to myself in a recordings is it's a little weird but anyway i i took his word and um i started thinking like what can i do what can i do and then uh summer last year uh during the pandemic you know a lot of people um got bored and i said you know what i'm going to start the podcast and then i started like drafting ideas and and then what do i do that can help a lot of people in you know working as a teacher preparing students for the exams and also working as an examiner myself uh that experience and i said well if the the the review videos are popular on youtube for example people reacting you know reaction videos and like people giving their professional opinion about something and i'm seeing myself i mean i'm guilty as charged i've seen lots of videos of people giving professional comments and and i said well i can start with a podcast because a podcast requires less preparation than than a video for example i mean the level of production you have to do you know you need to have with a video it's you know bigger and the investment for example in on on my end to get a podcast done i mean in the beginning i basically had a microphone and that that's it and that that was it and and the audacity which is the the program that i use um to edit the podcast and make it sound a little more professional um and that was it that was the beginning and um and well basically i started i started you know like getting into the groups that's that's how we met you know through the chat box uh group and um even though i have to comment that i had seen your videos before that but already yeah yeah and um and yeah that's that's how it started and right now i'm on pause i mean i'm thinking about second season right even though i i stopped and i didn't tell people that oh we we've stopped the first season yes yeah exactly i didn't i didn't announce it so yeah so today i want to ask you some questions in your role as an examiner because i i make these videos to help people prepare for english exams um and i know a lot i've prepared helped a lot of people prepare but i want to get the examiner perspective the examiner point of view so i asked my telegram group members to to put some questions forward and they've come up with some good questions but before we look at their questions i wanted to start with uh the comment that you actually made on on my video all those a few months ago because i think that's what really gave me the idea to to make this video because it's a very useful comment my video was on the um part one of the s of speaking so you said uh tell your students that not too short and not too long means between two to three utterances yeah i think the next part was particularly interesting you said although lexus and grammar are important the first thing us examiners pay attention to is pronunciation individual sounds sentence and word stress this is because interactions tend to be a bit rehearsed and candidates are aren't always consistent throughout the test they sometimes memorize some fantastic expressions but when they get to other parts and you get to see what their real control is yeah this is something i've often doubted and you helped me a lot because the first questions in an exam often people can prepare for because they have an idea of what the question is going to be but how much they should prepare well you mentioned the word consistent consistency so can you expand on that a little yeah sure um well remember that uh part one is barely two minutes i mean if you take away for example the time in which examiners introduce and giving instructions to answer the questions and if you take away also how much time that the other person uses to speak i mean you you're barely left with very little time so i think you only have time to answer like two or three questions i mean not more than that so i know that questions may be um typical you know like typical interview questions like hobbies and why are you studying english and why do you like it and talk about someone in your family that does that and um and of course you know students have the tendency to prepare and that's fine i mean part one that the intention of part one is basically to feel students or candidates at ease like with something quite relaxed you know just give me a little bit of information about yourself at least that would be you know for higher levels um even for lower lower levels i mean questions are tend to be very very simple um and of course we do pay attention to uh grammar and lexis but not too much because i mean one thing that we need to consider is control i mean control is how much you can how you build those sentences how you put them together in a coherent way so the first thing that strikes your ear is pronunciation and that is usually consistent throughout the test it's usually consistent of course there's the element of fluency i mean even though that if you look at the the criteria because the official books come the yeah at the back of the book they usually come with the scales that that examiners use um and they're also available in the booklets that students can download from the official website um they have the criteria that examiners use and there's nothing about fluency about those criteria but we do pay attention to hesitation for example how much students hesitate when they say something that's part of if it's part of discourse but it's also part of pronunciation so things like individual sounds um word stress maybe sentence stress if they they give you more than one utterance for example right um but it that's the kind of interaction that we pay attention to that the ability to answer the question with no extra help and the ability to extend that that answer yeah as you said not too rehearsed not