Hi

I am a Cambridge oral examiner based in Germany and I would like to try and answer some of the matters that you raise:

- in order to find out what Cambridge does with the marks, you would need to contact them as we examiners only carry out the exam and then send our marks off where they are dealt with electronically.  Any illegible marks are then read by 'a real person'. When I was a teacher, I contacted them a number of times direct, via phone and/or by e-mail and always found them very helpful. If your centre cannot help, this might be the best thing to do.

- at any level of the exam there are two examiners.  One, called the interlocutor, who conducts the exam and one, called the assessor, who does not participate at all but is observing the exam from start to finish and marking it according to the criteria which are standard for Cambridge.  The assessor's marks bear more weight than those of the interlocutor.  As the two examiners are marking the students from two completely different angles, it could be that there is a little bit of discrepancy but this does not matter.  They should not be influenced by one another and are not, in fact, allowed to discuss the marks.

- although your students may linguistically be above the level of the exam - you are right, PET is not particularly high - perhaps the students are not fully aware of the actual format and if this is the case, well I am afraid to say they won't get good marks. For example, I am a native speaker of English but once got some listening material for a CAE or CPE exam.  I would have failed the exam because the format was totally unknown to me.  What is the format? 

++ there are 4 parts.  Part one is divided into 2 phases and lasts 2-3 minutes altogether (for 2 candidates).  In Part 1, Phase 1 the aim is just to warm up a little bit - answer a few basic personal questions about where one lives, what one's name is, spell one's name.  In Part 1, Phase 2 they will have to answer some other questions and should expand their answers as much as possible.  If they don't, the examiner will ask "why".  It is important that students try to give as much information in any answer they offer.  At this stage, the candidates are not communicating with one another.

++ part 2 is a collaborative task and lasts for 2-3 minutes. Here candidates have to speak together on a given topic.  This involves making suggestions and responding to suggestions, discussing alternatives, putting forward recommendations and trying to negotiate an outcome.  The timing is short so the task may not be completed.  This is not serious.  What is important is the languge that is used whilst they are trying to work towards a decision or a solution. Hogging the time is as bad as being reticent.

++ part 3 is where each student talks alone for no more than 60 seconds: describing a photo.  Detail is important.

++ part 4 is a discussion and will last 3 minutes.  Here candidates talk together and say what they like/dislike, talk about preferences, some experiences in  their lives, their habits.  These will in some way be related to the photo they had in part 3. The candidates should talk together as much as possible.

Examining criteria are:

grammar and vocabulary.  Candidates do not have to be perfect to get a good mark but they should be able to control what they say and even at this level show they have a range of vocabulary when they talk about familiar subjects.

discourse management, i.e. how they organise their thoughts and opinions.  This is something which is key to Cambridge at any level and it is important that candidates learn phrases for this. Can they link their ideas well?  Can they handle conjunctions? Are they coherent and do their ideas hang together?  How well do they handle lexical fields?  Can they use pronouns?  Everyday expressions such as "I mean", "actually", ... are also important.  Cambridge calls these "discourse markers".  Topical relevance is vital: showing that you can babble on and on will not get you through. Students should also try to bring new ideas in to a conversation, not just repeat what they have heard. 

pronunciation is another area.  This starts obviously at individual sounds but extends to sentences and even how words in a sentence are linked.  Word and sentence stress are important too, as is intonation.  Having an accent is OK but intelligibility is expected.

interactive communication.  This has already been touched on but basically it means that candidates should not be monosyllabic, should try to initiate a discussion and not just always respond to what has been said, they should be able to exchange ideas and perhaps even support the other candidate if s/he has a problem (something we do in normal conversation).  Turn taking is also a feature of this area. 

The Cambridge ESOL website has masses of material and videos even online.  Have you shared these videos with the students so they actually know what to expect?  I would suggest practising these different parts in class as much as possible, even if you only focus on one part each time.  Getting the timing right, i.e. learning to say as much as possible in the short space of time is important. Why not try and record the sessions and let the students give feedback on one another? Also, mix your students up as much as possible so that when they are practising in pairs, they always have a different partner.  This means they will be better prepared for any situation in the exam - a weak partner to work with, one of the same level or perhaps even someone who is better than them.  Whatever the situation, they have to be able to cope with it. 

In a number of countries, Cambridge actually offers seminars/workshops which focus on the various papers and Italy is one of these.  I found these very useful when I was 'just' a teacher. This is the link I found: http://www.cambridge-efl.org.uk/ and then follow the links >resources    >teaching resources    >teaching seminars   >Italy. If you look further on the website >Teaching Resources (by exam), you will also find the PET Teaching Resource where there is a wealth of material, worksheets, dos and donts.  Just loads of stuff.

Hope this has been of some help and I wish you and your students more luck in the future. 

Thanks for sharing.

 This will be useful for those studying English, for its use in real situations.

Derek