'Upper-intermediate' vs. First Certificate

Question

Hi,I'm looking for opinions about the relation between 'upper-intermediate'-level English (as established by e.g. the main Oxford and Longman coursebooks) and First Certificate level. I have worked in a private, adult language school where an FCE coursebook was what you did after an upper-intermediate coursebook. However, another source here seems to think that FCE comes before upper-intermediate level.Any ideas?Jan

Usenet · Accepted Answer

Standard Greek practice nowadays is to run kids through an upper-intermediate coursebook before tackling FCE. Some schools, generally speaking the daring, intrepid ones, don't bother.

Your source is most likely ill-informed.
However, even OUP and CUP occasionally decide what labels to put on books on the basis of something other than clear and rational judgement. For instance, I use English Vocabulary in Use, Upper-Intermediate (CUP), right after FCE, if necessary. There are good reasons why the book is as difficult as it and still called an "upper-intermediate" book. I don't use Clockwise Advanced (OUP) for anything other than CPE holders who want to prepare themselves for a trip to England. Great book, but wickedly hard on most pre-CPE people here in terms of organizational format and natural expression.

In general, the European market is stricter than the Asian market in labeling books by level of difficulty.
So, in general, upper-intermediate and FCE mean the same thing, even according to Cambridge ESOL. Good luck convincing your source!

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Hi, I'm looking for opinions about the relation between 'upper-intermediate'-level English (as established by e.g. the main Oxford and Longman ... after an upper-intermediate coursebook. However, another source here seems to think that FCE comes before upper-intermediate level. Any ideas? Jan[/nq]
These sorts of terms are notoriously difficult to pin down, partly because they're relative; a language level considered 'intermediate' by a University language department might well be equivalent to 'advanced' in a street-corner private school.
Some sort of standardisation does come from Exam boards - it looks from http://www.cambridgeesol.org/exams/index.htm#IELTS like Cambridge ESOL calls FCE 'upper-intermediate' and PET 'intermediate'. They know what they're talking about of course, but having taught both exams in a variety of contexts I'd feel more comfortable with FCE as intermediate and PET at lower-intermediate.
The other idea is to look at the levels on differing course books, comparing, say, two lower-intermediate books. But while there may be a consensus on books like Headway and Cutting Edge, as Credo pointed out there will always be books whose perceived level is wildly different from what you'd expect - my example is the grisly BE text 'Market Leader' (aka 'Market Bleeder'), whose upper-intermediate version looks post-CPE to me.
Then again there is an argument that some textbooks like Headway become so ubiquitous (20 years ago it was Streamline...) that how they define a level becomes the standard. In the vast number of private schools around the world where the course book *is* the curriculum, upper-intermediate or intermediate are what Mr & Mrs Soars say they are.
Regards
DC

Usenet · Answer

Hi Jan:
I took the FCE exam in the last session of June, and as long as I know, the exam corresponds to an upper-intermediate level. All the books published by Cambridge Univ. Press that have to do with the test agree with this, as well as the professors that prepare for the level. Therefore, it is my believe that the school in which you are taking private classes is not well informed.
For more advise, please consult the web site of Cambridge ESOL. You=B4ll learn more about this.
Good luck convincing your information source.
Regards,
Eric GG
Ps: When you receive the Statement of Results of the exam it is literally said that the level you reached is an upper-intermediate level. "No more for the questions"

Usenet · Answer

I've been teaching for two years and I find the two to be basically synonymous, level-wise. The courses differ becasue FCE courses spend a lot of time on test-taking skills, whereas Upper Intermediate courses just focus on language.
I really dislike it when a regular UI course uses an exam book because they spend so much time on the various FCE writing types instead of learning the language. I do really like the FCE listening stuff, though.
I find conditionals to be a good benchmark. I think UI students should be able to correctly use 1st and 2nd conditionals 90% of the time. They should know what 3rd conditional is, but it's not fair to expect them to use it too often.
Hope this helped.
Aaron

Usenet · Answer

Thanks to everyone who posted about this. I've since come to realise that for various reasons, the books my colleague was talking about were actually pitched higher than the mainstream ones (Headway, Cutting Edge, Inside Out etc.) in terms of structure content, therefore FCE was appropriate after students had gone through that particular intermediate-level coursebook. I can curse and spit on the monopoly that the mainstream publishers have in defining what a level involves, but then again, there's not much I can do about it.

I like the idea of FCE being somehow a parallel course to a regular upper-intermediate book, though: it's just that FCE focuses on exam technique and the mainstream coursebooks are more eclectic in their approach. But as more and more coursebooks are doing FCE-like stuff (all those sentence transformations in Cutting Edge!) I suppose the distinction is becoming more blurred.
jan

'Upper-intermediate' vs. First Certificate

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