too prepared you can you can still rehearse i mean you can still memorize something but if you're a good actor you can make it sound natural it all depends on how how you you do it you know how you present it yeah i always try i always say that students shouldn't sound like a robot in this little monotone reproducing things they have learned by heart to try to speak naturally with intonation and so it's more about as you said consistency through the exam too so with pronunciation and everything so so yeah that's that's very interesting uh so i'm gonna go to the first question that i got from the group now it's from alexander alexander in a situation when one student takes the whole speaking time during the collaborative task can the examiner intervene how would both students be assessed in such a situation um normally normally we i mean we there's a lot of body language that that is not counted as part of the exam um examiners have to follow a frame i mean they have to follow a script and nothing can be can can stray away from that script everything that comes out of their the examiner's mouth um has to come from the script and this is basically to ensure fairness that no one has had advantage over other candidates and if you take the exam in in i don't know tim book 2 is the same exam you will take in china or the same exam you will take in finland whatever um so to ensure that level of quality i mean everything has to come there's no freedom um so examiners intervening it would probably be with body language you know body language in what sense you know if you're taking too much time i look at you and then i look at the other candidate like right okay i'm waiting for you but of course um and this is something that that students need to keep in mind um in interaction if you look at the the scales in the ones i told you that you can find in in the booklets in the official booklets and um if you look at the the last criterion which is um interactive communication there are certain elements that students need to remember and it's initiate respond and extend um you know like the ability to you know students need to initiate a new topic of conversation then they have to respond to that and then you they have to extend on that and you like whatever the other person said you also have to extend it so that requires from you as a student for example to propose a topic and let the other person say what they think and then you respond to that and if you want to extend on that that would be a lot better so it has to be there has to be an interaction of course if in case a student is controlling the conversation it would be the job of the of the examiner to um try to keep any imbalance that was produced in for example let's say part three and then in part four the examiner would probably direct more questions to the other candidate to give them more opportunities to speak okay right i see yeah that's interesting yeah so the examiner will use a common sense and the feeling for the situation yeah i am i usually say to my students that they have to take responsibility i mean the examiner will understand i'm sure but and can interrupt and yeah exactly and students students need to remember that they will be penalized if they control if they you know like greedily take control of of the conversation just because i want the examiner to be impressed of my level i think the problem that some students have because the students who are in my telegram group for example are very conscientious they're very because they're they're watching youtube videos they're joining telegram groups they're well prepared they're that type of student but they're worried that they could get a partner who is not well prepared that doesn't really know the exam and just starts talking without really understanding how long they have so i always as i said they need to be proactive they need to take control and interrupt they have to learn and that's where practice comes in very handy i mean as the more practice you have in the exam the more you you know use the strategies that you've learned in you know in the different preparation courses you've taken yeah that will play to your advantage and and one thing that that students need to remember is it's a conversation i mean in in my own classes i tell my students it's a conversation keep think of it as a conversation like you're sharing ideas about certain topics and just keep it going you know keep the interaction going yeah it's your opportunity to you only as you said the time is very limited in these speaking parts of these exams so you have to be proactive and make sure you take your opportunity but yeah the body language thing and the fact that the examiner could ask direct their questions first to the student in other parts that's very interesting uh the next question from leo leo is a little bit famous because he appears in in one of my videos that we made on the speaking part of the exam uh so he is asking is interaction and communication more important than fulfilling the series of questions we guessed we spoke about this in the class we guessed we might be allowed to focus on a question on one question as long as the conversation keeps going so really it's the last part of the discussion part if if the students just answer one question but have a nice long conversation that takes up all the time is that okay or should the will the examiner need to ask more questions i think leo leo is on to something yes um it doesn't matter if for example in part three uh the two students don't have to cover all the topics as long as as long as there's no repetition because if you repeat the same idea over and over it doesn't make any sense um the whole point is like you show up you showcase