Teaching engaging exam classes for teenagers

Billie Jago
Billie Jago
Students sat ina library studying with laptops in front of them chatting to eachother
Reading time: 4 minutes

Teachers all over the world know just how challenging it can be to catch their students’ interest and keep them engaged - and it’s true whether you’re teaching online or in a real-world classroom.

Students have different learning motivations; some may be working towards their exam because they want to, and some because they have to, and the repetitiveness of going over exam tasks can often lead to boredom and a lack of interest in the lesson.

So, what can we do to increase students’ motivation and add variation to our classes to maintain interest?

Engage students by adding differentiation to task types

We first need to consider the four main skills and consider how to differentiate how we deliver exam tasks and how we have students complete them.

Speaking - A communicative, freer practice activity to encourage peer feedback.

Put students into pairs and assign them as A and B. Set up the classroom so pairs of chairs are facing each other - if you’re teaching online, put students in individual breakaway rooms.

Hand out (or digitally distribute) the first part of a speaking exam, which is often about ‘getting to know you’. Have student A’s act as the examiner and B’s as the candidate.

Set a visible timer according to the exam timings and have students work their way through the questions, simulating a real-life exam. Have ‘the examiners’ think of something their partner does well and something they think they could improve. You can even distribute the marking scheme and allow them to use this as a basis for their peer feedback. Once time is up, ask student B’s to move to the next ‘examiner’ for the next part of the speaking test. Continue this way, then ask students to switch roles.

Note: If you teach online and your teaching platforms allow it, you can record the conversations and have students review their own performances. However, for privacy reasons, do not save these videos.

Listening – A student-centered, online activity to practice listening for detail or summarising.

Ask pairs of students to set up individual online conference call accounts on a platform like Teams or Zoom.

Have pairs call each other without the video on and tell each other a story or a description of something that has happened for their partner to listen to. This could be a show they’ve watched, an album they’ve listened to, or a holiday they’ve been on, for example. Ask students to write a summary of what their partner has said, or get them to write specific information (numbers, or correctly spelt words) such as character or song names or stats, for example. Begin the next class by sharing what students heard. Students can also record the conversations without video for further review and reflection afterwards.

Writing –A story-writing group activity to encourage peer learning.

Give each student a piece of paper and have them draw a face at the top of the page. Ask them to give a name to the face, then write five adjectives about their appearance and five about their personality. You could also have them write five adjectives to describe where the story is set (place).

Give the story’s opening sentence to the class, e.g. It was a cold, dark night and… then ask students to write their character’s name + was, and then have them finish the sentence. Pass the stories around the class so that each student can add a sentence each time, using the vocabulary at the top of the page to help them.

Reading –A timed, keyword-based activity to help students with gist.

Distribute a copy of a text to students. Ask them to scan the text to find specific words that you give them, related to the topic. For example, if the text is about the world of work, ask students to find as many jobs or workplace words as they can in the set amount of time. Have students raise their hands or stand up when they have their answers, award points, and have a whole class discussion on where the words are and how they relate to the comprehension questions or the understanding of the text as a whole.

All 4 skills –A dynamic activity to get students moving.

Set up a circuit-style activity with different ‘stations’ around the classroom, for example:

  • Listening
  • Reading
  • Writing (1 paragraph)
  • Use of English (or grammar/vocabulary).

Set a timer for students to attempt one part from this exam paper, then have them move round to the next station. This activity can be used to introduce students to certain exam tasks, or a way to challenge students once they’ve built their confidence in certain areas.

Teaching engaging exam classes with Gold Experience

Courses such as Gold Experiencealso provide ways to promote interactivity in your lessons and allow students to be engaged by teaching real-world skills and topics that are transferable to situations outside of the classroom.

Each unit starts with the learning objectives of each lesson, which allow students to monitor their own progress. Exam tasks are introduced in a graded way, eventually leading up to full exam tasks when students have grown in confidence.

Model answers are provided for both speaking and writing, so both teachers and students can see what is expected of them at their level, and the portaloffers ample resources such as audio, video and a full assessment package, including two full speaking exam videos.

The presentation tool allows you to provide something visual for students, whether projected at the front of the class, or as a shared screen online. There is also a timer and a point counter which can be displayed from the Portal’s teaching tools to add dynamism and help add competitive, timed activities to the lesson.

Gold Experience also provides opportunities for teachers to encourage students to work independently, which allows them to develop their creativity and intellectual curiosity, as well as increasing motivation and building their confidence in using and producing language.

By using a variety of resources and offering different ways of doing often repetitive exam tasks, we can increase our students’ interest in the lesson and help them work more independently and passionately towards their end goal of passing their exam.

If you’d like to know more, you might like to read our posts 'Tips to enjoy teaching an exam course' or 'Which exam is right for my students?'

Download a sample of Gold Experience

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  • A teacher standing over a desk where a student is sat, helping them. Students are also sat at desks in the background

    4 key challenges in secondary education

    By Anna Roslaniec

    Let’s examine four of the most common challenges secondary teachers have and look into some strategies to help solve them.

