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TRINITY COLLEGE EXAMINATION

Mr. Mckie

Throughout the third trimester of the 2018/19 school year, 2nde have been focusing on the upcoming Trinity College Examination.


On June 13th, twenty four of the 2nde students will take the Level 7 Trinity Exam, here at the school. Level 7 is recognised as level B2 according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR).


We already know that the examiner will be a lady from the United Kingdom. However, how does the exam take shape?


The exam has three parts; the topic, the interactive phrase, and finally the conversation. All parts of the exam are oral(so no “reading”, “writing” or the dreaded “use of English”!)


The Topic 

Students have free will to choose a topic, as long as it conforms to some of the rules set by Trinity. The topic has to be something that the student enjoys or has experience with. 

The students have to talk for 5 minutes about their topic, making sure to include the target grammar(which includes Modal Verbs, Second Conditional, using Used to), whilst making sure they engage the examiner in a conversation. The students need to be prepared to deal with interruptions and answer questions from the examiner. 

Some of the topics that the students are preparing include Karl Lagerfield, Klara Prowisor, Fast Food, Stephen Hawking, Volunteering, Bullying and The Saint James Way(Camino De Santiago). Quite a varied selection as you can see.

The Interactive Phase

The examiner will guide the students to the interactive phase after the topic has been completed. The examiner will then start a conversation with the student. 

The examiner will be looking for the students to give advice, make suggestions, describe past habits, express possibility/uncertainty, express agreement/disagreement and finally highlight advantages/disadvantages.

The content of this part of the exam and the students must use their language skills to negotiate this part of the exam.

We watched an example video in class where the examiner asked a candidate what he suggested the examiner did to celebrate his birthday. This part of the exam lasts 4 minutes.


The Conversation

The conversation part of the exam lasts for 5 minutes. The students have to talk about 2 topics chosen by the examiner. There are 6 possible topics to choose from. They are; Education, National customs, Village and city life, National and local produce and products, Early memories and Pollution and recycling.

We have been preparing these topics in class with the use of Spider Diagrams, detailing all of the relevant vocabulary the students may have to use.


After the conversation, the exam is over, in 14 short minutes.


Good luck to all of the students in 2nde on the 13th of June!

Trinity College Examination: Acerca de
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