Professional Development - Nagoya

I was delighted to be asked to provide a KET & PET examiner training session by Mike Stockwell at Sugiyama University in Nagoya. It is really reassuring that some of the people I hold in the highest regard 'get it' i.e. appreciate just how useful the examiner training is to in-service teachers...let along the quality of the actual exams and usefulness to candidates.

On sweltering day, we worked around felafel kebabs for lunch and potent Mojitos afterwards!

KET & PET (CEFR A2 & B1 respectively) are abundantly appropriate for university language students in this country - far much more so than TOEIC, for example. The speaking parts of the tests, which we were training for today, are especially important. Exam-takers interact with each other with graded material to stimulate an exchange, and are not required to talk to a blank PC screen for 3 minutes. Examiners are professionally experienced, annually re-trained and well-paid - not minimum wage, uni students on piece-rates!

Thank you Rob, Tanja, Steve, Cheryl, Jon & Mike for your very hard work and thoroughly professional work ethic. An excellent day's work, and six of the best joining Luna's examiner corp.

From Yamagata - examiner training weekend

Our great northern venues in Yamagata & Fukushima have been co-operating with each other since adopting Cambridge exams, and last weekend the fine tradition continued. MY English Schools in Yamagata are very keen on Cambridge Young Learners, and it was a pleasure to deliver examiner training to their staff on Saturday.

The following day, we had a whole day of Professional Development, which included opportunities to practice & hone our interlocution skills with volunteer candidates. This puts examiners under 'real' exam pressures and is invaluable experience - helps me identify possible areas that need fine-tuning or showcase good habits. The volunteer candidates can enjoy two or three 'practice' goes for free, to help get them in the mood for the actual exams which will be taking place in November (details below). I'd like to thank Ryan's school & staff for their help in organising the weekend, and for all their hard work.



I actually enjoyed the long drive, as the nights' on the expressway coincided with live commentary on the cricket between England & Australia in London...meaningless for most people I know, but blissfully enjoyable for me, and made the 1,100km slip by relatively quickly - just like the Aussie innings!

YLE in Yamagata city: November 10th

Apply to MY English School rhagglund@myeigo.com or via Luna at luna.JP004@gmail.com

YLE in Aizuwakamatsu city: November 17th

Apply to Windmill English Centre windmill@akina.ne.jp or via Luna at luna.JP004@gmail.com

Our recent training sessions - slideshow

Think you will enjoy this slideshow review of the training Luna has conducted over the last three months, in Tokyo & Nagoya. 



Think you have what it takes to become a Cambridge English speaking examiner? Get in touch.

On the job training - experienced EFL teachers in Nagoya

I had the pleasure of training at Happy English Club in Nagoya on Sunday. This is where we were supposed to have been training back in April, except no one told Sean (the owner). So, it was nice to actually meet him this time and a relief to find his door open and my recruits already waiting for me.

It is always interesting visiting another (foreign-owned) language school, as there are always things to learn – décor, layout, classroom organisation, materials (I am an avid bookshelf spy!) & vibe (even if the place is empty, you can get a feel for how things might be). I reckon HEC must be well-organised & child/learning centred. Certainly not one of the cowboys.

Anyway, we used their lovely Apple TV to get acquainted with our levels (First Certificate and Advanced) and to establish good interlocutor practice wrt handling materials, sticking to the script, timing, use of back up questions against allowing a lull to prompt more from candidates, non-verbal communication, intervention. In the past, examiners have been handed the materials ‘cold’, and expected to be able to ‘become’ an examiner magically. Even the experienced teachers find this difficult to achieve, as they have no template upon which to base their behaviour. After all, teachers often feel their classroom role is to provide a safety net/scaffold for their students, and assist in the progression of a discourse…which is an instinct we are trying to ‘pause’ while examining. Closest analogy I can think of is getting England rugby players to provide quick ball to the backs, when they actually produce dinosaur eggs.

These days, examiners are able to access the relevant levels to refresh their assessment online, on demand. It is important in training to have examiners discuss their application of the assessment criteria to candidate performances…plumping for the right number can be a seat of the pants estimate. I insist my examiners produce samples/examples from the videos to back up their assertions as to performance (‘live’ they do not need to do this). They need to be able to ‘place’ these examples within Cambridge’s frames of reference and adopt ‘Cambridge’ speak to negotiate with peers. The hardest thing teachers find with the assessment scales is that they are fully ‘can do’ orientated, so they are driven to focus on what the candidates are able to do/attempting to do, rather than picking up errors/mistakes and cataloguing what they can’t do. So, no “couldn’t use that tense properly”, “didn’t take turns”, “mangled a relative clause” or “has a really strong accent”.

