What is the Trinity ISE exam? Many of us have years of experience teaching exams. You might have spent decades teaching IELTS or Cambridge Main Suite exams, as was my case, and never heard of the Trinity ISE exams before. Then you get assigned a Trinity ISE preparation course and suddenly you have to learn a whole new assessment from scratch. Never fear, Breakout English has materials for you to get to know the exam so that your students know what they are getting themselves into.
Contents
What is the Trinity ISE exam?
The Trinity ISE exams are unique in many ways. The goal of Trinity College London is to create exams which use real-life situations to test the language skills of its candidates. Here are some of the elements of the Trinity ISE exams that I find unique:
- The reading is integrated into the writing. Candidates have to use the texts from Reading Task 2 to write a text in the following writing task.
- Listening is evaluated during the speaking exam. Trinity makes a point of distinguishing between interactive listening and independent listening.
- All the listening is done 1-to-1 with the examiner following the speaking exam. There’s no paper, no multiple choice and no confusing questions.
- The speaking can be prepared ahead of time. At least the first part, the Topic Task, can be.
- Trinity specifies exactly what topics are possible in the different exams, so you can prepare for them.
Those are just the tip of the iceberg as to the unique qualities of the Trinity ISE exams. Over the years I’ve taught Trinity, I’ve grown to appreciate certain parts of it and, unsurprisingly, grown to resent parts. As I believe is true for any exam. But overall, I believe it’s a perfectly decent assessment of students’ level within the band of their CEFR level.
Where can I find out more about the Trinity ISE exam?
If you’re looking for detailed information about the format of the Trinity ISE exams. Trinity themselves have an extensive website with information and materials for exam training.
If you’re looking for a detailed evaluation of Trinity exams, a friend and colleague of mine, Scott Donald, has written an interesting post on his blog, A Little More Action Research, about the difference in difficulty between Trinity and Cambridge exams.
If you’re looking for materials to use in class, explore Breakout English’s Trinity categories and take advantage of the materials on this page to use at the start of your Trinity preparation course.
The Materials
Use this find someone who and jigsaw reading to test and teach your students about Trinity Exams. There is a version for ISE I and for ISE II. Great for the first day or two of a Trinity ISE Exam preparation course.
EXAM PART: All
EXAM SKILLS: Understanding the exam format
TIME: 30-40 minutes
PREPARATION: One copy of the Find Someone Who per student. One of each text A, B, C and D cut up per group of 4 students.
PROCEDURE:
- Begin with the Find Someone Who to find out how much your students already know about the exam.
- Hand out the texts, one per student, in groups of 4.
- Allow 5-10 minutes for students to read the texts and highlight information that answers questions in the Find Someone Who.
- Have the students mingle to ask each other questions. Get them to try without using the texts at first. Then let them use the texts if necessary. Make sure they use correct question forms and that they switch partners after one or two questions.
- Follow up with full class feedback.
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