Spoken Learner Corpus
In recent years, Trinity College London has been working in collaboration with the Centre for Corpus Approaches to Social Science at Lancaster University to build up a corpus of spoken language used in GESE exams at B1-C2 level. This corpus is being used in a variety of research contexts, including second language acquisition, language testing, L2 pedagogy and materials development. You can find more information about the Spoken Learner Corpus project on the Trinity College London website here. On the site there is some interesting information about what a corpus is, how the corpus is being used in research, how corpus findings can inform teaching pedagogy. and some of the main research findings of the project so far.
Teaching Materials
But for us GESE and ISE teachers, the most valuable information to come out of this project are the findings about the differences between successful and less successful candidates in GESE exams. This information has been used to produce a range of worksheets and teacher’s notes to help students prepare for speaking at B1 and B2 level. All the worksheets are based on data from the corpus and provide useful information about what candidates should be doing to be successful in their speaking exams at these levels. We’ve given some of these worksheets a try, and we think that they really help students to think about what they should be doing in the exam. So thank you Trinity, for easing the preparation load for teachers and giving us some great materials!
Speaking Skills
The worksheets focus on developing students’ speaking skills – here’s a summary of those skills:
B1
Successful speakers…
- are clear about their opinions
B2
Successful speakers…
- ask questions
- make sure they understand
- use a variety of ways to manage hesitation
- show they are listening
- take responsibility for the conversation
- use a wide range of expressions
- are clear about their opinions
The worksheets can be downloaded from here – give them a try with your B1 and B2 students and let us know what you think!