Common mistakes in TEF Canada speaking
How should you prepare for the speaking section? Many people think the key is to work through specific exam topics in advance.
On the Internet, people constantly share topics they come across. You can easily make a list, select vocabulary, sketch out abstracts and hope that your exam will show something from this long list... ⠀
But the theory of probability may not work in your favor. Themes are updated from time to time. ⠀
Of course, chasing yourself according to a ready-made list is not a useless practice. Especially if you have a lot of time on your hands. ⠀
But it is much more important not to memorize a specific topic, but to learn how to respond correctly to any proposed option. You should not have a library of ready-made texts in your head, but a good algorithm for speaking. ⠀
To do this, you need to see the exam as a whole. I analyzed dozens of topics that candidates have ever encountered and came up with my own typification of tasks. ⠀
I have already written about this - look for the article entitled “Oral part of TEF. What topics to prepare for” It describes 8 types of tasks that may fall into the A section. The same types exist for section B. ⠀
How you build a dialogue depends on each type - you can read about all this in detail in that post. And today I want to dwell on one more point. ⠀
If in section A in TEF we ask the examiner on the proposed topic, then in the second we must convince him to accept your point of view, take an action, decide on something. ⠀
And here, trying to prepare topics in advance, candidates forget that it is the quality of the dialogue that is important. First of all, the examiners will evaluate how well you can listen to your interlocutor, how you react to his arguments and how you build your counterarguments based on the current situation. ⠀
This cannot be memorized in advance, because there is always a moment of impromptu, you need to be on your guard. ⠀
Therefore, in addition to practicing specific topics, grammar, vocabulary, pay attention to how you will react to arguments, how to competently get out of situations when you did not understand your interlocutor. Learn to be consistent and persuasive.