A ‣ How are they getting on?*

This is what Nastya, an English teacher, thinks about some of her students.

“Jade has a wide vocabulary [knows a lot of words] and speaks very accurately [without mistakes], but she needs to practise her speaking more in order to become more fluent [able to speak naturally without stopping].”

“Angel is quite fluent, but his accent [the way he pronounces words] is not very good. In particular, he has problems with certain consonants [letters of the alphabet (a–z), which are not the vowels a,e,i,o,u]. ”

“Jose has no problem making himself understood [saying things in a way people understand], but he needs to increase his vocabulary [make it bigger], because at the moment it’s quite basic [elementary; syn simple]. ”

“Olga is always willing to [happy and ready to] experiment with language [try something new to see what it is like]. For that reason she sometimes gets things wrong [makes mistakes], but she learns from her mistakes and she’s making a lot of progress. ”

“Andreas is a fantastic language learner. He picks things up [learns things without trying] very quickly, and he has a good ear for language [is good at hearing, repeating and understanding sounds and words]. ”

*What progress are they making?

B ‣ Examinations

“My students are taking the Cambridge English: First exam in June, and for some of them it will be hard work¹. I think Angel might fail, but he’s doing his best², so with a bit of luck he might pass. I expect most of the others to pass. Andreas is a strong candidate³, and I’m sure he’ll get a good grade (syn mark). I think Jade and Olga will also do well.

At the moment I’m trying to get through⁴ the course book so that we can do some revision⁵. I think the most important thing is to do some exam preparation⁶. Today I want the students to do/write an essay⁷. Most of them still find it difficult to write accurately, so I need to work on that with them.”

¹ work that requires a lot of effort
² making as much effort as he can; syn trying his best
³ someone who is taking an exam
⁴ finish
⁵ revise for the exam
⁶ getting ready for the exam
⁷ a short piece of writing about a particular subject