The Annual Cambridge English Spring Seminar will take place on 25 – 26 March 2017

The topic for the 13th Annual Cambridge Spring Seminar 2017 – «Getting the Message- developing and testing the receptive skills» is an extension of that topic as it applies to developing and testing the receptive skills in an LOA environment. Both reading and listening are «life skills» employed every day of our lives yet to make the connection from the real life situation of using these skills to the exam situation, and that in a second language, can be a real challenge. For this challange teachers need support with new ideas, an update on useful material along with background information on test design and purpose, based on research results.

In both a personal and a business-related context these skills are extremely important. The executive summary of a study called  «English at Work: global analysis of language skills in the workplace» (by Cambridge English and QS (Quacquarelli Symonds) states that employers say it is important to have proficiency in all four language skills but that reading is the most important. Many of the same strategies used to train the learner to become an effective reader can be transferred to those required of an effective listener.

At this seminar we will be looking closely at reading and listening with special attention to how good receptive skills can lead to good productive skills. This transfer of learning strategies from one skill to another will support the main theme of training teachers in how to develop and test the receptive skills.

The plenary sessions will give us general information on how we read and listen, how our present life style has changed the way we use both skills and how our teaching needs to be adapted to take that development into consideration. In addition, the plenary sessions will provide information on the rationales behind the Cambridge English test design.

«Receptive is not passive» meaning that for both reading and listening, active involvement and effort is required by the learner. With practical and useful ideas for the classroom from tools such as the EVP (English Vocabulary Profile) and the EGP (English Grammar Profile), teachers will be shown how to motivate the learners to improve their reading and listening generally and how to make the connection from developing these important life skills to employing them in an exam situation.

The experienced team of international presenters will take participants on an exciting journey exploiting traditional as well as digital tools and activities that will help motivate the learners. Teachers will learn how the development of reading and listening skills will help develop learners’ awareness of lexical, grammatical and cohesive devices.