Is preparing for an English exam really learning English? Well yeah obviously. I mean it's an
English exam, right? Well are you studying to learn English or are you studying to pass an exam?
I don't know! let's talk about it!
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The whole point of taking an English exam is to demonstrate that you know English and yes
preparing for an English exam to a certain extent involves learning English obviously. But is it
the best way to learn English and I guess that's the question here. Let's start with grammar then.
What is learning grammar? Well if you're studying for the Cambridge exams you're probably thinking
grammar is use of English and use of English is that horrible part four keyword transformation
exercise. Right? Right Here. However is completing a word transformation exercise
really evidence that you know the grammar and if it is what do we mean by knowing the grammar?
Um. I mean seriously it is entirely possible for someone to complete a grammar exercise correctly
but not know what that grammar structure means or how to produce it in conversation or in writing.
Honestly, what's more important form or meaning? Well I think it's obvious: meaning. Because
that's what the point is of language, right? To communicate, to share meaning. In general
any exam that you take that wants to assess your grammar will prioritize the form over the meaning
and in my opinion that's a terrible thing. So forget about grammar exercises right? Exams
are stupid! Cambridge is pointless! But no! Hold on. Learning grammar and grammar exercises can be
helpful because the more you produce a grammar structure the more automatic producing that
grammar structure becomes, right? Imagine you're playing a guitar. When you first start learning
the guitar you'll maybe play notes or chords very slowly and outside the context of a song
and then maybe once you get better you will start playing those notes or chords quicker and without
thinking in the context of a song and perhaps grammar is the same. I guess in my opinion the
important thing is when you're practicing the form of something never forget about the meaning. After
all the form is completely pointless without the meaning. So if you're studying some grammar for an
exam just remember "yes I'm learning this form but I also need to know the meaning because without
the meaning the form is meaningless" Yes? Yes! Okay so what about speaking? In my opinion the
Cambridge exams are quite good in this respect but think about part three of the B2 first speaking
exam. Sometimes you can have two teenagers talking about whether a shopping center will
improve tourism to a town and have you ever heard two teenagers talking about something like that?
Because I haven't. And if when I was at school I did hear two teenagers talking about something
like that I would have said wow you guys are boring you've probably got no friends I'm gonna
talk to someone else. Of course the ironic thing is that I was the one that had no friends so...
still don't. Okay fine in real life sometimes you will have to talk about things that you're not
interested in so fine. In my opinion problems start arising in the Cambridge B2 first exam
during part one of the speaking exam where you asked basic questions about familiar topics
because often (and I encourage that you do this) students will try to use more complex grammatical
forms in order to demonstrate to The Examiner that they know that these forms exist. You can learn
all about that here and seriously if you want to pass an exam it's a really good idea I think you
should do it! The examiners will love you, you will love me and then we'll all love each other.
That sounds really cool! However is it learning English being able to answer any type of question
with "used to"? Is that learning English? I don't know it seems kind of unnatural to me. Again this
goes back to the problem of form being prioritized over meaning. Instead of you expressing yourself
how you want to and conveying the meaning that you want to convey to The Examiner, well, you're
trying to demonstrate that you know complex forms and saying "Hey examiner look at this form! Isn't
it a beautiful form? Look how I form this form!". We have a kind of similar issue with writing too.
You'll notice that in my videos that discuss writing an essay for the B2 first Cambridge
exam I give you some very fixed instructions of how to write an essay that the examiners will
look at and say "wow I'm an examiner examining this exam and I'm having a great time doing it".
learn about that here. Yeah trust me follow my advice and you'll do really well! However if you
apply my advice outside of the context of the B2 first Writing exam then you're probably going to
have some problems. Seriously the writing advice I give you for the B2 first writing exam is only
relevant for the B2 first writing exam. So what are you learning are you learning English writing
or are you learning B2 first exam preparation? And yeah there's some English involved but
really I think you're learning B2 first exam preparation. And lastly exams often focus on being
right and to be honest with you I'm not saying that they shouldn't. Obviously an exam needs
some form of objective criteria with which to assess you otherwise it's not an exam it's just
a bunch of opinions put together and opinions are like noses everyone has a nose... I think.
However this is very different to the way that we learn languages. We don't learn languages with a
voice inside our head saying "no that's wrong.". We learn a language through experimentation and
I kind of think that exam preparation is the opposite of that. We're studying to be right,
not necessarily to explore the language. Exams scare people and exams change the
way that people think about things and this is for good reason. Oftentimes someone's job,
someone's higher education even someone's Visa can depend on how they do in these exams and so
people rightly are terrified of being wrong and this is a good way to approach an exam
maybe but a terrible way to approach language learning. So remember it's important to be right
in your exam but learning a language is about exploration, experimentation and most importantly
communication. So what's the point in all of this? What is Toby trying to say to you? Am I saying you
should not prepare for exams? No. Definitely not. Keep studying for exams and uh keep watching my
videos please. But try not to see the exam as an end in and of itself. Remember an exam is
just one very very small part of learning English some people feel like they really need exams to
keep going they want to feel like they've actually accomplished something through learning a language
and yeah I get that they can be a great source of motivation for some people but every now and
then when you're working through hundreds of use of English exercises or writing a report about
something that you don't care about and is of no relevance to you or you're reading an article
about some species of animal that you don't care about ask yourself this question "Am I learning
English doing this or am I just learning exam technique?" because they're not the same thing
and I'm pretty sure you didn't start learning English to get really really good at exams. And
with that we are finished! I hope you enjoyed the video and I hope it makes you think about exams
in a different way. If you like the video don't forget to SMASH that like button, subscribe if you
haven't already, leave a comment down below. My name is Toby and this was SMASH English... [Music]