Teaching beyond the Test: A Method for Designing Test-Preparation Classes

Written by a former test developer, the article argues that exam "tricks" waste time. Modern examinations such as IELTS, TOEFL and PTE are built to measure real skills and are hard to coach, so the useful preparation is building those skills.

It sets three goals for a preparation class - know the test, build the skills it measures, and teach the language that supports them - and then shows, with one question type as an example, how to turn what a test measures into class objectives and activities.

1. Take one question type from the examination.
2. Ask what it claims to show about a candidate - what they can do if they answer it well.
3. Break that into sub-skills: for a listening summary item, finding the main idea, following the main points, recognising the same idea said in different words.
4. Write objectives from the sub-skills and design activities for each.
5. With weaker learners, take one objective at a time; with stronger ones, combine several in one task.

The examples are international tests, but the method is exactly what an O/L or A/L General English class needs. Every question on those papers is there to test a skill - reading for detail, writing a notice, summarising - and pupils drilled on past papers alone often learn the paper, not the skill.

It is equally useful to anyone preparing IELTS candidates, and the site's IELTS pages take the same approach, question type by question type.