13/11/2013
Two students – from Ukraine and Mexico – attended a Bell School course this summer, their prize for writing an essay on how TV can help candidates prepare for Cambridge English exams.
Ani Grigoryan, of Kiev (pictured) and Paloma Chumacero Delgado, from Mexico City, were this year’s winners of the Cambridge Assessment English/Bell Student Competition. This writing competition was open to students worldwide aged between 12 and 17.
The entrants had to write an essay in English for the prize of an all-expenses-paid two-week language course at a Bell Campus in the UK. The competition asked entrants to suggest ways in which watching TV could help Cambridge English exam preparation. In her essay, Ani, who recently gained the Cambridge English: Key qualification, explained how she used TV to help her pronunciation and understanding of idioms, and often recited monologues from movies to help her prepare for speaking exams. Paloma suggested that programmes such as CSI or Law and Order could be used to practise listening and comprehension skills, and that students could also use TV story lines as a basis for practising structure, grammar and vocabulary, and to help speaking as part of a role play exercise.
The two winning students flew to the UK in July to receive their prize, a two-week Active English course held at the Bell Bloxham Campus in Oxfordshire. The course, one of Bell’s most popular, combines English language lessons with sporting and creative activities in order to develop communication skills through ‘learning by doing’.