Speaking Part 1 in Preliminary (PET), First (FCE) and Advanced (CAE) are all quite similar and can be practised with these fantastic chat cards!
Chat cards are great because you can use them in lots of different ways. They could be a warmer for a rainy day, they could be used as part of a game where the chat card serves as a type of forfeit, they can be used in examiner/candidate role plays or they can be extended into vocabulary building activities where the teacher pushes the students to improve their answers by using specific lexis.
For all the exams, Speaking Part 1 is a short ice breaker where the examiner will ask the candidates a few personal questions. The topics are more or less the same from one exam to the next, the noticeable difference is in the way the questions are written.
Contents
Possible topics for Speaking Part 1
- Your home
- Daily life
- Friends and family
- Freetime
- Education
- Work
- Travel
- Hobbies (sports, games etc.)
- Entertainment (TV, film, music etc.)
- Media (news, radio, newspapers etc.)
- Technology (mobile phones, internet etc.)
- The future
How to prepare for Speaking Part 1
Students often take this part of the exam quite lightly. They might not worry about it because it seems like an easy and inconsequential part of the speaking exam. However, this is the first impression that they will give to the examiners so a misstep here could cost them a lot.
Help your students by preparing them for all the topics listed above and getting as much practice as possible. Don’t let them ramble on, but make sure they extend their answers too. As the levels increase from PET to FCE to CAE, the expectation that candidates will produce something substantial also increases.
The Materials
Use these Speaking Part 1 chat cards as a warmer, cooler or filler. As students get closer to their exam date, they should be able to give nice extended, but concise, answers to these questions. Extend the activity by having your students make their own!
EXAM PART: Speaking
EXAM SKILLS: Discussing familiar topics, discourse management
TIME: 20 minutes
PREPARATION: Print on to card and cut up a set for each group of 2-3 students
Download
