Avanzado 2 Morning Course
19 de mayo de 2016
AVANZADO 2 Our morning course | The most expensive private class in Cantabria
Learn to be vague Although it actually belongs to the skills one usually develops in the advanced level, it sounds nice when a speaker is able to hesitate and show your strategies to talk around problems. Fillers such as you know, you see, I mean, right? kind of, sort of, like, etc… may help you get out of many a jam.
Not everything is very, very, very At the basic level everything is very important. Boyfriends are very tall and exams are very difficult. Remember there are alternatives. Something can be rather creepy, quite interesting, fairly good or absolutely fascinating.
“Avanzado” is not advanced Now it may sound like an intolerable platitude but the fact remains: Avanzado 2, however misleading it may seem, does not mean “advanced”. It’s a label chosen by bureaucrats who must have forgotten what the B2 level is all about. According to the European Framework of
Extreme adjectives
Reference for Languages, B2 is just an
Expressions such as: utterly bone-chilling or life-crushing may belong to the truly advanced level. That said, you should not forget that at the B2 level an examiner expects candidates to be able to handle expressions like: it was boiling hot, the room was packed, Jim is just bizarre, it was a terrifying experience.
intermediate level. In other words, it is the level
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that allows you to travel to Amsterdam and make a professional presentation but is not strong
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Avanzado 2 Morning Course
19 de mayo de 2016
enough to help you express your feelings. In terms of grammar, the defining traits of this level are: control over conditional sentences, practical knowledge of verb patterns (he denied having worked for Mr. Scrooge), well most of the stuff the textbook offers. The vocabulary is a little. It
Tips of a successful exam Resort to those expressions that somehow resonate with you. They may be:
includes some idioms (remember all those silver linings and bright sides), extreme adjectives (terrifying, boiling, hilarious), some collocations (apply for a job, hold a meeting), a couple of new phrasal verbs (to talk down to someone, to come
• an adjective that reminds you
of someone in particular • an expression that I often use
and you find specially useful •
Always copy. Do not innovate. It’s not worth the risk. The odds of you screwing up amply surpass those of you getting it just right. There are structures that usually impress an examiner: a wellcrafted relative sentence (I’m aware he’s rather difficult to live with), a modal verb of deduction (it must be weird to have 11 fingers), expressions of agreement and disagreement other than I agree or I disagree (e.g. I suppose you may have a point, I can’t take your side), specific vocabulary. Do you remember all those words scribbled on the blackboard? Use some of them: foolproof, tricky, choir, sharp dresser, sweeping statement, etc. Steer clear of all those phrases that sound cool but may stand out (and not in a good way): it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out… End-of-course issue
up with an idea). As for functional learning, I think we have covered a good number of areas. We’ve learned the ways to voice an opinion and develop a conversation, strategies to hesitate or to structure an essay. On a good day anyone of you may pass the exam.
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Avanzado 2 Morning Course
19 de mayo de 2016
Of course not everything we have seen in class has been 100% B2. Just look at the photograph below. No comments.
What I’m trying to say is that we have dabbled in advanced material specially in lexical matters. The use of words which express a speaker’s attitude for example (frankly, to be honest, actually, the thing is, etc.) clearly belongs to a higher standard even if that was in the textbook. That said I believe that you are ready for that kind of input. Isn’t that a great compliment? Griselda, Xavier, Elena, Vanesa, Maite, Silvina, Laura, Pilar… Thanks for the chalk, for your enthusiasm, for reminding us all of the fact that the best is yet to come for bringing a whole new meaning to the expression food for thought when we tasted the fortune cookies, for putting up with my film references and my sense of humor, I appreciate your unwavering support and your fierce loyalty to the course. All in all it’s been an enormous pleasure to have you in the classroom. I hope you have learned a little more than just a few words in these past eight months.
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