Prepare for the Cambridge C1 Advanced (CAE) exam

Octorial^™

Academic Experience

Key Points

Students acquire the skills necessary to achieve a passing grade in their C1 Advanced (CAE) exam.

Future exam dates (for paper-based exams) include: 25th August 2023, 21st October 2023, 09 December 2023. Students need to book a 4 week course or longer prior to the date of the exam. Further dates are available on demand.

Teachers coach students to achieve to the maximum of their potential, and set milestones and goals for each student, with constant evaluation. This sets the pace for each learner to surpass their academic expectations.

Students sit rehearsal tests under exam conditions. These are repeated as required to build confidence and familiarity with the exam.

Each student keeps a Learner Portfolio to encourage learning skills, self-assessment, and reflection. Individual coaching sessions allow students to monitor and improve their performance.

Small class sizes allow for close tutor attention, which provides students with confidence and familiarity in the exam format.

All students who successfully complete this course are eligible for a course certificate.

Homework tasks are set daily to allow learners to reflect on and consolidate what they have learned in the day, as well as prepare for the next day.

Objectives of the study

Objectives of the stay

To spend a school vacation stay in England preparing for the Cambridge C1 Advanced exam.

Cambridge C1 Advanced (CAE) preparation

Lessons are devoted to developing the skills and linguistic abilities that are required to not only achieve success in the C1 Advanced (CAE) Exam, but that will also enable the student to operate in English with ease across cultural and linguistic borders. These lessons and workshops allow students to develop linguistic flair, as well as key 21st century skills such as critical thinking, creativity, resilience, and leadership.

The exam coaching lessons focus on how to apply these skills to exam tasks in order to achieve a high grade. Students are equipped with strategies that allow them to display their skills to the very best of their ability in all the papers of the C1 Advanced.

Learners are coached in the content of the exam, and strategies for understanding and navigating the test questions are explored and practised.

Course Content

Flexibility for Use of English

Students develop flexibility in their use of the English language by building their lexical and grammatical range. There is a strong focus on accuracy. The skills that are honed in this module are the foundation stones for the modules which follow it, as they equip the student with the language needed to express themselves clearly, accurately, eloquently, and with linguistic flair.

Confidence for the spoken paper

Students build the skills required for face-to-face interactions, with a focus on successful communication and articulation of concepts, effective discourse management, clear and effective pronunciation, and flexible and accurate use of structures and vocabulary. Developing the use of compensation strategies also allows students to maintain their confidence and communicative competence when faced with linguistic obstacles.

Strategies for effective reading

In this module, students are exposed to, and familiarised with, a variety of text types. Skills developed include: speed reading, understanding text structure, critical analysis, and determining an author’s position. The range of texts used includes newspaper articles, fiction, magazine articles, and non-fiction prose.

Listening skills

Preparation for the listening paper helps students build the skills to be able to follow and understand a range of spoken materials. These include radio broadcasts, interviews, presentations and talks, as well as everyday interactions. Materials such as TED talks and BBC broadcasts are used to develop the required skills, including: working out the meaning of unknown words, following the structure of speech, and summarising a talk.

Written eloquence

Students practise writing different text types, including essays, reports, articles and letters. They are trained to understand the differences between these types of writing, and to use their linguistic skills to reach their communicative objective in any style. There is a focus on how to structure a text clearly and logically, as well as planning, time-management, precision and clarity.

Tutors set assignments for homework, and mock tests, taken under exam conditions, allow both tutor and student to monitor progress, as well as highlighting areas and tasks which may require a highly targeted focus or more intensive work.

Expectations

Expected outcomes

By the end of this course, the student is expected to be able to:

Manage discourse effectively in face-to-face interactions
Articulate ideas and concepts clearly in both spoken and written English
Demonstrate flexibility in their use of language
Follow and comprehend a variety of written and spoken text types
Structure a piece of long form writing in a number of styles
Speak confidently with others in both one-to-one and two-to-one situations

Accommodation

In the school residence

Secure, fully-supervised residential accommodation. All meals included.

Location

Transfer

Arrival/departure transfers

On arrival days, a shuttle is scheduled to leave for the school at the following times:

• Gatwick airport: 18.00; • Heathrow airport: 18.00; • St. Pancras: 18.00
Students should choose a flight/ train that lands / arrives 90 minutes before the shuttle departure. They should also be aware that the earlier they arrive the longer their wait at the airport/station. A representative will be at the airport or station 6 hours before the departure of the shuttle to welcome the students and provide assistance.

On departure days, a shuttle will drop the students at the following time:

• Gatwick airport: 11.30; • Heathrow airport: 11.30; • St. Pancras: 11.30
Students should choose a flight or train that departs at least 2 hours after the above drop off times. They should also be aware that the later the flight the longer the wait. A representative will stay at the airport or the station 5 hours after the arrival of the shuttle to provide assistance while waiting to go through the departures gate.

For arrival transfer outside of the times of the Shuttle Service:
For any students who require a transfer service at a time or on a date other than those served by the OISE Shuttle service, OISE will provide contact details of a local taxi service so that the student can arrange a personal taxi meeting service directly with the taxi provider.

Culture