Hi guys,

I am required to teach ESOL to four students and enter them for Trinity GESE exam. There is plenty of info on the net about it, but it �s new to me and it �s very expensive as you have to get an examiner out and as it �s for so few students... I am teaching in a school in England. Any advice or does anyone know of any alternatives? The students are under 16 - is IELTS a possibility?  Is registration a nightmare? I think I �ve asked this before and got nowhere!

How about contacting a local sixth form college which runs ESOL courses with Trinity and find out if your students can enter their exams as independent candidates? Or possibly and adult education centre, though this may be more problematical due to your students � age.

 Hope that helps.

Hi Cunliffe, what do your students need that exam for? Evidence of progress / to enter an academic institution / immigration purposes / personal satisfaction? Perhaps Cambridge main suite exams will be a better choice especially that many have the "for schools" option (which actually does not show on the certificate, e.g. it doesn �t matter if you have taken the regular or for schools FCE, it doesn �t say and the"for schools" versions have topics which relate more to younger audiences like school and exclude others like work or career). So among these you have Key English Test (KET - A2 level), Preliminary English Test (PET - B1), First Certificate (FCE - B2) - all these have "for schools versions"; then Certificate of Advanced English (CAE-C1), Certificate of Proficiency in English (CPE - C2).

As far as IELTS is concerned - there are 2 options there, too - Academic and General. The advantage of IELTS in comparison to the above tests is that you can �t fail it - you just get a band from 1 to 9. I would be a bit concerned to send my 16 year old students to academic IELTS as there are serious academic texts to read (in really short time, they are progressively more and more difficult, same with listening - the last being university-like lecture - have a look at the samples on the website www.ielts.org). I guess they will find the General version easier, but it boils down to the question of why they would be taking the test in the first place.

 

Registration for both is rather easy. British Council in GB has the monopoly on IELTS to the best of my knowledge, so look at the website. Also there are lots of teaching resources.

 

At my school we have many candidates annually that take these tests. Will be happy to give you a hand any further  

 

best,

 

joanna 

I found this page http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/levels/z98jmp3

 

but I am unable to evaluate it because  the content is not available in my geographic area. "Sorry, this clip is not available in your region or territory." 

I am sure you have already seen these: http://www.trinitycollege.com/site/?id=263 and