Cambridge ESOL Young Learners

Back in the country 24 hours after a delightful break in Australia, before grabbing my pre-packed suitcase of training materials and legging it to Haneda for a flight to Chitose (Sapporo). I wish I hadn't double checked my careful pre-holiday packing as I dumped some rather important bits, stupidly. Thank heavens our ESOL exam venues are predictably well-supported by publishers such as Cengage, OUP & CUP who have the vision, and teachers who use the best materials. (Still, pretty dumb to leave vital stuff on my office floor!)

I don't mind the travelling, but the dislocation annoys me; half the train trip to Tokyo is 'out of service' for internet connection. That does mean the other half of the trip is  'connected', but the on/off nature of the tunnel interruptions means you cannot actually get anything done. Work on plane? Mostly pointless, as searching for a connection kills battery-life.

Anyway, I was in Sapporo to finally make sure our northern lights were still able to examine - this coming weekend. A rush job, then. Well done Kate, Peter, Vicky, and Mary; scripts remembered and assessment criteria under control. Special guest star Brick made sure we also have a full house of squared away examiners when we are finally able to offer KET & PET in Hokkaido, something we at Luna have been keen to achieve since 2007. Looking forward to Lower Main Suite exams taking place in Hokkaido in May, as well as in Fukushima, Niigata, Nagano, Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka - and in association with our colleagues at JP176 in Okayama too.

Congratulations in the meantime to our young achievers here at home, who stepped up at the end of October. Here is Kaeda with proud mum (and shy sister) and Simon sensei (namesake of her first teacher), receiving her Starters certificate. this is just the start Kaede - onwards and upwards :)

Lower Main Suite exams - Nagoya

I had an early start on Saturday morning, driving down to Nagoya at dawn. It was a beautiful crisp morning, and not too much traffic. Unfortunately, because of an unannounced room change I could not find the exams - not a promising start.

My mission today was to monitor the performance of the oral examiners - despite the large number of candidates I still had to scurry from room to room so I could catch all of our OEs in action. I'm glad I filled in as much as I could on the checklists before I left - was very hectic! Lunch didn't exist, as the supervisors were not too clever with their packing drill - an annoying situation as there was plenty of potential for a mistake/lost scripts.

The afternoon session was more of the same; I was hoping to check on invigilating as well, but the speaking tests took a bit longer than planned, and the written papers were all done by the time we were done with the speaking tests. I am glad I managed to see all of our OEs in action - some more than others - as it is very important that quality is maintained and that examiners are kept up to par. It is very easy to let bad habits slip into our performance; it is just as important that examiners who are doing a good job are told as much.