English For Exams Classes: How Not To Be Boring

Exams – who enjoys them? Not a person, surely. 

Exams are stressful, anxiety-inducing and boring. Exams are serious business – for both students and teachers. Students have the pressure of getting the desired results. Teachers have the pressure of, well, the students getting their desired results.  

When was the last time you wrote an exam? Do you remember how you felt? If you’re anything like most people we know, taking an exam is not high on your list of favourite things to do. 

What are EFL exams?

Sorry to say, just because you’re now a teacher doesn’t mean you’ve said goodbye to exams forever – and it doesn’t make them any less stressful or boring. Your students are going to need to write exams regularly, in your class and for official exams. 

Official EFL exams include the Cambridge exams, IELTS, TOEFL, TOEIC and Pearson PTE, among others. These are international exams used by educational institutions, employers and governments all over the world to assess an English learner’s proficiency in English. 

Read more: What Is An English Level Test?

When you think about it, taking a language exam is not just about regurgitating knowledge, it’s about performing. In fact, because EFL exams often include an element of speaking they can be more frightening than regular exams.

Why do TEFL teachers teach exams?

Teaching an exam class has many perks. 

• Your students are motivated. 
• There is a clear goal. 
• You are usually provided with good resources to use. 
• It’s a lucrative specialisation. 

Taking an English exam is a big deal – your students’ employment or education future could depend on it – which means that exam classes are considered serious places of learning. Exam students know they are expected to work hard. They want to work hard to get the grade they need on the exam.

Doesn’t sound like much fun, does it?

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy and all that. Working hard is one thing, but learning a language is about so much more than what happens in the classroom. Learning a language is about loving the language, and that’s not going to happen if you can only see an exam in your future.

So how on earth can we make something as dry as an exam class stress-free for our students – and even, dare we say it, interesting and fun?

Read more: Teaching English For Exams vs General English

How can I teach Exam English without being boring?

Know thy enemy

To teach an exam class effectively you need to know the exam inside and out. Each exam has different formats, different questions, different skills and different strategies. The teacher needs to be able to anwer any question your students might have about the exam. This instils confidence in your ability and knowledge. 

Plus, once you’ve got a handle on the particular exam you’re teaching, you’ll have the confidence and know-how to teach the curriculum with creativity – and deviate when you deem it necessary.

Deal with the anxiety

EFL exams are scary. Your job as a teacher is to identify the triggers for your students and address them. This can be done by structuring a lesson around exams and the feelings associated with them. This should include reflection and discussion. 

Then relate it directly to the exam in question (IELTS, TOEFL or TOEIC, for example) and get very specific about your students’ situation.

Common reasons given for being anxious about EFL exams include:

Problem: Not knowing what to write or say

Solution: Help them understand that language exams are not about what they know, they’re about how you communicate. In other words, it usually doesn’t matter what you say, so focus on how you say it.

Problem: Not knowing how to answer a question

Solution: A lack of familiarity with the exam can cause your students to worry that they won’t know how to answer a question. Even though it’s not always fun or exciting, making sure students are familiar with exam questions is crucial. You don’t want your students to get any nasty surprises on the day of the exam.

Problem: Freezing during a speaking exam

Solution: Do practice speaking exams in class. At first you can let them do this in pairs with their friends who they feel comfortable with. Later, though, you should do mock exams in a more exam-like scenario with an examiner they are not familiar with.

Problem: Going blank

Solution: The only way to get over confidence issues is to practise practise practise. Be sure to incorporate lots of public speaking into your lessons over the course of your class.

Problem: Making careless mistakes

Solution: Doing practise exams during class is essential. Giving them for homework is also an option but doing them in class incorporates an element of necessary stress. Also, it means you can be strict on time. When you do practise exams in class, include five or ten minutes for your students to go over their answers. Try getting them into the habit of checking their work so as to avoid making silly mistakes.

Keep calm and carry on

We know that we should try to create a calm, welcoming environment in our classroom for our students to learn in. 

Our students need to be relaxed and open to learning in order for our teaching to be effective. If you follow Stephen Krashen, this is what he means when he speaks about lowering the affective filter.

Shift the focus

Students preparing for an exam are likely to be very focussed on the end goal: the exam. They expect classroom activities to prepare them in some way for the exam. This is most obvious when the activities mimic aspects of the exam. But this is quite a narrow view on language learning. Your students are learning English to speak English, not pass an exam, right? 

Avoid relating everything that is done in class to the exam. Activities can be done to practise exam-related language structures and skills without explicitly bringing up the connection.

Put the book down

Making use of games and activities which are more light-hearted are a great way to take your students’ minds off the exam. The secret? Even if you’re not doing an exam task, you can still be practising relevant language – and your students won’t even realise.

Try it: tell your students to close their coursebooks and watch the entire class breathe a collective sigh of relief!

Shake it up

At the same time as having fun, it is still necessary to put in the work. Have fun with games and activities but also spend time on practice exams and exam tasks. Your students will appreciate that they are still focussing on the exam and these periods of hard work will make them enjoy the fun times even more.

Teachers naturally wonder about how to make a class fun for students, or what is a fun way to teach an English lesson. But that becomes even more important when it comes to English Exam Preparation classes when we need to juggle the serious aspects of the class with the interests and motivation of the students.

It’s not advisable for your students to maintain a high level of stress throughout the exam course, which can run for up 12 weeks. Focussing on the exam for all that time will cause exhaustion and burnout. Your students will become bored with exam practice and will lose interest in studying.

That’s why we say, English for Exams classes don’t need to be boring!