The FCE certification has become quite popular as a way to stand out from the crowd. The exam covers all the major language skills, grammar and vocabulary. There are four papers each for reading and use of language, writing, listening and speaking. You answer different types of questions like open cloze, multiple choices, key word transformation, word formation, multiple matching, gapped texts and more.
To prepare well for the FCE exam, you need enough practice for these areas of the language. In this post, we discuss some of the best games and activities that help practice these skills covered in the exam and help you prepare in a fun and interesting way.
FCE Fun Activities
The Cambridge B2 First is an assessment that tests four major language skills in the form of four papers. These papers contain different types of questions which can be prepared easily with some practice. One can practice writing, speaking and listening skills with the help of exercises, fun games and activities.
Activity 1: Storytelling Chain (Speaking and Listening)
This activity is excellent for practicing speaking and listening skills and it encourages creativity.
Instructions:
- Divide the students into small groups.
- Start a story with an interesting sentence such as “Once upon a time, there was a magical city in the clouds…”
- The next student must continue the story by adding a sentence. They should try to incorporate recently learned vocabulary or grammar structures.
- The story continues with each student adding a sentence until it reaches a natural conclusion.
This exercise allows students to practice their speaking and listening skills and can be adapted to focus on any area of the English language you are currently teaching.
Activity 2: Crossword Puzzle (Reading, Use of Language and Vocabulary)
Crossword puzzles are excellent for teaching vocabulary and reading comprehension.
Instructions:
- Create a crossword puzzle relevant to the current lesson’s vocabulary or a topic from the FCE syllabus. There are various online tools available to assist you in creating custom puzzles.
- Divide students into pairs or groups and distribute the puzzles.
- Have the students work together to solve the puzzles. They can use dictionaries if necessary.
The aim of this activity is to encourage cooperative learning and active usage of new vocabulary, as well as enhancing their reading comprehension skills.
Activity 3: Role-Play Debate (Speaking, Listening, Writing)
Role-play debates allow students to practice speaking and listening skills, as well as their writing skills.
Instructions:
- Divide the class into pairs or groups.
- Assign each group a topic relevant to the FCE syllabus, like environmental issues, technology, education, etc.
- Within each group, assign students to take on different viewpoints on the issue.
- Give them some time to prepare their arguments. They can write them down, thus practicing their writing skills.
- Each group presents their debate to the class. This practices their speaking and listening skills.
- At the end of the debate, encourage a Q&A session.
This activity promotes critical thinking, persuasive language usage, and fosters a deeper understanding of the topics they may encounter in the FCE exam.
These activities provide ample practice for all areas covered in the FCE exam and add an element of fun to the learning process. Remember to adapt these activities as needed to fit the needs of your class and the specific topics you are covering.
FCE Games & Activities
Fun games and activities can be used to revise the topics covered in the FCE exam. You can also introduce activities that target the use of words in the right context like creation of a dialogue, exercises asked in the exam, use of words in sentences and asking questions containing the words.
Bingo
An old game for a new task! This game is great at revising parts of speech. You can select the words you want the students to revise and prepare the bingo cards. You can speak out parts of speech like verb, noun and adjective and participants can cross out words, one at a time. As a variation, you can read a sentence with a gap and students see if they have the word on their cards. The one who has it says it loud and crosses it.
Board Race
This game can be easily adapted to word formation practice for FCE. Divide the students into 2-3 teams and get them in front of the board. Make a line in the middle of the board and put an affix or root word at the top. Students, turn by turn, write as many words as they can as a relay race. Keep the pressure on by giving a time limit.
FCE Speaking Practice Exercises
It is possible to take the boredom out of the FCE speaking practice by replacing the graphs and photos with some interesting and fun exercises. You can introduce different activities to provide an exciting way to practice different parts of the speaking exam. The first part of the FCE exam is aimed at making the applicant comfortable and it is a chance to make a good impression.
Practice exercises can make the preparation more engaging and entertaining and students perfect their skills without even realizing it. You can easily find worksheets and other printables that help gamify the practice session for the FCE speaking part. You can also prepare cards containing the speaking exercise questions and distribute them among students.
Students can answer the questions using their vocabulary and the teacher can look for errors and suggestions to improve the answers. The aim is to help students learn how to answer the questions in a casual, natural, confident manner.
FCE Word Formation Games
Word formation games are great ways to help students revise and practice vocabulary for their FCE exam. Word formation is one of the easiest parts to practice as games. Here are some of the best FCE word formation games to try.
Taboo
Divide the students into groups of 2-3 and ask them to describe the words with affixes to their partners. They get a fixed time to speak as many words as they can. They cannot use any of the forms of the words in their card.
Building Blocks
To play this game, you need to prepare two sets of cards – some prefixes/suffixes and words that can go with them to form new ones. Each student selects a card from the Words stack and use it with the right prefix/suffix to form a new word and note it. This continues till there are no Words cards. This game can be played individually, in groups or against one another to form as many new words as possible.
Maze
Word formation maze is great at revising prefixes and suffixes. You make a maze and students try to exit it by looking for words according to the word formation rule like adjectives whose opposites start with ‘in’. You can also ask them to look for nouns ending with ‘ence’.
Pass the Ball
To play this word formation game, divide the students into two groups and they stand on the opposite sides. Give them a root word or a suffix and they form a word and pass the ball to the other team. You can keep a time limit to keep the game going fast.
FCE Speaking Practice Activities
There are numerous activities you can use to practice for the part 4 of the FCE speaking exam. The FCE speaking paper is a great way to score a lot of marks because it always follows the same structure. You can practice with games and activities to gain confidence and perform well in the exam. Using fun activities not only make speaking practice fun but also help you perfect your skills that the test requires.
Activity 1
Visit a few websites and find some interesting headlines. Copy and paste them into the wordle and make numerous wordle headlines for each group. Divide the students into pairs and tell them they will receive headlines. Ask them to unscramble the headline and note it down. When they make a sensible headline out of the words, they should speak about what the story is about and their opinion on the story.
Activity 2
Search for some interesting articles and copy-paste the header and first few lines and print them. Give each student an article to read. When they finish reading, they should explain the article to their partner and ask their opinion about it. They should talk for at least 2-3 minutes.
