Practising Preliminary Speaking Part 3

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Contents


A. TEACHERS NOTES ...........................................................................................................2
A1. Lesson Plan...............................................................................................................2
A2. Answer keys...............................................................................................................5
A3. Classroom Handout 1................................................................................................6
A4. Classroom Handout 2................................................................................................7
A5. Classroom Handout 3................................................................................................8
A6. Suggested homework/self-study activities...............................................................10
B1. GUIDANCE FOR FOLLOW-UP ACTIVITIES..............................................................11

Practising Preliminary Speaking Part 3
UCLES 2012. This material may be photocopied (without alteration) and distributed for classroom use provided no charge is made. For further
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A. TEACHERS NOTES

Description
Time required: 5560 minutes
Materials
required:
Classroom Handout 1 (enlarged, projected on the IWB or OHP or
one copy for each pair of learners)
Classroom Handout 2 (one copy per learner, each folded in half)
Classroom Handout 3 (one copy of pictures A and B per pair of
learners)
Aims: to practise talking about a picture for one minute, as in Preliminary
Speaking Part 3.
to help learners with techniques such as paraphrasing and
extending sentences.

A1. Lesson Plan
1. Remind/Elicit from learners that in Part 3 of the Preliminary Speaking test they have
to talk about a picture for one minute.
Show the picture on A3 Classroom Handout 1. You can project it onto a whiteboard,
print it out as a large printout or give pairs of learners copies of the picture. Allow
learners in pairs to talk about the picture together for a few minutes.
Elicit some of the vocabulary that learners have used to talk about the photo.
Timing: 8 minutes
2. Read out the instructions (in bold) at the top of A4 Classroom Handout 2. Ask the
learners to tell you the key words from the instructions. You may need to read the
instructions more than once. (Answer: talk on your own; people doing things at the
weekend; photograph; tell us what you can see)
Give out A4 Classroom Handout 2, folded along the dotted line so the top half of the
paper is showing. Allow a minute for learners to read the answer. Elicit that this is not
a very good example of a Part 3 performance by a candidate, and why. You could ask
one of the learners to read the answer out and time it to see how long it takes. Ask
learners to talk in their pairs about how they could improve on this performance.
(Answers: See A2 Answer Keys.)
Timing: 8 minutes
3. Tell learners to turn over Classroom Handout 2 and look at the second example of a
candidate performance. Allow a minute for learners to read the answer. Elicit that this
is a better example. Learners work in pairs to highlight/underline words that make this
Practising Preliminary Speaking Part 3
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a better example. Feed back some ideas with the whole class. (Answers: See A2
Answer Keys.)
Timing: 8 minutes
NOTE: You will need to judge how much detail to go into in the feedback. If learners
are given too many points to improve, they may feel it is beyond them and result in
them losing confidence. You may feel that one of the language skills, for example
extending responses or paraphrasing, is a useful one to focus on. It may even be
enough for learners to get the idea that this is a better response, without too much
detail.
4. Give out A5 Classroom Handout 3 (pictures A and B) to each pair of learners.
Ask them to look at the instructions in bold on the top of Classroom Handout 2 and to
change the underlined words so that they apply to these two pictures. Allow 23
minutes for this, monitoring and helping learners.
Elicit suggestions from learners. There may be a range of possible answers. Agree on
a correct answer, e.g. Im going to give each of you a photograph of young
people doing things at home.
Timing: 5 minutes
5. Number each pair A or B alternately. A pairs look at picture A; B pairs look at
picture B. Learners brainstorm vocabulary that they will need to talk about the
pictures.
Feed back ideas, eliciting collocations such as noun/verb (e.g. make juice; do
homework). (Answers: See A2 Answer Keys.)
Timing: 5 minutes
6. Focus on Picture A. Point to an object learners dont know the word for, e.g. a juicer.
Ask:
Do you know the word for this in English?
Explain that they dont need to know the word for juicer but they will do well in the
exam if they can use other words to explain what the boy is doing or describe the
object. For example:
The boy is making orange juice using a machine.
The boy is using a machine to make orange juice.
The boy has a kind of machine and he is making orange juice with it.
Choose some other objects or actions in either picture that learners dont know in
English, e.g. ladder, climb, proud, stuck. (If learners already know these words, ask
them to imagine they dont!). Give the class one word, and ask learners to paraphrase
it in pairs.
Practising Preliminary Speaking Part 3
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Elicit some ideas, then give another word and repeat the process. For example, The
boy is quite short so he is standing on something like stairs so he can make the juice.
Timing: 8 minutes
7. If possible, reorganise the pairs so that there is one A and one B in each pair. One
learner takes on the role of examiner and the other is the candidate. The examiner
reads out the instructions, using Classroom Handout 2 and the question the class
decided on in Step 4. The candidate speaks about their photograph for at least one
minute.
The examiner listens for good examples of language and times the learner. They
should not let their partner speak for more than two minutes. At the end, the
examiner should give their partner some feedback, e.g. how long they talked for; if
they used good vocabulary, etc.
Swap roles and repeat, using the other picture.
If there is time you can repeat this another two times by reorganising learners into
different pairs and asking them to talk about the picture that they havent previously
talked about.
Monitor while learners are speaking, noting down good examples of language
produced, including anyone who used paraphrase.
Timing: 10 minutes
8. As a rounding up activity, elicit from learners some good examples of language that
they heard from their partner and write them on the board, along with the examples
you have noted down.
Timing: 5 minutes

