Tactics for Teaching GEPT

I participated in one workshop which was held by Person Education Taiwan on June second, and the speaker that day was Kenneth Chi who is viewed as an expert in teaching GEPT and has published a series of books concerning the preparation books for GEPT. He shared the concepts of tactics for teaching GEPT with his own style of gestures, beautiful pronunciation, outstanding appearance,charming  outfit for formal workshop as well as his sense of humor from time to time. He wished to introduce the whole course planning and some guidelines before teaching, while teaching, after teaching as well as tips for four-skill teaching. I type the handout he shared as well as the main concepts from the powerpoint he presented as below. He also suggested us read “ How to teach exams” if we are interested in teaching GEPT or wish to assist students to pass the exams.

Before you teach

1.         Believe in the advantages of the exam

l         Test students’ language ability

l         Motivate students’ learning

l         Provide students a target to aim at

l         Get students a sense of achievement

l         Give students appropriate pressure

2.         Get yourself familiar with test

3.         Plan for your whole course

l         Toward which level is the class geared

l         How many class hours in total?

l         What should be included?

4.         Plan for each lesson

l         What can be done in one class/ hour?

l         How to link all the classes? ( with consistent teaching activities)

5.         Get a nice preparation book.

l         Books should be suitable for students’ level

l         With clear guides and instructions

l         Sufficient exercises, including two mock tests.

l         Preparation books, vocabulary book and grammar book

While you are teaching

Guidelines for teaching the GEPT test

1.         Familiarize the students with the question patterns

2.         Teach four language skills separately

l         Prepare your students for different parts of the test

l         Raise the linguistic awareness of different tasks that they need

l         Try to pay equal attention to each part and specific details

3.         Try to combine four language skills

l         The same linguistic knowledge can be applied to different language tasks

l         Grammar units

l         Thematic units

4.         Balance the whole and discrete skills

l         Discrete point tests to measure knowledge of individual language items

l         Integrated point tests which require a learner to use several language skills at the same time, such as dictation test

5.         Walk your students through grammar points& vocabulary

l         Prepare a list of grammar rules

l         Find a vocabulary list ---alphabetical order or thematic order

l         Walk your students through grammar points as well as vocabulary

6.         Give review lessons regularly

l         Give pop quizzes or tests

l         Ask questions in class

Tips for class teaching

1.         Give equal attention to all parts

2.         Balance teacher presentation and students practice

l         Demonstrate test taking strategies

l         Have students share their experiences

l         Alternate teacher’s lecture and students’ practices

l         Provide take home exercise to confirm students what they have learned and make sure they know where they are

3.         Demonstrate Test-taking Strategies

4.         Control time

5.         Confirm students what they have learned

After you teach

Try to provide students with exercises

l         Make sure your students know where they are

l         Give Mock exams to test students whether they have reached the level

l         Provide test experiences for students

Tips for teaching four skills

1.     Teaching Grammar and Vocabulary

l         Providing context

l         Teaching through practice

l         Memory strategies for learning new vocabulary

1.         Connecting words to a personal experience.

2.         Sorting and ranking activities

3.         TPR

4.         Pictorial representations

5.         Grouping words by collocations.

2.     Teaching listening

l         Using comprehension questions

l         Using “Listen and Repeat”

l         Using Dictation

3.     Teaching reading

l         Using comprehension questions

l         Using graphic organizers

l         SQ3R: Survey. Question. Read. Recall. Review.

4.     Teaching Speaking

l         Focusing on pronunciation

l         Reading Aloud

l         Using songs and chants

5.     Teaching Writing

l         Conducting whole class composition

l         Having students do peer correction