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CAE listening and speaking skills | |
Cambridge books for Cambridge exams
Authors: Diana Pye and Simon Greenall
130 pages.
£8.90
IBSN 0-521-48533-9
Those people who do not live in an English-speaking country often find the listening and speaking are the most difficult parts of the CAE (Cambridge ESOL Advanced English papers 4 and 5). These are also the hardest parts to find help with on the internet, since most sites, (including ours here) give help with the written parts of the test but cannot support the hundreds of gigabytes involved in making listening practice available. For this, one of the best ways is still to use a book.
Our main complaint with this particular book is that the listening is on cassette tapes. This may be useful for a class, but a CD would be just as good, and less likely to get damaged. It could also be transferred to MP3 players for self-study. The content of the book itself is a mixture of exercises to improve listening and speaking skills and exercises to help prepare for the CAE exam. This is shown also in the tip boxes which are on many of the pages. Study tips give useful suggestions to improve your English, while exam tips tell you about the exam or what the examiners are looking for in a particular type of question.
There are twelve units in the book, including a foundation unit at the start. Each of the units has a common idea, such as 'Unusual houses' or 'Leadership'. Each unit is then divided into listening and speaking parts. (Do not expect this in the exam - the listening and the speaking may well be on completely different topics.) There are exercises and group work for students. The speaking part especially is not designed for people studying alone. This is also because in the exam, you will probably be interviewed with one or two other people. The book reminds you that the people being examined are not competing with each other. Bringing other people into a discussion, explaining your views and asking questions about theirs are all important language skills. Someone who does not let anyone else have a chance to speak obviously does not know how to communicate! The book is arranged so that you do not need to go through unit by unit - you can do just the speaking or the listening, and can choose any unit that seems interesting.
Who is this book for? People studying alone will find this book much less useful than people working together in a group. Those who will get the most out of the book would be a class studying for the CAE and needing particular help with papers 4 and 5. Because the book also explains a lot about the listening and speaking, this will help a teacher who has not taught a CAE exam class before.
Verdict: Cassette tapes? But otherwise a useful guide
Assessment 5/10