Practising Preliminary Speaking Part 3
UCLES 2012. This material may be photocopied (without alteration) and distributed for classroom use provided no charge is made. For further
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A2. Answer keys
A2 Lesson Plan
Step 2
simple structures used (There is, They have )
repetition (It is raining. It is wet)
sentences are very short
candidate does not talk for long enough.
Step 3
more complex structures (I can see two people walking rather than There are)
extended sentences by use of conjunction (Its been raining a lot and the ground is
very muddy)
use of referents to avoid repetition (One of them is wearing red boots and the other
one is wearing green boots)
attempts at paraphrase (I think it is an outdoor shopping place. Like a market.)
Step 4
Picture A: kitchen, (step) ladder, short boy, coffee, machine, oranges, making juice
Picture B: Girl, doing Maths homework, exam, kitchen, Mum helping, difficult, bottle of
milk

Practising Preliminary Speaking Part 3
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A3. Classroom Handout 1



Peter Facey; http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/509172; Creative Commons licence: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-
sa/2.0/deed.en
Practising Preliminary Speaking Part 3
UCLES 2012. This material may be photocopied (without alteration) and distributed for classroom use provided no charge is made. For further
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A4. Classroom Handout 2
Now Id like you each of you to talk on your own about something. Im going to give
each of you a photograph of people doing things at the weekend. Candidate A, here is
your photograph. Please show it to Candidate B, but Id like you to talk about it.
Please tell us what you can see in your photograph.

There are two people. They have red boots and green boots. They have an umbrella. One is
holding a bag. It is raining. It is wet. There is a shop.




---------------------------------------fold here---------------------------------------------------------------


I can see two people walking. Theyre wearing boots. One of them is wearing red boots and
the other one is wearing green boots. Theyre wearing boots and theyre holding a very
colourful umbrella. Its like a rainbow. And you cant see their faces. The weather is really
bad. Its been raining a lot and the ground is very muddy. It looks like theyre walking past a
shop - a kind of outside shop. And there are lots of people in the background. I think it is an
outdoor shopping place. Like a market. The person with red boots is holding a yellow plastic
bag so I think she has been shopping.
Practising Preliminary Speaking Part 3
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A5. Classroom Handout 3
Picture A:


Jay Tabatabai; http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kourosh.JPG; Commons licence:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:GNU_Free_Documentation_License_1.2
Practising Preliminary Speaking Part 3
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Picture B


