English for Bundessprachenamt-Insiders
Yesterday I had the last of my four English-exams this year. The federal language department (Bundessprachenamt) certifies four skills: listening comprehension, reading comprehension, writing and oral use. In each of these skills a certain level from one to four can be reached. The one is the lowest and the four the highest possible level.
I passed the level four in both comprehensive skills (listening and reading) with no problem. Writing is difficult because the spelling and the right use of grammar can be checked directly. But I did not expect that I would have so many problems in my oral exam as I had yesterday. I discovered a huge lack of vocabulary and big problems in the use of the right tenses. Especially the first part, where I had to tell something about myself went totally wrong. I wasn't able to tell even the easiest things in the right word-order. I don't know if I was nervous or if I tried to speak too complicated.
But the worst part was the second part. I had to prepare a topic (with 15 minutes preperation time) and speak about it. I thought I could tell something about "education and upbringing" (I had to choose the topic out of two possible topics; the other was something about the military). But unfortunately I tried to come up with long sentences and complicated points I could not realy express by myself. It went totally wrong when I tried to explain the major problem of modern families. That topic was too big for me to explain. Especially for my limited vocabulary.
I remember a good advice from my former teacher: As a 24-years old man try to speak as if You were a fourteen-year old boy. Because your language is not comparable to what it is like in german. But it is comparable to the language of You teen years befor. Well mayby that will work the next time.
I passed the level four in both comprehensive skills (listening and reading) with no problem. Writing is difficult because the spelling and the right use of grammar can be checked directly. But I did not expect that I would have so many problems in my oral exam as I had yesterday. I discovered a huge lack of vocabulary and big problems in the use of the right tenses. Especially the first part, where I had to tell something about myself went totally wrong. I wasn't able to tell even the easiest things in the right word-order. I don't know if I was nervous or if I tried to speak too complicated.
But the worst part was the second part. I had to prepare a topic (with 15 minutes preperation time) and speak about it. I thought I could tell something about "education and upbringing" (I had to choose the topic out of two possible topics; the other was something about the military). But unfortunately I tried to come up with long sentences and complicated points I could not realy express by myself. It went totally wrong when I tried to explain the major problem of modern families. That topic was too big for me to explain. Especially for my limited vocabulary.
I remember a good advice from my former teacher: As a 24-years old man try to speak as if You were a fourteen-year old boy. Because your language is not comparable to what it is like in german. But it is comparable to the language of You teen years befor. Well mayby that will work the next time.