My trainees today did everything asked of them, and impressed me with their willingness to take on new directions. I am very confident that they will be firing on all cylinders in December when I expect them to be in action in Nagoya & Matsumoto – lucky candidates, and lucky JP004.

• If you want to get more info about becoming an examiner, contact Jim by email (or just leave a comment on this posting) & check ELT Calendar.
• If you want to enter your students for any exams go to http://www.luna-jp004.jp
• If you want info about the exams/leaflets, email luna.jp004@gmail.com

Professional development in Osaka - Jim's other job

 If this is Saturday, we must be in Osaka!

I was delighted to be back in examiner training mode - it has been a while. New materials for 2011 to master - some late nights before I legged it to Indonesia last week - and a new city/venue to create a 'cell' in. Hopefully, not sleepers for long.

Discussing assessment - stand your ground

Welcome aboard UK Plus Osaka. Although things came together very last minute, I felt the teachers here handled the challenge very gracefully and professionally...two qualities the job rather demands! Thank you Tony and your staff for getting stuck in. MN, thank you for applying yourself to FCE and CAE - I know you were expecting KET & PET (me too).

It is always reassuring to venture into a school which identifies itself as British - map on the wall, a London bus picture somewhere, proper (Yeah, proper!) exam info and prep classes scheduled. A graded readers programme obvious, and even pictures of the school owner putting his own carpet down. Oh Joy! A fellow traveller!

Peer practice - take it seriously

Now, this won't sound like rocket science, but today I switched the running order of training modules. I have been annoyed that no matter how keen participants are, imagining oneself in the examinee role quickly leads to a breakdown in purpose. I've done it myself - glib, obtuse or daft answers make the trainee interlocutor's job impossible. Usually a colleague or respected peer, it is very hard not to join in with the tension relieving joke or interruption, aside, observation. The interlocutor needs to have a 'clean run' through the script. Using students as practice candidates at this initial stage for my money is unfair on all - reading a script and managing materials, time, assessment, interaction all off the cuff? On top of that, feedback from a hovering observer? No. Not workable.

I was surprised that this had not been suggested before though - after all, ESOL has been the market leader in assessment since whenever, right?! By tackling assessment first (which everyone always assumes is the 'bigger' or more professionally demanding aspect of the examiner's job) we get the serious hats on early. Everyone can impress the crap out of their peers with lofty discourse critiques, isolating grammatical nuances, announcing their experience with particular nationalities' pronunciation etc. Thank you for sharing, everyone! Now, let's look at the assessment criteria and see where everything you just said can be found...Oh dear.

Justify your assessment - refer criteria

Playing field, abracadabra, level. We are looking at "Can do" rather than "Can not". Nowhere will examiners find reference to accents, grammatical shopping lists or body language critiques. In no more than two sentences, assessors have the tools required to accurately 'nail' candidates performances within a mark. Examiners worldwide use the same criteria, watch the same candidate performances, and are required to come to the same conclusions. Like it, or lump it. The bottom line, is "Cambridge ESOL said so" (with apologies to Stone Cold Steve Austin!)

Clearly, watching a variety of examiners deliver the rubric to the letter, on time, neutrally, and professionally is a benefit. Trainees will have taken in the fact that regardless of the materials used, abilities of the candidates, distractions, personal preferences, each speaking test took approximately the same amount of time, each candidate had an equal opportunity and their was no horseplay. Part two of training = replicate that.

When you have no idea of the tone you are supposed to be presenting, I think it is awfully hard for even experienced teachers to switch into examiner role. As teachers, our natural default setting is "help". As assessors, it is perhaps counter-intuitive to focus on candidates abilities rather than the faults they may or may not demonstrate.

In context here in Japan, candidates do not get credit for "being ambitious" - rather, assessment tends to focus on any loss of control or inaccuracies. Net result = lame, middle of the road and 'safe' performances. Getting this single point across to my speaking test examiners is crucial. As soon as we can focus on ambition, development, familiar vs abstract, clarity to the untrained listener eg my mum...we are getting there.

Lady and gentlemen...Osaka is GO    : - )

Training Day in a Wordle