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I do things differently.
I believe with the right strategy, anything is possible.
I also believe in efficient work, using time effectively.
For example, did you know you can kill 6 birds with one stone...
To "kill two birds with one stone" means to complete two aims with one action. This is the type of phrase which will impress examiners in the Speaking test 😉
Gold Member Exam Scores
These students took the C1 Advanced exam and passed with C2...could you be next?
More Student Testimonials
"Hi Rory,
Unfortunately, the vast majority of teachers, companies and schools care only about the money, but their material is not as good as they appraise them to be.
From my experience, I went to a language school and out of 9 months preparation period for exam, only 3 months were focused on exam material. That didn't work for me, as I wanted to put more focus it rather than re-doing some books and material I already covered.
The material you offer is a way better compared to the other's. Everything you say is simple and concrete and I am more than sure that people prefer to hear and learn concretely, not to be misguided. Especially nowadays when many companies want to "sell" the story that if you learn only grammar you can pass English exam. Apparently, that's not true. Grammar is crucial but there are other aspects of the language.
I hope you understood my point of view. We will be in touch.
Best regards"
"I wish more and more people discovered You, your website and priceless resources for learners."
"Muy satisfecha con este curso, las explicaciones son muy útiles y multitud de consejos para aprobar el examen, totalmente recomendable!" Lucia *****
"Let me just say that your YouTube channel was and although I'm already long subscribed, still is highly sought after and appreciated by myself and all the people like me, who want to deepen their English language knowledge not only for the purpose of Cambridge exams but in general and I really can't thank you enough."
Who is Cambridge English Teacher Rory #cambridgerory?
You can find #cambridgerory (me) on Youtube, Instagram, Facebook and many more places around the internet.
I'd love it if you followed me!
As I have so many followers, I feel I also have a reputation to uphold.
Students appreciate my work (see my testimonials) and I don't want to jeopardise this.
Until now, I have received over 285 responses and I collated all these into a google spreadsheet (okay okay, I'm a bit of a nerd, I love using spreadsheets for lots of things).
I wanted to gather data in different ways from people in different countries around the world. So, I reached out to people on my Youtube channel, Instagram page, Facebook groups. I also asked members of my website which helps students pass Cambridge English exams. I gathered students' responses over the course of several months. Through this approach, I felt happy that I was gaining a comprehensive understanding of the MOST COMMON REASONS why students take English language exams.
Exam Tip: Did you notice I used the phrasal verb 'reach out' in the last paragraph? This is another way to say you contacted someone and it is a good phrasal verb to know for the Cambridge B2 First and C1 Advanced exams. This website is full of more FCE and CAE exam tips like this.
Let's have a more investigative look at how I collected the data...
When someone requests to join one of Facebook groups, they have to answer a question, so I asked:
"Why do you want to pass --- exam?"
I added their response to a google spreadsheet and after doing several of these, I realised I could categorise their answers into 7 different columns...
The 7 columns/reasons for taking an exam (not in order of popularity) were:
'Personal Challenge'
'Communication'
'Work'
'Become a better teacher'
'University'
'To have a certificate'
'Travel'
Every time someone told me they wanted to take an exam to get a (better) job for example, I added 1 more number to the 'work' column, etc. etc.
But wait, it gets more complicated because I also collected information from other sources.
On my YouTube channel, I have a community area where I can talk with my students, ask them questions, get them to complete questionnaires etc. So, this is what I did. I ask them to complete a poll and after 72 hours, these were the responses:
From this information, I calculated how many people voted for each option and added these responses to the google spreadsheet.
On Instagram, I gathered data in a very similar way to YouTube. I created a poll on Instagram stories. I was only allowed to put 4 options, so I used the most common reasons I had already received from Facebook and YouTube and for the 'Other' category, I asked students to write and tell me their reason.
Finally, every time somebody joins my website, I ask them why they want to do a Cambridge English exam. I have been adding these responses to my google sheet as well...
Overall Results
I added together all of the different reasons why students take Cambridge English exams and added them into one complete table and I worked out the % so we can see the most popular reasons. 'Communication', 'Certificate', 'Travel' and 'Other' reasons students told me only comprised a small number of the overall responses, so I put these into one column 'Everything Else'.
As we can see, the 'Work' category, which is people who want more job opportunities is the most popular category. We can see that 119 people, nearly half of all the students who responded told me they wanted to pass an exam so that they would be able to get (better) jobs. These students were from different countries around the world. At the bottom of this page I will write exactly what students told me and so you can see which countries some of these students are from.
What conclusions can we draw from these results?
Well, there are many conclusions that can be drawn and some of them you may have to make for yourself, but these are the main ideas I have:
- People around the world want to improve themselves and move forward in life. This applies to everybody who takes an English exam. I love this way of thinking. It shows one of the best sides of humanity. We are motivated to improve and I am exactly the same. This is one reason I love my job because I get to meet so many like-minded people on a daily basis. Preparing for and taking a test will be incredibly useful for you, regardless of whether you pass or not because you will be learning through the process. You will pick up different learning mechanisms and strategies and thus you will become a more efficient learner. You will also improve your test taking abilities and become a more adaptable person.
- I was surprised at how many students wanted to do the exam as a 'Personal Challenge'. Some of the main reasons for this were because students like setting life goals for themselves (this also fills me with joy). Other reasons included becoming more fluent in the language and also showing off to friends "I have a certificate na na nana na". By the way, I also like to challenge myself. For example, I spent 6 weeks cycling around Germany and hammock camping in woods this year (I was teaching from my hammock at the same time):
- Other reasons for wanting to take an exam included wanting to improve everyday English and develop the 5 main skill areas: Speaking, Listening, Reading, Writing and Use of English. These are tested in most well known and respected English exams.
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In my FCE courses and long CAE courses, you will see that I teach techniques using a variety of materials because I know that different students benefit from different learning methods.