A. How are they getting on?*
This is what Nastya, an English teacher, thinks about some of her students.
Jade has a wide vocabulary [knows a lot of words] and speaks very accurately [without mistakes], but she needs to practise her speaking more in order to become more fluent [able to speak naturally without stopping].
Angel is quite fluent, but his accent [the way he pronounces words] is not very good. In particular, he has problems with certain consonants [letters of the alphabet (a–z), which are not the vowels a, e, i, o, u].
Jose has no problem making himself understood [saying things in a way people understand], but he needs to increase his vocabulary [make it bigger], because at the moment it’s quite basic [elementary; syn simple].
Olga is always willing to [happy and ready to] experiment with language [try something new to see what it is like]. For that reason she sometimes gets things wrong [makes mistakes], but she learns from her mistakes and she’s making a lot of progress.
Andreas is a fantastic language learner. He picks things up [learns things without trying] very quickly, and he has a good ear for language [is good at hearing, repeating and understanding sounds and words].
*What progress are they making?
Common mistakes
We use adjectives with nouns, and adverbs with verbs.
He’s a fluent speaker. (NOT He’s a fluently speaker.) She speaks accurately. (NOT She speaks accurate.)
I need to speak English well. (NOT I need to speak English good.)
B. Examinations
Language help
You can take or do an exam (NOT make an exam). If you are successful and do well, you pass; if
you are not successful and do badly, you fail. Before taking an exam, you revise for the exam.
[study /prepare for the exam] Sometimes you can also retake an exam. [do it again]
“My students are taking the Cambridge English: First exam in June, and for some of them it will be hard work¹. I think Angel might fail, but he’s doing his best², so with a bit of luck he might pass. I expect most of the others to pass. Andreas is a strong candidate³, and I’m sure he’ll get a good grade (syn mark). I think Jade and Olga will also do well.
At the moment I’m trying to get through⁴ the coursebook so that we can do some revision⁵. I think the most important thing is to do some exam preparation⁶. Today I want the students to do/write an essay⁷. Most of them still find it difficult to write accurately, so I need to work on that with them.”
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