    1. My students are afraid of making mistakes

    You’re not alone! Many teachers say their teenage students are quiet and unwilling to answer questions in class. Sometimes, this might simply be because they don’t know the answers, but more often than not, they are nervous about making mistakes.

    When children grow into teenagers, they tend to become more self-conscious and worried about what their peers think of them – and making mistakes in public is a big no-no for them. However, there are several ways to facilitate a safe learning environment where your students are happy and willing to talk. Sometimes, though, it takes a little experimentation. Here are some things you can try:

    Celebrate mistakes

    When students make mistakes, ensure that you praise them for taking a risk or making an effort. Correct their errors and be clear with the rest of the class that the only way to learn is to try new things.

    Be firm

    Don’t tolerate any bullying or laughing when someone gets an answer wrong. If your students fear that others will mock them for their efforts, they’ll stay quiet. So make sure you have clear rules and that your students understand that mistakes are normal and to be expected.

    Have students discuss their answers in pairs or groups

    If your students are painfully shy and afraid of making mistakes, avoid picking on individuals to answer questions in front of the class. Instead, when asking a question, tell your students to discuss it in pairs or small groups first. This will allow them to formulate their ideas and feel more confident. Afterwards, you can ask the pairs to share what they discussed – leading to a natural open-class discussion.

    Listen to your students

    Another, powerful way of engaging your students in discussion is to listen to a conversation they are having with their partners and then express how impressed you are with their ideas during a feedback session. E.g. “You said X, which I thought was very interesting. Could you explain this to the class? It was a great idea.” This gives them the confidence to share their thoughts.

    2. My students are not engaged with the activities I choose

    This is another very common problem for teachers of teenagers. You spend a lot of time thinking of fun, interesting activities – then, when you present them to the class, your students look away and say they’re bored. Soon enough, you’ll get frustrated and not know how to re-engage them. Here are some ideas to help:

    Get to know your students

    Without fail, the best way to engage your students is by getting to know them as individuals over the year. Find out about their hobbies and interests outside of school, and learn what makes them laugh and what worries them. Use your knowledge of your students to find interesting books to read, videos to watch, or relevant subjects to discuss. This way, you’ll deliver tailored lessons your students find truly interesting and useful.

    Allow a degree of autonomy

    Sometimes quietness is also a sign of disengagement with the learning materials. To get past this obstacle, you can get your students to brainstorm things that interest them in groups, list them on the board and have a class vote on the topic of their next class project. As a teacher, you always have the power to veto inappropriate ideas, but giving students a voice is a powerful way of making them feel valued and involved in their own education.

    Make things (a little) competitive

    Even teenagers love games! And play is an integral part of learning, as it allows our students to be themselves, have fun, and communicate freely at the same time. By allowing them to play language-focused games in class, they’ll soon forget their inhibitions and start talking.

    3. My students just want to do grammar exercises

    Language is all about communication, speaking, listening, reading and writing – yet all your students want to do is grammar exercises. Frustrating as this is, it’s probably a sign that our students are not confident in their speaking or listening abilities. Here’s what you can do:

    Encourage free language practice

    Grammar activities are very structured and there is often a clear answer. Day-to-day communications, however, are much freer, which can intimidate less confident students. This activity will help you combine the two aspects of language learning:

    • Put students in small groups and give them a set of cards with exciting topics printed on them—for example; music, sports, environment, school, vacations, friends, food.
    • Tell students that they should each choose a card and speak freely about their topic for 30 seconds – the short time will help them overcome their fear of speaking and can be gradually increased as they get used to this type of activity.
    • Have students record themselves when they are speaking and then, when they listen back, have them identify the grammatical structures they used.

    They should write down and correct any mistakes under your guidance. Not only will this get students used to talking and encourage a lot of emergent language, but it will also help them feel they are practicing grammar.

    If your students really enjoy learning grammar, you can ‘flip’ your grammar activities and make them more communicative. First, provide them with a series of sentences or listening clips which have a common grammatical structure (second conditional sentences, for example).

    Then have students work together (in English) to identify how the language is structured, so they can discover the grammar point for themselves. This not only gets them talking, but they are doing something they feel confident at.

    4. My students are bored of all the repetition

    Repetition is an important part of language learning. By practicing things over and over again, your students will come to understand it better and will be able to produce the language more easily. However, repetition is often quite dull, especially for fast learners. Here’s how you can make things more interesting for your teenage students:

    Use a greater variety of activities to engage your learners

    If you’ve been teaching your students a particular set of vocabulary, a grammatical structure, or some pronunciation rules, think about how else they can practice them.

    For example, instead of drilling pronunciation over and over again, ask students to think of all the words they can think of that have the same sound in them (e.g. book, look, cook, shook, etc.). This will help them ‘hear’ the sounds in their heads and improve their understanding of other words.

    If you have been learning vocabulary through reading, have students write or tell stories that incorporate the words.

    The idea is not to stop repeating the target language or skill, but to practice it in different ways. Apply this principle to other areas of language learning so your students won’t feel like they are repeating things.