A Taste of My Students´ Oral Exams

Here is an example of the oral exam that Noé prepared when I suggested the topic for the third term - click here to read my suggestions

 

Noé, thanks for sharing the video

A Monologue About Yourself

Here´s one of the options for your oral exam for the third term: record a monologue about you; the video below, A Conversation With My 12-Year-Old Self,  may be useful to get some ideas.

You need to reflect on your life: your past, your present and your future:

• Past: memories (focus on the positive ones) and moments that were a turning point - or just special for you-  in your biography

• Present: your school life, your friends, hobbies, extracurricular activities

• Future: expectations: what do you think your life will be like in 10 years´time? what are your plans for your future?

Requirements: 

• the video must be 4-7 minutes long

• you must write the text (I will help you with grammar, vocabulary and expression) and make sure both pronunciation and intonation are OK. Thus, you may need/want  to use either a pronunciation tool or a text-to-speech tool (Voz Me is one of them but there are many others you may choose from the list in My Delicious Bookmarks) 

• when you record the video, you may read the text but you will need to rehearse quite a few times before the recording, reading it in front of a mirror so that it will sound and look natural

• send me the video when it is ready: dateline June 10th

Test Schedule First Term 2013-14

TESTS FIRST TERM

1ºBAC, GROUPS “A” & “F”

	October	November	December
Grammar / Vocabulary / Writing / Reading Comprehension	Friday 25th	Friday 29th
Listening	Friday 18th		Friday 13th
Compulsory reading: Dancing with Strangers	Stories 1 & 2:  Monday 28th	Stories 3 &4:  Monday 18th WRITTEN TEST: Friday 22nd
Oral			Starting on 2nd  December

1ºBAC, GROUP “B”

	October	November	December
Grammar / Vocabulary / Writing / Reading Comprehension	Thursday 24th	Thursday 28th
Listening	Thursday 17th		Thursday 12th
Compulsory reading: Dancing with Strangers	Stories 1 & 2:  Tuesday 29th	Stories 3 & 4:  Tuesday 19th WRITTEN TEST: Thursday 21st
Oral			Starting  on 3rd  December

2º BAC, GROUPS "B" &"F"

	October	November	December
UEE	Tuesday 29th		Tuesday 3rd
Listening		Thursday 7th	Thursday 5th
Grammar & Vocabulary		Thursday 28th
Compulsory Reading: Speak (novel)	Tuesday 22nd: 1st Marking Period	Tuesday, 19th: 2nd Marking Period Thursday 21st: WRITTEN TEST
Oral		Starting on November  5th

                        

And, finally, a message for teachers and students from Kid President (turn captions on; he speaks too fast)

Exams: First-marking-period

English teachers are used to spending long hours correcting but right now, as the first term is coming to an end and we need to have marks ready for the first-marking-period, texts, essays and projects just pile up on our desks... 

I can´t help identifying myself with this image- which I use in my posts over and over again: whenever I find myself  surrounded by exam papers, I remember it because it is so real, I feel just like that sometimes.... And I wish for an easy way to grade exams, reports, papers, something like this one explained here:

Enjoy yourself with the following examples of exam-related situations - we need some humor to start the weekend: 

* Peculiar topics for essays:

* Narrative essays:

* Students´attitude in relation to essays:

* With a little help from the teacher...

* Examples of  weird answers:

* Handwriting- a big problem teachers face:

Hava a nice (rainy) weekend!

Flash-mob Exam

With so many tests these days, I wouldn´t like to see this in one of my classes; well, maybe if I could play the violin...

This happened during an engineering exam at the University of Toronto