Kirnetics: Advanced English. IELTS, FCE, CAE.

TKT YL exam results 💯 Another student of mine has received her results in TKT Young Learners. Band 4 is the maximum you can get in each module, so we aced it 🎊 Anastasia started lessons with me a few months ago. As an English teacher, she decided to focus on methodology, pass TKT YL, and prepare for the CELTA course. TKT is an initial qualification and doesn't require any previous credentials. There are three main modules + two specialist modules (YL and CLIL). Each module lasts 80 minutes and consists of one paper. This is a theory test and does not require you to show your teaching skills. Meanwhile, I find it rather useful. It will give you some initial understanding of ELT methodology and ideas for your teaching. There are special textbooks and glossaries for preparation. If you make a point of learning all terminology, you will be fine. Links shared in comments.

CPE results 💫 Last week, my student took her CPE and a few days ago she received her results! She scored 215, which entitles her to Grade B! A feather in our caps 🎉 What did we focus on? A year ago, Varvara was an inhibited speaker. We had to work extensively on fluency, discourse management and responsiveness. At a later stage, language variety and complexity were added. She went a long way from being a C1 speaker to a confident C2 speaker. Similarly, we focused on writing a lot. Genre awareness, organisational patterns, lexical subtleties - all these affect the score and have to be covered in CPE preparation. Writing is the hardest skill to master, and I am glad Varvara has developed so much awareness of it. What went wrong? Evidently, reading. Varvara scored 220-230 in every single mock assessment and homework, but in the exam, RUE 6 was disastrous and apparently affected the results. Reportedly, listening was also hard (warned you all), but it had no impact on the score. I am proud of Varvara and her achievement. It is a feat to sit CPE and score so high ❤️

my answer to listen to

My UNEDITED answer to IELTS Speaking 2 ️☘️⚡️ ✅ Language to borrow ✅ • to gain traction - to become popular • a hotel broker - a site that allows you to book a hotel (e.g. Booking) • to be on the lookout for sth - to look for sth • to jump at an opportunity - to use an opportunity • to pose a challenge to sb - to be challenging • a snag - small problem Well, the platform I'm going to talk about isn't exactly a website, rather an app which is backed up by a site. The platform in question is Airbnb. It is an application which allows you to find short-term rent if you are on a short trip or on vacation. I assume it gained traction somewhat 10 years ago as a cheaper alternative to hotel brokers. So, I was on my way to France and was on the lookout for some cheap rent. And I knew that on Airbnb I could find some affordable options, so I jumped at this opportunity. What I really appreciated about the application is that it is very user-friendly and transparent. The interface is intuitively clear, and not a single time did I experience any issues with search filters or communication with hosts. There is actually another advantage that I can point out. The application has an inbuilt translator, like Google Translate or whatever, which allows you to make yourself understood even if you don't know the target language. This is exceptionally convenient because sometimes getting a message across can pose a challenge even if you share the same language. In general, I was highly pleased with the service and the only snag I had related to payment. For whatever reason, a few of my transactions didn't go through and to my huge surprise, the tech support were of no use. And they didn't give me any feedback on what might have gone wrong. But that's my only criticism. If I were to answer the question whether or not I will be using this app in the future, the answer is a definite yes, because it's one of the most convenient applications that I have been using recently. P.S. All answers in this hashtag #speaking@kirnetics are unedited and come as I recorded them.

LISTENING ANNOUNCEMENT 😰 I warn all my students about the dangers of listening in CAE and CPE. This skill is easy for many learners, but when they come to the exam, they report difficulties. For the last year, I have heard complaints about the listening part from 90% of my students who sat the exam. These include those whose listening scores in mock tests consistently show grade A. How can you mitigate the risk of flopping listening? 1. When you prepare, don't rely on official preparation textbooks alone. Do more difficult listening tasks too (e.g. I like those in Upstream Advanced/Proficiency). 2. Practise listening with different devices. Quite often, we are used to the sound quality on our laptop, so when it is slightly different on another device (echo, frequency, etc.), our brain gets confused. Use your phone, tablet, or JBL, with and without headphones. It will help you get used to technical variability. 3. Raise your blood sugar level. Listening is the last paper in the written exam. By this time, you will have been working intensively for 3 hours, so your brain may start shutting down. In most centres in the world, you leave the exam room for 5-7 min between papers. Make sure an energy bar or a Sprite is there on the windowsill (you are not allowed to bring food inside the exam room). This will help you reboot your brain a little. 4. Report problems to invigilators. Before your listening paper, a test will be run to ensure everyone can hear the audio and the equipment works well. If you are not satisfied with sound quality or volume, always say so to the organiser. It is your right, and you should exercise it!

❗️LANGUAGE PRACTICE❗️ LEVEL: C1-C2 Choose a,b,c, or d. Many companies around the world are trying to increase 1. __________ satisfaction. One of the most effective ways to do so is to offer workers more fringe benefits. These include any type of 2. ________ compensation, such as sick leave, daycare, healthcare insurance, or tuition 3. __________. Extensive research suggests that employee benefits not only improve job satisfaction, but also contribute to 4. _______ retention. 1. a. employee's; b. employees'; c. employee; d. employees 2. a. intangible; b. non-wage; c. in-kind; d. immaterial 3. a. finance; b. compensation; c. reimbursement; d. refund 4. a. worker; b. workers; c. worker's; d. workers' #practice@kirnetics

How is punctuation assessed? 📌 Everyone hates commas, but we need to know our enemy. In different exams, punctuation is assessed using different criteria. In IELTS, punctuation is assessed as part of Grammar. Like this, a Band 8 candidate will need to show that "The majority of sentences are error-free, and punctuation is well managed." If we translate this into normal language, your whole essay had better be error-free, trust me 😓 In the Cambridge line, punctuation is mostly assessed in Organisation. So, if you read the breakdown of assessment for CAE essays, you will see comments like "Punctuation is used to good effect" or "However, more attention to punctuation would improve the overall effect of the text". In my experience, missing a comma or two is not a huge thing and will not drag you down your score unless it impedes communication.