Welcome to the Cambridge Proficiency Class

12 Feb 2015

Welcome to the Cambridge English: Proficiency (CPE) Class at the VHS Bielefeld

Room allocation

We are currently in room 161 on the first floor of the Ravensberger Spinnerei – the room is ideal for small classes between six and eight participants.

Getting hold of the text book

It is vital that you have access to the textbook Objective Proficiency student book (with answers) 2nd edition as this book will be referenced for homework and a lot of the class work will be based on that book.
Please note that if we are using the textbook correctly we will develop a love/hate relationship with it so you will hear me in class be complimentary as well as very rude about the contents at various times.

Cambridge English: Proficiency Exam structure

The Exam is made up of four parts:

title marks time
Reading and Use of English 40% 1 hour 30 min
Writing 20% 1 hr 30 min
listening 20% circa 40 minutes
speaking 20% circa 16 minutes

You will find more information on pages 6 and 7 of the textbook

Note You will hear me use the terms “Cambridge English: Proficiency Exam” and “CPE” in class and some of the older posts in this blog reference CPE alone. It is the same examination but they changed the names of the Cambridge English Exams to “Cambridge English: Proficiency” a couple of years ago but I have been calling it CPE for a long time and occasionally call it by the old name.

My philosphy of doing homework

I will be setting some homework each week and I view that as a minimum amount of work other things that you can do to improve your English include:

Getting into the habit of reading, listening to and writing in English is key to success in the Cambridge English: Proficiency exam in my experience.

Here is a page that I wrote sometime ago about my philosophy of homework that I have found works for you and me.

Introductory handout

Here is the introductory handout with information for you about me and some useful resources. It is a PDF file and you can download it here