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Have you considered studying abroad? Moving to Canada to study? With more than 100 world-class universities across the country, there’s good reason to. From coast to coast to coast, it offers many international students a safe and supportive learning environment and the opportunity to work after graduation.

Want to learn more? In this guide, we cover ten things you should know about studying in Canada:

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The CEFR describes A1 and A2 learners as ‘basic users’ of a language. So how can we help these students to develop their English for the workplace?

Here are our six top tips:

1. Focus on high-frequency vocabulary for work

Learning English vocabulary for work context is the top priority for many low-level learners in business English classes. It helps them to communicate their message in a simple, effective way. This makes it important to teach common words and set expressions for everyday work situations.

These include:

• lexical sets (words related to the same topic or situation) – for example, days, months, numbers, verbs to describe work routines, verbs in the past.
• common collocations with verbs and nouns (for example, manage a team, have meetings, place an order, solve a problem).
• functional language and fixed phrases – greetings (How are you? Nice to meet you.) and offers (How can I help you? Would you like…?).

2. Help students with vocabulary learning

Teach vocabulary items in realistic contexts. For example, phone calls, to-do lists, short emails, text messages etc.

While it might be tempting to give students lots of vocabulary to memorize, this can cause overload, be frustrating and ultimately demotivating for learners. Instead, you should aim to present eight to ten new words in a lesson as a general rule. This is an achievable number for working memory and helps to build learners’ confidence. The number of words can be a little higher if items are easy to show in images or there is repetition; for instance, the numbers 20 to 100.

Have students make simple decisions about new words, as this helps with recall later. Start with simple tasks, such as matching words and pictures or verb and noun collocations they’ve seen in a short text (for example, managing a team, call customers, writing emails, etc.). Next, ask students to complete sentences using the target words and write their own sentences using these words.

Getting students to personalize new vocabulary makes it more memorable, for instance writing sentences describing their work routines. Repetition also aids long-term memory, so make sure vocabulary is recycled in the materials in later lessons.

Finally, make a list of vocabulary games to use for revision exercises, warmers and to finish classes.

3. Maximize student speaking time

Learners need to develop their English-speaking skills for work. The classroom is a safe, low-stakes environment for them to gain fluency and confidence.

Use the audio and video scripts of short dialogues or an extract from a longer script. Students read the dialogue aloud in pairs or groups. Give feedback by drilling the stress and rhythm of any words or phrases which were difficult with the whole class. Back-chaining phrases – starting with the last sound and building up going backwards – is an excellent way to drill. Get students to swap roles and repeat the task.

You can also use another technique called disappearing dialogue. Put a short dialogue on the board for students to practice in pairs. Then delete parts of the dialogue and ask them to repeat the task, swapping roles each time. Gradually delete more parts to increase the challenge. Students can reconstruct the dialogue as a final task.

Moreover, surveys, questionnaires, true/false games, and information-gap exercises are ways to practice speaking in English, target structures, and vocabulary.

Younger learners may find speaking in English comes easily to them, more so than reading and writing. However, they need to be well-prepared and familiar with what they have to do in order to be successful in an exam. Let’s look at a few ways we can prepare our students for the International Certificate Young Learners (PEIC YL) oral test and have fun along the way!

The test

The PEIC YL oral test includes two speaking tasks that have an emphasis on real-life communication. Throughout the four levels, the format of the speaking tasks remains the same, with questions and topics suitable for each level and age group.

Learners take the oral test in groups of five, with one examiner, who gives instructions and assesses the learners.

• The first speaking task consists of a question and answer activity played as a board game. In their group of five, students take turns to throw a dice and move around the board/cards. When they land on a square, they read out a question which they should direct at another student, who then responds. Each question has a corresponding picture, which helps scaffold the task and give clues to what the question means.
• In the second task, each student gives a short talk about a topic. Students take turns to pick a topic card and then talk about the topic for one minute. The other students in the group then ask questions related to the topic.

For both parts of the test students are assessed on their vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation.

Classroom activities

There are lots of ways in which you can prepare your learners for the test in class. The game-like format of the speaking test makes practicing the tasks an ideal end-of-lesson activity. Here are a few ideas:

Play board games

Playing board games will allow learners to get used to the functional language they will need to play games, e.g. "It’s your turn" / "Where’s the dice?".

It will also give them plenty of practice in counting the squares in English, which they are expected to do in the test. You can use traditional board games designed for English language learners or make your own.

Include questions on familiar topics such as family, clothes, or vacations.

Make collaborative board games

Young learners love to make things so why not have them make their own board games and cards? Put students in groups to make a board game for the other groups to play. You can provide a board template, have them write questions, and draw pictures in the squares.

Make sure you have students write a rough draft of their questions first so that you can check for any errors. It can be helpful to write example questions and prompts on the board as a guide, e.g. 'What (sports) do you play at school?' 'How often do you …?'. Depending on the level, students will need to include questions in a variety of present/past/future tenses.

Use student pictures

To prepare for the short talk, give students plenty of practice at speaking for one minute. One way of making this more engaging is by having the students choose their own topics by talking about pictures they have drawn or taken.

If students have mobile phones, you can ask them to choose a photo from the gallery and discuss it with a partner. If mobile phones are not an option, have them bring in some photos from home. These could be pictures taken on vacation, birthday parties, or at other celebrations.Ìý

You could also write a list of topics on the board, have each student choose one, and draw a picture to illustrate it.

Tips

• Make sure students are used to playing board games and know rules and functional language.
• Practice turn taking and asking/answering questions regularly.
• Encourage students to listen carefully to questions and to read them thoroughly, paying attention to the verb forms used. They should aim to use the same verb form in their answer.
• Give learners practice speaking in one-minute turns.
• Use your course book unit topic to include similar speaking tasks in lessons.
• Make a set of laminated picture cards for students to practice both parts of the test.
• Write questions and topics on popsicle sticks or cards for fast finishers.

The key to good test preparation is to make it a part of your regular lessons, rather than something you do in just the weeks before the test. The more familiar your students are with the tasks, the more relaxed they will be on the day of the test.