ISE experience

We are proud and happy to be certified by Trinity College London for ISE 2.

Preparing for this test itself has been a major learning process. We benefited substantially. The portfolio tasks, for instance, required writing in different genres like correspondence, factual writing and creative writing. We learned different styles and formats, providing us the opportunity to refine our writing skills. Whether in the written tasks or the oral, we had to make a conscious effort of using the language of the level and that indeed, helped us internalise the functions well.

We believe we have picked up several important clues to aid our language teaching. We have become better professionals and we look forward to doing the next level.

Teachers from Bhashyam Blooms - the Global Schools, Guntur

Spoken English for Work [SEW]

SEW IV: CEFR C1

The FACTS first

Tasks: telephone task, interactive task, formal presentation, candidate-led discussion, general discussion on one of the given topic area

Time: 27 minutes

Profile: Among other things, a SEW 4 candidate has to prove proficiency in speaking [oops! pardon such a general term; read ‘justifying’, ‘defending’, ‘countering’, ‘persuading’, ‘dissuading’, ‘convincing’ etc] spontaneously and effortlessly in a work context and in using language flexibly and effectively for social, academic and professional purposes.

Now the EXPERIENCE

By taking my SEW [Spoken English for Work] exam last week, I realized two things. Firstly, even after all these years, I am still quite a victim to typical exam-panic syndrome that most of us have experienced as adolescents, i.e sweaty palms, racing heart, blank mind, frantic last minute rehearsals et al. Annoyed as I was at myself for these juvenile demonstrations of panic, nevertheless I justified that these were all part of the game! I just had to ‘play it cool,’ a reassuring colleague advised.

Secondly, strangely enough, unlike other exams that I have taken in the past, this feeling of panic DID NOT trickle into the actual test taking experience this time. On hindsight, I realize that it was a simple equation that worked amazingly well for me. The tasks were so real and demanded such spontaneous response that I did not have the chance to remain preoccupied or apprehensive, which in turn steadily reinstated my ebbing confidence. It DID turn out to be ‘cool’ after all!!!

I can’t help but borrow the tag line of the advertisement of a popular product in India to describe my experience of taking the Trinity SEW Exams: IT’S DIFFERENT!

And here’s why

The nature and scope of the tasks, the examiner’s participation…all worked as a support system to provide me an optimum condition to do my best. Not many exams can claim to do that!

The SEW tasks tested my capability of handling a real impromptu exchange, something essentially different from the prepared or rehearsed production of language. From the moment that I was given the prompt for the telephone task, I had completely forgotten that I was being tested. I had immediately turned into the HR Manager of a company that has laid off employees and who now had to defend the company’s action to a disapproving editor of a national daily. And defend I did! Exactly as I would have done if my current employer would have been in a similar soup [god forbid!].

The formal presentation, I admit, did not have the thrill of the impromptu tasks, since it was a planned, prepared and rehearsed presentation. Yet, it was challenging in its own way, since it had its own special parameters that were assessed. Preparing for it has been quite a learning process.

Aren’t most exams typically a one-way process in which the entire onus of performance is on the examinee [while the examiner waits with a sardonic smile to pounce on your mistakes]? Apparently not! Things are refreshingly different in these exams. I was definitely not a solo performer demonstrating required functions through monologues and soliloquies. Throughout the role plays, discussions and conversation the examiner’s responses not only complemented mine but served as tools in eliciting the required language/function out of me.

Overall, it was a very compact, real, relevant experience.

Till now I had heard about the ‘can do’ philosophy that Trinity exams promote and endorse; now I know how they make it work.

Cheers!! to being ‘different.’ -- Sreyoshi Bose

One Examiner’s Experience of Indian Schools

Alison Slade



“Being a Trinity examiner is hard work as anyone who watches all those children going in and out of the examination room will agree but what rewarding experiences the examiner has! Experiences that no ordinary tourist can hope to have. I visited eight schools on my recent visit to South India and met children from many other schools and inevitably I experienced a mix of different emotions.

I was NOSTALGIC for my own early schooldays – a very long time ago – when we girls too wore plaits (known as pigtails!) and my brother wore shorts till he was 12 and we all leapt to our feet when a visitor entered the classroom.

I was CHARMED by the eager little 7 and 8 year olds, who had so much to tell me in English - their second or third or even fourth language! It is so hard to get British children to learn even a little of one other language.

I was IMPRESSED by the amount of homework that most of the children do so willingly after school and by the ambitions that they harbour for their future careers.

I was AMAZED by the way teachers in some schools I visited coped so effectively with such large classes . Over 50 in some private schools? My husband, a teacher, remembers going on strike with his colleagues in the 1980’s in his state school to get class sizes under 30.

I was DELIGHTED with the delicious, wholesome school dinners I frequently shared with staff and children. Jamie Oliver – Britain’s famous young TV chef, whose recent campaign to get rid of junk food in British schools actually resulted in Government action on that front, should come to India!

I was PLEASED that, as always with the Graded examinations in spoken English, children enjoyed the experience and gained confidence from communicating with a person from another country.

And so I am HOPEFUL that success will build on success and that there will be such a demand for this exam that I will have another opportunity one day to come back to India as a Trinity examiner.”