a variety of structures and linkers and ideas and and and it's the language i mean it's not even the ideas that you present i mean you can you can have the most outlandish crazy ideas as long as you present them with good language i mean it's basically a language test so yeah we don't really pay attention to for example um you know something crazy that they say so basically it's a language test so in in if they spend the whole time for example in part three speaking about one of the topics you know that you have a question in the center and then you have you know like all the topics around it um you can spend the whole time talking about the first topic as long as you keep initiating new topics within the topic i don't know if it makes sense yeah i understand yeah not just going around in circles exactly so you can you can spend the whole time talk about one single topic and you can have this wonderful conversation about oh and what about this well we haven't thought about this and oh that's a very good point because that makes me think of blah blah blah you know many times what i've seen for example is that in in my classes um when i do practice and monk exams and and things like that i i've seen students for example um linking when they when they come up with when they're talking about one point one topic and then they link it oh that reminds me that there's this other point here that also talks about this so that's a very nice way for example to link one topic with the next um that also can be done but yes i mean you can spend the whole time talking about one single topic as long as you keep it going and you don't repeat the same ideas and you can initiate another sub-topic within the same topic okay for example i understand yeah i think leo was speaking because in leo and jessica who had a great conversation in the video we recorded just about the first question was asked in part four and i just let them speak because i saw no no need or no reason to interrupt but we wanted to confirm that that's okay and that they had a friend and in part four it doesn't have to be you know it's a three-way discussion it's a the examiner asks questions and then um the examiner has a little bit of freedom for example to ask a particular candidate by i mean calling them by name or they can just throw the question whoever answers first you know will answer the question but that doesn't mean for example that if i say for example ben some people say that blah blah blah blah what do you think that doesn't mean that the other person cannot talk i mean after you say something the other person can say oh well actually what ben said is true because blah blah blah so it doesn't have to be like a one way like i ask you then i ask you then i ask you so there there can be also interaction between the two students i mean the interlocutor the examiner who's sitting in front of them is basically directing questions i mean it's it's it's not uh taking actively you know part actively in the in the conversation just you know and if there's little interaction for example um if a ca if a candidate for example says something and the other person hasn't talked i can you know the examiner can turn and say and what do you think no i'm asking the other person but students need to know that they have the freedom to intervene of course without you know causing any you know rude interruption or anything but um you know like they can they can intervene they can take part in the conversation as well yeah it's as natural as possible it's just again for me a common sense is that you don't it's a conversation so you speak as you would in your native language as much as possible in english so it's yeah that's good very interesting the next question is actually from jessica who is the other the other participant in the the video leo that i was talking about um so she says you know yeah this is an interesting one you know that often mistakes depend on the nationality and the mother tongue mother tongue italians make typical mistakes spanish make their mistakes typical of their language sometimes we translate from our native language making grammar mistakes do the examiners con consider understand and accept these kinds of little mistakes so she gives an example i don't pronounce the h correctly sometimes because in italian we don't have the same the sound the h sound yeah you get the idea yeah yeah um well um i think how how can i explain this without um sounding too confusing because pronunciation has its own set of descriptors um but i think the most important thing that examiners pay attention to is intelligibility i mean you know the intelligibility is twofold i mean it's a it's a skill of course if you speak clearly and the other person is capable of decoding that information and make sense of it then we can say we have intelligibility and intelligibility is quite a you know it's very tricky because even among native speakers intelligibility can be compromised if the person has a very thick accent for example in my case i mean like people ask being like do you understand everybody who speaks english i mean like native speakers and then i say well yeah generally i mean there are for example people from australia that i might find difficult you know difficulty understanding or people from even though i love love the glaswegian accent i find it hard sometimes to like really really get it you know even though i love accents in you know as a as a personal thing i mean i love accents i love the musicality that people usually bring to the english language and in general i would say that intelligibility is the most important thing so does it really matter for example that i say api instead of happy um i think within context if it's a