About This Course

This course is for secondary school students who are currently studying in Form 5. The aims of this course are to help your child prepare for the HKCEE by:

• Familiarising them with the content and structure of the HKCEE exam
• providing targeted exam practice for the HKCEE exam
• activating and extending their knowledge of English
• developing their communicative skills of speaking and writing
• developing their receptive skills of listening and reading

Course Objectives

In February term, your child will work towards achieving a number of learning outcomes related to the skills required for HKCEE examination.

By the end of the semester 2 term 1, your child will be able to:

Exam familiarisation

• understand  what the assessors are looking for when marking exam answer sheets
• make an assessment of their own personal strengths and weaknesses
• investigate strategies for autonomous learning and revision

Reading

• use skimming and scanning reading techniques to understand the wider meaning of a whole text
• identify the main theme and ideas of parts of a text using lexical clues
• guess the meaning of words and phrases from their context
• guess the tone and mood of a writer based on their use of language

Writing

• understand features of different writing genres that appear in examination tasks
• experiment with techniques for developing appropriate, adequate and relevant content for a writing task
• attempt techniques for selecting and using a range of appropriate vocabulary in a written text
• organise ideas logically in a manner that is clear to the reader
• try out strategies for identifying and correcting errors in spelling, punctuation and grammar

Listening

• become familiar with different UK English accents
• develop a shorthand system to take notes while listening
• avoiding spelling errors in commonly written answers

Integrated Skills

• take notes while listening
• locate and appropriately rewrite relevant content from the data file
• organise ideas logically in a manner that is clear to the reader
• keep the reader in  mind

Speaking

• speak audibly in a group discussion
• pronounce typical group discussion words and guessing the pronunciation of new words
• develop an argument when discussing a controversial issue
• intervene in a discussion on a familiar topic, using a suitable phrase to get the floor
• ask someone to elaborate on what they have just said and keep the conversation moving

Course Content

Your child will work from a carefully designed course book which concentrates on a different paper each lesson. Your child will be able to practise their exam skills under test conditions and receive feedback from their teachers.

As HKC students of the British Council, your child will have free access to the Multi-Media Study Centre (MMSC) our self-study facility on the 3rd floor of our centre in Admiralty. The MMSC contains a wide variety of materials, including CD-ROMs, videos, audiotapes and books.

Demonstrating Progress

Your child's progress is measured by continuous assessment. During the course the class teacher will set writing, reading and integrated skills tasks in class.

Provided that your child has attended at least 75% of their classes, they will receive a report on their progress and the areas they need to improve.

Working in Partnership

We understand that you want to be involved in and support your child's learning. To this end we have created an outline of the roles and responsibilities of all those involved in the learning process.