Foreign language instruction should begin in kindergarten

How thinking about coherence can work for you in each part of the test

The ideas below are simply suggested starting points – not rules! Everyone has their own style of speaking and different questions need different approaches. The idea is really to show you that:

thinking about coherence can improve your performance

different parts of the test may need different approaches

Part 1 – the chat – ARE or AR

Part 1 is not really an interview – it’s an informal chat with simple get to know you type questions. Here, I suggest you want to concentrate on giving clear and simple answers that are sometimes more extended. Two things to avoid are:

trying to say too much – the examiner has a lot of questions to ask (about 12 in 4 minutes – so make life easy for them)

giving over-short answers – you want to show that you can give politely extended answers as you would in real life

Here is a possible outline to make answers more coherent:

A – answer the question directly

R – give a reason why

(E) – when necessary explain that reason or perhaps give an example

This should be a familiar technique  from paragraph writing when you make a point and explain it with reasons.

Practice tips

Learn to answer questions directly – i.e. say immediately what you think in the first sentence of your reply. That makes it clear to the examiner that you can deal with basic questions. And note it’s perfectly ok to say “I don’t know” or “I’m not sure” – just say why. (ARE)

In your head, hear the question “Why?”- even if the examiner doesn’t say it. If you do that, you then have an immediate way of saying the next thing – “This is because…”. This is coherent.

In your head, think “Example”. This too gives you something else to say that will link in with what you  have just said. Coherence again.