repetitive trait we do i mean it's considered i mean it is it can you can say that it's penalized um it's an individual sound i mean if it's consistent then it becomes a hindrance it becomes a hindrance in communication so in a way consistency i mean how frequent you make the you produce that that trait i mean i wouldn't call it a mistake mistake it's just the way you say things um but it can become a hindrance if you repeat it for example um i would say practice i mean in in if you say for example the difference uh spanish speakers for example have a problem with the b and the v for example instead of saying uh best or say for example oh she's wearing a vest um they would say she was wearing a best for example it's not much of a problem it's still understandable and it's intelligible and of course it when it creates confusion or it's open to be interpreted in a different way then it becomes a problem understand um like i don't know like do your best or like do your vest i don't know i'm just just drawing a crazy example but you i mean you get the point i mean if it if it's open to a different interpretation or you know that it could create some sort of problem in communication then yes it becomes a problem i would say that more than individual sounds i would say that vowel vowel sounds are very important for example diphthongs um are very important because they they can actually change a word completely it's not the same to say for example uh for example i have a student who constantly says passion she's a doctor and she says passion passion and sometimes she doesn't she doesn't say that t at the end and of course i know the way she speaks but another speaker would probably understand passion like i i have a passion for something um exactly so that individual sound uh not doing the patient it would eliminate any uh you know any kind of problem that might come up with you know from lack of intelligibility um more than consonant sounds i would say vowel sounds are more important right but i would say that in terms of pronunciation word stress for example saying something that my students constantly say is hotel i think it's yeah hotel instead of hotel um you know putting the stress in the beginning and you know but but yes i mean in in the case of your student who asks about the age um in some situations it can create confusion problems so i think she needs to be careful which words for example she notices that that has you know that can produce that kind of problem or you know lack of understanding yeah that's exactly what i i'd say because there's a fine line between an accent and mispronunciation as you said i think accent is perfectly having an accent if it's an italian accent a spanish accent french accent is perfectly fine and good i love accents too all kinds of accents so yeah and there's nothing there's nothing in the criteria that says this accent unless the the um influence of l1 accent is so strong that makes your um production like your oral production difficult to access or difficult to to like decode what what you're trying to say exactly yeah that's what i i try to express it's and sometimes it's not clear like the french people don't pronounce the h either many many languages don't pronounce the age so you hear om i yesterday i was at home in the context you know they're saying home but it can be confusing or you know you said with a hotel it's a hotel because then you have the two the intonation and the age so it's again it's kind of common sense but you have to pay attention to it i guess but it won't be and something that students don't usually do they don't record themselves i've been recording yourself and i tell my students the same thing you have to record yourself i mean if you step away from that fear of hearing yourself i'm hitting my microphone um if you step away from that fear of listening to yourself you would be amazed of how how much you can detect yourself from the way you speak so i think rewarding yourself and really you know listening carefully to what you're saying i think it helps a lot yeah it's a horrible experience but it's you have to do it i think it's just have to bite the bullet and do it because exactly nobody likes hearing themselves the next i have a couple of questions from the connected so i'll ask them together one from andy i think that's the pronunciation and another one from alexandra um so angie asks will i be downgraded for mixing british and american pronunciation and spelling this is a unique question so and yeah and alexandra asks and what about vocabulary if somebody adheres to american english pronunciation and spelling but uses the word lift instead of elevator in the writing paper we penalized so i've often say that there needs to be consistency in the spelling in writing if you use you got it yeah british english spelling for one word you need to use it in the rest of the this is now they're referring to the speaking and writing what's your yeah no you got it i'm um i think you got it because it's not it doesn't really matter i mean even even in your if it's if english is your first language um just to give you an example i was i was speaking to a friend because i'm you know i've i've been living in madrid for so long and most of my co-workers are british people i've been exposed to a lot of british expressions and and you know words and and idioms that now they seem very natural to me and just to give you an example i was having a chat with a friend from fort lauderdale um um a couple of months ago and then he asked me like hey frank how are you doing and and i said well i'm knackered i'm knackered and then he he was like why you're you're wide i'm yeah i'm not heard you don't you don't know what knackered is it's then i i came to