On the 23rd October 2019, a joint-school English oral practice was held at Law Ting Pong secondary School. Nearly 200 S5-S6 students from Carmel Pak U Secondary School, Hong Kong Teachers’ Association Lee Heng Kwei Secondary School, SKH Bishop Mok Sau Tseng Secondary School and our school participated in this practice event. It was a rare experience for the students to practise for the HKDSE speaking exam before their real ones.
With this in mind, students were arranged into groups of 3 to 4 students. Students had the chance to practise discussing HKDSE speaking questions with unfamiliar candidates, just like the situation they will face in the HKDSE. In total, they completed three group discussions with different groupmates. The preparation time was also purposely reduced to 8 minutes as it aimed to challenge the students to handle unexpected situations that might happen in the exam. After the group discussion, four representatives from the four schools were invited on stage to practise the part B individual response on stage. The four students spoke confidently and eloquently on stage to model how to answer a Part B question. The teachers’ advice and comments session followed right after the demonstration. Based on their observations from the group discussion, they gave advice to all students on the four domains of the HKDSE marking scheme, such as Communication Strategies and the Pronunciation and Delivery.
Despite students feeling nervous during the discussions, this event provided them with an authentic and eye-opening experience. Students familiarised themselves with the format of the HKDSE speaking exam, along with the irreplaceable experience of practising with students of varying levels of English proficiency. All in all, it was a very meaningful event for all the participants and it gives them great confidence going into their HKDSE Engish speaking exam.
Written by 6AT Dorothy Cheung
