The Ten Commandments of Teaching Exams

by Amir Ebrahimi

Despite always thinking of myself as a fan of exams as a language learner, I initially shied away from the idea of leading exam prep classes when I became a teacher. My main concern was having zero clue as to what to do. There was no CELTA for exam teaching – I dare say there isn’t one now either, though there is a suite of courses about teaching IELTS at the IH Online Teacher Training Institute. But if you happen to teach in a Cambridge market, or want a more general idea of how exam teaching should work, there are not many options available.

Exam preparation can be challenging, but once you focus on the right things, it can prove the most rewarding aspect of your tutoring career. Teaching a student whose principal aim is enhanced fluency is one thing; teaching a student who needs to pass a specific exam for their university dreams to come true is quite another – especially when they come back to you to say that they passed!

I started teaching exams exclusively about a decade ago and have never looked back. In this article, I’ll help you create a framework for teaching, one that saves you a lot of time and headaches, and brings your students success in their exams.

Why Is Teaching Exams Any Different?

General teaching methods can work well in the exam preparation classroom, but over time exam teachers will notice that their practice diverges from the standard. It’s worth reflecting, therefore, on how exam and general classes can differ, so that we already know something of what to expect when we switch between the two.

	Exam Classes	General Classes
Main Goal	Preparing for an exam with a specific score or grade as a target	Improve the general level of English at a certain CEFR level or for a real-life use case
Structure	Usually with an intensive schedule / mainly focusing on skills and practice tests	A regular schedule with lessons planned with a variety of focuses and target language
Groups	Often 1-2-1s or groups with various language proficiencies, but with students sharing a goal	Groups where students have undergone placement tests and are assigned a level, though without taking goals into account
Level Adaptation	Depends on the exam. IELTS is one exam for all levels, making IELTS preparation tricky compared to preparing for Cambridge, where each level has its own exam	Groups are carefully assigned according to level of proficiency, as far as possible
Time	Depends on the institution – some schools offer intensive exam boot camps while others structure lessons over the academic year	Usually follow the regular school calendar with almost no pressure on a final deadline

Those are some of the critical differences. Now we can move onto my framework, and for that I have created a list of commandments. Here, then, is my decalogue of what you need to consider when teaching exams!

1. Thou shalt develop exam teaching skills

If you’re new to teaching exams, consider taking a training course like those I mentioned at the start of this piece. If you can’t find one, make one for yourself – there are so many good videos on YouTube to walk you through the exam, and many, many books and articles out there. And as you do all of this, make a note of what resources you use and what works for you – you might find it all comes in handy if you ever want to move from teaching to teacher training.

2. Needs analysis is the lord of the lesson

Let’s begin with where it all starts. Your students in an exam preparation class often come from diverse backgrounds. In other words, they may have varied levels of proficiency and aptitude when it comes to their different skills. They are all there simply because they have the same goal: to pass that exam, and to achieve that grade. This is the reality of the business of teaching for exams – it is rare to meet a student in an exam class who is there because of a deeply-held passion for the exam itself!

Having said that, we must take group and individual needs analysis seriously. I often have new students take a mock test near the start of the course to get a better idea of their relative strengths and weaknesses. Sometimes, this can be very revealing – some students appear to have good reading skills in a general sort of way, but struggle to match missing paragraphs to the text in exercises like the Gapped Text.

Using what I find out from the mock, I will then create a list of strengths and action points and use this list to plan everything that follows.

3. Thou shalt not take practice in vain

Practice is the term I want your students to hear from you all the time. Learning any skills in life is impossible without consistency, and exams are no exception. To get the best result, plan everything with the following cycle in mind:

Learn -> Practice -> Feedback -> Repeat

That last stage is key – when students receive feedback, they should have the opportunity to put it to work immediately; otherwise, it will be forgotten. This is easiest to do in speaking drills, where you can repeat, say, the Individual Long-Turn from the Cambridge exams with new pictures after the students have received feedback on their initial performance.

4. Honor thy examiner

An anecdote shared with me recently: a Cambridge examiner complained of how a series of students entered their B2 First speaking test, looked at the pictures in the Individual Long Turn task, and immediately said, “These two pictures are as different as chalk and cheese.”

