Exams

Exams are always a topsy-turvy time. No matter how much effort you've made to prepare your students thoroughly your influence wanes to nothing as soon as the real action starts. Watching the clock tick down, I often feel like the coach of a losing football team with no more substitutions to make, suddenly dependent on the mood of each student, the predictability of the topics and, to a variable extent, the personality of the examiner. Yesterday wasn't really much different, in spite of the fact that this time I was on the other side of the door. Interlocuting my Entry 2 students' speaking and listening test, I very badly feigned impartiality while I read instructions from a script and a Cambridge examiner marked their responses. I was both there and not there, breaking eye contact as soon as I'd asked the questions, willing them to give the correct answer, and sometimes having to fight back the urge to nudge, or in some cases shove, them towards it.