Webinar Summary: OET Issues and How to Solve Them

Tom is a senior teacher of OET (Occupational English Test) and SLC courses and an author of a book titled OET Reading & Listening Skills Builder (2020). He has been teaching since 2006 and has specialised in OET courses provided by SLC since 2017.

In his webinar, Tom spoke about various topics related to helping candidates to get ready for the OET:

• Getting familiar with the format and focus of the OET, in particular the similarities of speaking and writing sub-tests, and the similarities of reading and listening sub-tests.
• Coping with common OET issues both for students and teachers such as limited resources for teachers to use in preparatory courses, lack of sample tests and self-study materials for students.
• Awareness of similarities of the OET and IELTS.
  Assessing the level of student’s general English knowledge required to begin preparation for the OET test.
• Understanding the skills development cycle.
• Building a Google Docs comment bank for giving feedback on students´ performance.

Tom provided many examples of classroom activities which will help a teacher to find out the level of students´ general English knowledge. He also explained the way he instills confidence in his students to be ready to sit and pass the test. He went on to share tips on developing a wide range of sub-skills including use of patient-oriented and formal language, data selection, recognising signposts, getting familiar with different native speaker accents, skimming and scanning strategies, recognising grammar and lexical clues, making a functional verbs bank, among others.

Watch the video and find out more about the following resources recommended by Tom:

• OET Reading & Listening Skills Builder (Express Publishing, 2020)
• OET Pulse: Check the health of your English
• Test your English – a free online platform which can help candidates find out if they are ready to take the OET test
• NHS and TEDMED video resources to practice listening
• Handovers to practice writing