to realize that oh sorry i'm you know beaten you know i'm tired i'm and he was like or you're hanging out with too many breeds yeah because just in case any people don't know fort lauderdale is in florida in the united states exactly yeah sorry american friend yes and and my my friend is monolingual he doesn't speak spanish he's from new york um he's i think second generation italian from new york moved to uh fort lauderdale basically he's retired and and um yeah we were having this conversation and he was like knackered what is that right it's very particular and and it's it's a british expression you know it's a as they call it a britishism and um but yes i mean it doesn't really matter if in in the speaking for example you mix english words british words with american words it doesn't really matter i mean english has become quite international and i think keeping consistency to that level is unrealistic i mean it's it's expecting too much um in an exam honestly um but you do have to be consistent especially in the writing i mean in the writing for example you can um you can for example spelling realize with an s what you cannot do is mix in the same word in the same writing it doesn't really matter if you do it in the other writing um it doesn't really matter because it's not the same examiner who checks your first writing in the second writing there are two different people so um yeah um and it's completely random so um i'll tell you later about the writing um but in the same writing if you if you spell for example realize with s and then with a z or z um then it's penalized right yeah it doesn't matter sorry it doesn't matter if you say for example lift and then later you say for example i don't know another i'm an american and exactly pants instead of trousers no it doesn't that i mean that kind of no it doesn't matter it doesn't really matter but for example if the student uses the british english spelling of color in the first paragraph but then the american english spelling of neighbor in the third paragraph well that that would be a little bit of inconsistent because it's word building it's it's word building it's um it's the using using the suffix you know well it's not a suffix well it is you can consider it a suffix but it's the same ending like color you know neighbor honor you know words like that yeah yeah it's the same rule so if it's one one version it's without the you one version it's with eu so yeah and what you said about the different examiners mark in different parts because i think alexandra was asking about you know if you use for example lift in the speaking but then elevator in the writing no not gonna be a problem with that no no no actually the the writing is is um uh done in the uk um the checking of the writing is done via online i mean all the that's why they ask students to write with a pen not with pencil because the writings are scanned the booklets are destroyed i mean everything everything except the answer sheets everything gets destroyed um and there's no record of that i mean they don't keep the booklets and you you can do whatever you want on the booklets like you can highlight them you can even you can write in your own language like answers and and whatever i mean it doesn't really matter because it all of that gets destroyed i mean it's the answer sheets and in the writing for example since they scan them it has to be legible you know like you have to read it clearly and that's why they require students to write with pen not with pencil um so the scanned copies are then put in a system the examiners log on to that system and then they randomly have to correct they they are not even allowed to mark like do markings or annotations on the writings i mean they don't even touch them they see on one side of the screen they see the scan and the other side i think it's that's the way it is um they see for example they have the the clicks you know they click on the marking for every section and then they submit that's it i mean they and they have to do it fairly quickly you know of course they are highly trained they have uh writing examiners have a lot of experience and you know they they they also have a guideline you know like um oh for this writing this is what is expected of the student pretty much as you can find in for example one of the trainer books you know the official exam preparation material uh i think you have macmillan also has a test builder i think it's called test builder in the answer keys at the end of the book at the back of the book you have like this is these are the elements that the students should be able to speak about and then they have those guidelines and that plus the you know the criteria used to evaluate the the writing then they receive a mark and imagine that you are an examiner and then you open a writing a task one writing you will not see tests took from the same candidate i mean you just see one task for a you know a candidate and that and that task is double checked by another examiner and then there's a like a you know an average right i see it yeah very interesting you

Channel: To The Point English with Ben.

Views: 3,220

Keywords: cae exam tips, c1 advanced cambridge tips, fce exam tips, b2 first cambridge tips, c1 advanced cambridge exam tips, cpe exam tips, c2 proficiency cambridge exam tips, c2 proficiency cambridge tips, c2 proficiency tips, how to pass the cae exam, how to pass the c1 advanced cambridge exam, how to pass the c1 advanced cambridge, how to pass the c2 proficiency cambridge english exam, how to pass the cambridge english exam c1, how to pass the c2 proficiency cambridge exam, cae tips

Id: 3CFliOVfLvY

Length: 41min 25sec (2485 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 11 2021