Practising Preliminary Speaking Part 3
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A6. Suggested homework/self-study activities
1. Ask learners to bring in photographs similar to the ones that were used in this activity
(not just portraits of people but pictures of people or groups of people doing things).
Learners can be in the picture as long as they are not easily identifiable. Learners
should try to think of the question that the examiner would ask about the photograph
and write it on the back of the photograph along with their name. The teacher should
bring in a few spare photographs in case some of the learner pictures are
inappropriate for the Part 3 speaking activity.
2. As a follow-on activity, put the photographs up on the classroom walls with numbers
next to them. In pairs, learners can go around the class and look at the pictures
writing down the topic area they think the photograph is in. Go through the topics as a
class, brainstorming useful vocabulary and expressions.
3. The learner photographs can be used in different ways and in on-going activities:
Leave the photographs on the wall. Learners stand in front of a picture of their
choice; there should be one per learner. Ensure that all learners know what the
examiner question is for their photo. Then give them a minute to talk about their
photograph, so that all learners are talking a once. This will help build
confidence with the activity. Tell them when the minute is up and ask them to
move round clockwise to the next picture. Repeat the activity. After a few
pictures, you may want to choose a few confident learners to talk about their
photographs.
Put learners in pairs and ask them to imagine they are examiners. They look at
the photos on the walls and select two that they think could have a similar topic
area. They then use the sentence at the top of A4 Classroom Handout 2 and
rewrite the underlined part so that it applies to their photos/topic area. Put pairs
of learners together in groups of four and set out tables with two chairs facing
two chairs. Then ask learners to rehearse Part 3 of the speaking exam. If the
pair is examiners, then suggest that one is the interlocutor and one is the
assessor. The interlocutor reads out the sentence they have written and the
assessor makes notes of good things that the candidates have said. This
activity empowers learners and helps to demystify this part of the speaking test.
4. If many learners have digital cameras, you could ask them to email you photos along
with their examiner question. You can then put together a slide show on a computer
of the different photos to be used, or print the photos out to put on the wall. As the
speaking test is a static activity, it helps to get some movement into your classroom
by encouraging learners to move around.
5. If you have access to a language lab, these speaking activities can be done by
learners in the lab with the photos as a slideshow. Learners can listen back to their
performance and think about the things they did well and the ways they can improve.

Practising Preliminary Speaking Part 3
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B1. GUIDANCE FOR FOLLOW-UP ACTIVITIES

1. The photographs used in this activity are taken from the internet. This is an
interesting source of a range of pictures. You can also use magazines and
newspapers, and your own or your students pictures.
2. In A2 Lesson Plan Steps 2 and 3, we used examples of candidate performance and
asked learners to evaluate them. You can make up your own examples for learners to
evaluate or improve on, or to compare with their own answers. This can boost
learners confidence, and gives them an idea of the level to which they should be
aiming.
There are video samples of candidates doing the Preliminary test on the Teacher
Support website:
https://www.teachers.cambridgeesol.org/ts/exams/generalenglish/pet/resource
s
3. In A2 Lesson Plan Step 5, learners brainstormed useful vocabulary. This is good
training for learners at this level and helps to activate their vocabulary. When
brainstorming:
Vary the interaction patterns: sometimes in pairs, sometimes large groups or the
whole class, sometimes alone. Learners benefit from the knowledge of others,
but also need to have the independence to think of the language they need on
their own.
Encourage learners to think about collocation, especially of common verbs and
nouns, and verbs and prepositions.
Sometimes its useful to bring together all the words the class has thought of, but
at other times, a brief oral feedback is adequate.
If there are words with tricky spellings, its worth eliciting them and writing them
correctly on the board, to reinforce spelling patterns.
4. In A2 Lesson Plan Step 6, the focus is on paraphrase. This is a useful and important
skill at this level, and gives learners confidence. Develop learners paraphrasing skills
by:
encouraging them to explain a word theyd like to know, rather than asking in L1
not allowing them to point at a picture when referring to something they dont
know
playing games in which learners must describe a word for their team to guess
praising learners use of paraphrase when speaking.