The problem? Well, besides the wooden delivery, the fact is that the pictures were connected by theme, so the expression wasn’t even appropriate.

There are many people out there who are keen to share exam tactics with students and teachers alike; some of these tips are indeed very useful, but others can have a negative effect on performance.

The way to tell which is which? If the tip shows respect to the examiner – if the tip does not treat the examiner like a fool – then it is worth listening to.

Examiners often have substantial experience in exam preparation themselves, and they can easily spot a memorized response. Train your candidates to focus on organic preparation and avoid wasting time memorising templates.

5. Thou shalt respect the language

Along similar lines to the fourth commandment, I want to stress the importance of respecting the language. What I mean by that is this: don’t give your students long lists of vocabulary to memorise and apply to their writing, such as for Part One of the Academic IELTS Writing paper. Listing ten alternatives to ‘increase’ doesn’t mean that your students will know ten alternatives to ‘increase’ that are all appropriate to the chart they are describing.

In the same way, stop talking about synonyms as if they were a universal feature of the language. Context matters – so when you want your students to use a synonym, make sure they know how to tell if it works in that context.

6. Thou shalt know thine exam format

Having years of training and experience in EFL won’t make you an ideal exam teacher just like that. You need to make sure you have studied the exam format and assessment criteria as deeply as possible. Exams are varied in the way they are designed and executed. Make sure you know everything about the one you’re teaching – or even try taking it yourself!

7. Thou shalt not bear poor witness

Feedback – witnessing your students’ work – is an essential part of the process. We are not AI bots, so we need to make sure we give productive and accurate feedback to our students. If your students submit a piece of writing to you and you give them two pages of what’s wrong about their work, you need to reconsider your approach. Feedback must be timely, effective, and brief enough for the student to be able to process and act upon.

8. Thou shalt honor assessment

Assessment criteria for each exam are available on the exam’s official websites, and often are in excruciating detail. Why do candidates need a teacher then? Can’t they simply read the assessment frames and plan their own preparation? The devil is in the details. When giving feedback on speaking and writing, remember the assessment criteria and refer to them constantly. When your students attempt something like the Key Word Transformation task, remember the rules – spelling matters, so penalise poor spelling just as the exam will.

9. Remember to keep holy the exam day

You spend as long as you have getting your students ready for the exam, and then the exam goes poorly. Often, this is not because of a lack of preparation in the classroom, but because the students have approached the day of the exam poorly. Here are some common causes of ineffective exam-day performance:

• A lack of proper rest and sleep
• High levels of anxiety and stress
• Arriving at the center late
• Not wearing comfortable clothes

What is the solution? The easiest and best way to address these issues is to make them into a discussion – which doubles as speaking practice! – in at least one lesson leading up to the day of the exam.

10. Thou shalt stay current

The original commandments were written in stone. But the exams you will teach are not – they are constantly being reviewed and updated. These updates ensure fair and relevant assessment. If you teach exams, keeping yourself abreast of any changes is vital.

Final Thoughts

Whether we like it or not, teaching exams involves teaching skills. Just like any other skills training, English exam preparation requires effective and efficient planning. From proper needs analysis to exam day awareness, it is our job to inspire, facilitate, and encourage candidates on the road to success.

Sources and Further Reading

Chiroque Chero, J. (2022). Proposal for Need Analysis in an Exam Preparation Course. [online]. (Last updated 2022). Available at: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1329210.pdf
Bridge Education Group (2024). 8 Tips for Teaching English for Test Preparation. [online]. (Last updated March 2024). Available at: https://bridge.edu/tefl/blog/teaching-english-test-preparation
UsingEnglish.com (n.d.). Preparing to Teach Your First EFL Exam Class. [online]. (Last updated unknown). Available at: https://www.usingenglish.com/teachers/articles/preparing-to-teach-your-first-efl-exam-class.html
EFLCafe.net (2024). Effective Assessment Methods for EFL/ESL Teachers. [online]. (Last updated 2024). Available at: https://eflcafe.net/effective-assessment-methods-for-efl-esl-teachers

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