Limping through CPE hoops

Is it me or the two letters that cause most ambiguity in English pronunciation are o and s?🤔 I mean, how can disillusioned be pronounced with /s/ but Mars and dismal with /z/? And why on earth does gross have the diphthong /əʊ/?

Taking stock of the year (spoiler alert: no 'successful success' in there) Flicking through TG channels, I came across posts in a ‘Yes, but’ format, where people reflect on the passing year, interspersing personal successes with setbacks. So, here’s my ‘yes, but’ year: Started hosting speaking club sessions for B2-C2 students Speaking clubs are one of my absolute favourite formats, so I’d long wanted to create one myself. And I did! I picked interesting topics, explored a whole raft of authentic...

Me: telling my students that CPE is a serious exam – we'll be covering ecology, technological advancements, the arts, education, and many more. Also me: proceeds to create exam tasks about weird inventions ... just because why not?

Yesterday I found out that I'd been mispronouncing one of my favourite words😭

December read: The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith (and two more books in the series that I couldn't resist reading) You may have heard that J.K. Rowling has been writing a series of detective stories under the pen name Robert Galbraith. And if you’ve read any of her work, you will know what to expect: multidimensional characters, elaborate plot lines, and a lot of descriptive detail, all put in the language that makes you question whether you’ve actually been learning English your whole li...

I think I’ve kept you in the dark long enough. Sorry about that – life happened☺️ Anyways, here go Kate’s @katanabauer results! I think she did a great job, which calls for a round of applause!🥂 And by great job I mean not only her well-deserved grade B, but also all the effort she put into preparation. Kate has been studying in one of my groups for over a year, and in the run-up to her CPE, she kicked her studies into high gear: I know that aside from weekly classes, she had intensive UoE and ...

It’s been a month of radio silence, and I finally have something worth sharing! So here’s what happened: a wonderful student of mine took her CPE on January 31, and this morning her results came through!! I hope I’ve piqued your curiosity. If I haven’t, check out the message she sent me back in the middle of October. What do you think, did she manage to break through C? 🤭 — spill the beans!

To ease into the working mode, I’ve created some Bingo-style warm-up activities for my students. Here’s one of them — is there anything relatable?🙂