CAMBRIDGE SPEAKING EXAMS – JUNE 2014 - GENERAL FEEDBACK

1) JUNE SPEAKING EXAMS STATISTICS:

- 39 speaking examiners worked
- 1026 candidates were examined:
KET: 7 - PET: 399 - FCE: 183 - CAE: 79 - CPE: 26 - KETfS: 69 - PETfS: 163 - FCEfS: 100
A very big thank you to all the examiners for your 100% punctuality, and especially to those
examiners who offered to examine (sometimes at quite short notice) in cases of illness or
examiners not being available.

2) NEW EXAMINER TRAINING

In March this year, 15 examiners trained up for FCE (3 of whom were already KET/PET
examiners) and 9 for PET (1 of whom was an FCE/CAE examiner). They all successfully
negotiated the rather long and laborious process of filling in CVs, one or two 4-hour sessions
and two or more marks collections: well done! The team now includes a total of 41 examiners.
All the new examiners were monitored in June and all performed very well. As experienced
examiners will tell you, it gets much easier when you’ve done it a few times before.

3) MONITORING FEEDBACK SHEETS

Examiners have to be monitored at least every two years, so if you weren’t monitored this year,
it’ll be in December or next year. I’ve sent everyone individual feedback on the monitoring, on
a form which is also sent to Cambridge.

4) EXAMINING ISSUES SEEN WHILE MONITORING

As I monitored, I noted down some issues which are worth commenting:
1) We should all remember to “clear the decks” before a speaking test – i.e. ask the students to
put their bags, books, papers on the chairs at the back. This ensures the table is clear for the
materials
2) Some people used extra paper to take notes as Assessor: please make sure these papers are
ripped up and thrown away and not taken away from the exam centre
3) I’ve asked Mila in future to give out the list for the students’ names on A4 portrait, not
landscape, so you can cover photo with it if needed. Also, both assessor and interlocutor will
get one, so assessor can see the interlocutor’s & own numbers
4) A few interlocutors looked a bit too serious: the tests went best when the interlocutor
smiled and was friendly and encouraging: this put the candidates at ease, which helps them to
do their best
5) I’ve noted down some tricky exam questions which didn’t work very well:
e.g. PET Part 1 – “Tell me about your phone?”
PET Part 4 – “Talk together about how you get home and who you travel with.”
Some candidates actually gave very good answers to these, but weaker candidates didn’t really
understand them and never got going, so I’ll include them in my feedback to Cambridge.
6) In feedback, we had a few interesting discussions about what the interaction should be like
in FCE Part 4. Sometimes, when interlocutors threw a question at both candidates and made
the “priestly hand gesture”, the students shifted their chairs to look at each other and
continued in Part 3 “pair-work mode”, giving short answers and questions to each other e.g.
“Would you like to start or shall I?” “Yes, I agree” etc.
However, I think we ought to aim at a slightly different speaking format in Part 4 – perhaps the
best description would be “longer individual contributions in turns”. So, maybe it’s best not to
make the “priestly gesture”, just throw a question up, or name a candidate before asking the
question, then extend it to the other candidate with “And you”/”What do you think?”.
7) Quite a few examiners didn’t get the mechanics of handing out photos quite right. With PET
Part 3 (1 photo) or FCE Part2 (2 photos), there is a short instruction “Your photos show people
…-ing” which should be said before the photos are handed out: please remember this. Also,
photos should all be collected in straight after the 1 min turn, and not left out e.g. in the
partner’s short answer for FCE, even if the follow-up question is related to the photo.
8) When candidates spoke for longer than 1 min, and didn’t seem to show signs of stopping,
this was very-well handled and examiners, in all cases I saw, stretched over to touch the photos
and slowly pull them away “in a firm but friendly way”.
9) In Part 1 of all levels, please remember to name a candidate first before asking a question. If
you look at it from the candidates point of view, if a question is asked and then the name
added at the end, they are both waiting nervously to know if they have to speak or not.

5) FILLING IN MARKS SHEETS

This was done fine by the vast majority. Please make sure the box is filled in completely and not
a general pencil blob or a squiggle on and around the box. You should fill in the lozenge, the
whole lozenge and nothing but the lozenge 
Also, if you use dots to “hone in”, could you please rub out the dots before filling in the
lozenge?
There were very few cases of missed out info, and it was in both cases an examiner or
candidate number which had been omitted: so please check carefully at the end of session that
all these have been filled in, by flicking through the sheets.

6) SPECIAL NEEDS TESTS

This year for the first time we had a blind candidate (taking KET for Schools). The exam was
done by Jayne (interlocutor) and Jessica (assessor). The test was done in the individual format:
Part 1 was just the same (questions) but Part 2 was quite different, with the interlocutor taking
the second part in the pair work and using unabridged Braille sheets as materials. It was done
really well, so thank you to Jayne and Jessica for that. We all agreed that it had been a very
positive experience and that it was great to give a blind candidate the chance to do an exam
like this (which usually depends on visual materials).

Anyway, thanks once again for your good examining work and hope you have a great summer!
All the best
Simon

Simon Armour
Team Leader Speaking Exams
Centre NºES030