Useful FCE websites

Here are all of the useful websites I can find to help students preparing for the Cambridge First Certificate exam. Please let me know if there are any broken links, or if you find something you think I should add.

General

www.flo-joe.com/fce/

Great website, full of tips, especially for Reading, Use of English and Writing. I’d definitely recommend students look at the word bank every day, and that teachers try to make use of those words in their classes to motivate students to use it! There is also a bank of writing showcasing all of the different text types, including teacher feedback.

http://www.cambridgeesol.org/exams/fce/index.html

The official Cambridge FCE website, with information about the length of the papers and the task types, as well as some free materials to download.

http://www.fceexam.com/

http://firstcertificate.wordpress.com/

http://www.fcepass.com

Three sites aimed at students. All include information, tips and exercises covering all parts of the exam.

http://tefltastic.wordpress.com/worksheets/exams/cambridge-exams/fce/

Alex Case’s excellent collection of FCE worksheets.

FCE Result (affiliate link – I will earn money from Amazon if you buy anything after clicking this link), the OUP coursebook, has online exercises for each unit of the book. (via Anna Yermolenko)

And finally, these are the activities tagged ‘FCE’ on my own blog, including ones for speaking and use of English.

Practice exams

Two sets of Reading, Writing and Use of English practise exercises

A free practice test, not including speaking

Vocabulary

http://quizlet.com/group/114523/

http://quizlet.com/subject/fce/

Two places to find online flashcards to play games with on the Quizlet website, to download onto smartphones or to print off and use in class. If you’ve never used Quizlet, here’s my guide.

Oxford Word Skills Intermediate and Advanced (affiliate links) can also help you to build your vocabulary, and they have online exercises too. (via Anna Yermolenko)

Grammar

Oxford Practice Grammar Intermediate and Advanced (affiliate links) have a test you can use to assess your level, along with practice exercises online. (via Anna Yermolenko)

Photo taken from http://flickr.com/eltpics by @yearinthelifeof, used under a CC Attribution Non-Commercial license, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/

The rest of the links are organised by paper. The links above also include some information for each paper, and there doesn’t seem to be anything specific for Paper 1: Reading that isn’t just a practice test.

Paper 2: Writing

General guidelines for the whole exam and for each part of the writing, including useful language

Flo-joe writing class, including a task every week, writing makeovers, and exercises on proofreading

First Certificate Writing is full of examples and tips, plus information about common mistakes.

A seminar for teachers from the IATEFL Birmingham 2016 conference, with Anette Capel sharing tips to help you prepare students for First.

Teaching students how to organise extended writing, with templates for essays and reports

Informal email

http://www.cristinacabal.com/?p=8947

Review

http://languagesint.blogspot.com/2010/05/fce-advice-how-to-write-review.html

Article

http://languagesint.blogspot.com/2010/05/fce-tips-how-to-write-article.html

Report

http://languagesint.blogspot.com/2010/05/written-by-languages-international.html

Story

http://languagesint.blogspot.com/2010/05/12-top-fce-story-tips.html

Essay

Tips on how to write essays of opinion or argumentative essays, including useful language

A sheet based on an opinion essay about sport

An exercise to practise the structure of an essay by putting missing phrases into an essay about computers

Essay writing checklist

Two fun interactive tools for planning essays, via British Council Las Rozas

Paper 3: Use of English

http://www.ihbristol.com/learn-online/exercise-esol.php

Lots of Use of English exercises.

http://www.imparareinglese.co.uk/esercizi_inglese.htm

Use of English exercises (under the ‘Intermediate’ heading)

http://practiseenglish.blogspot.com/2009/03/fce-key-word-transformation-practice-3.html

72 key word transformation sentences, but no key.

http://www.autoenglish.org/FCEUse/FCEUsePart4.htm

This link will take you to Use of English part 4 Key Word Transformation information and exercises. At the top of the page you can also find links to Reading and the other Use of English sections.

http://quizlet.com/8782322/fce-sentence-transformations-1-20-flash-cards/

http://quizlet.com/8782817/fce-sentence-transformations-21-40-flash-cards/

http://quizlet.com/8782986/fce-sentence-transformations-41-60-flash-cards/

Key word transformations on quizlet. Students can play games to help them practise the forms.

http://www.usingenglish.com/files/pdf/cambridge-first-certificate-fce-use-of-english-part-4-sentence-transformation-hangman.pdf

http://www.usingenglish.com/files/pdf/cambridge-first-certificate-fce-making-use-of-english-part-four-questions.pdf

http://www.usingenglish.com/files/pdf/cambridge-first-certificate-fce-use-of-english-part-four-sentence-transformation-tasks.pdf

Key word transformations activities from Alex Case (plus tips for the teacher to show you how to deal with them in the classroom)

Paper 4: Listening

Listening practice from the British Council

Tips for teaching every section of the listening paper

Paper 5: Speaking

http://www.britishcouncil.org/professionals-exams-fce-speaking-intro.htm
Speaking practice from the British Council.

http://www.splendid-speaking.com/exams/fce_speaking.html
Tips and example questions to help students prepare for the Speaking Paper (Paper 5)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=LxCoEdFUcBw
A video showing two students doing part 1 of the Speaking paper. Once you have watched the video, click on the links to the right to take you to the next section. All four sections are available.

http://www.usingenglish.com/articles/how-to-teach-cambridge-first-certificate-fce-speaking-part-two.html
A very comprehensive guide to language students need for FCE speaking part two (comparing pictures), in order of priority, along with ideas on how to teach it.

https://www.cristinacabal.com/?p=13346
Tips, do’s and don’ts for students to maximise their score in paired parts of speaking exams.

In the classroom

Andy Scott presented a webinar entitled ‘FCE: the musical’ for the International House Live Online Workshops. It was an hour of useful and fun activities to prepare students for the exam.

A Hive of Activities has a range of great FCE activities, covering various papers, with more being added all the time.

Alex Case has many very useful activities for FCE on http://www.usingenglish.com. This example is a selection of activities for speaking part 3 phrases: presentation, practice and games. There is also a key word guessing game for speaking 2.

Nicola Prentis has written Teach First Certificate, a beginners guide for teachers showing how to approach the exam, available on Amazon as a paperback or ebook [affiliate links].

Rachel Tsateri has a list of tips and links for teaching B1 and B2 exams both online and offline.

Update

Here is another directory of links from teflgeek.

An amazing video of tips for FCE students from students at IH Santa Clara.