Cambridge PET – Speaking Part 3

In the PET speaking exam, the students aren’t alone – they go in with another candidate (sometimes even two!). For the most part, they don’t need to communicate with each other. However, in Speaking Part 3 they need to exchange ideas and opinions for two minutes. And yes, they’re being scored on the way they communicate with each other.

I’ve got a series of short lesson plans on Cambridge PET exams, explaining each part and giving tips on getting a high score. Click below for all the other plans that I’ve done so far:

• Cambridge PET – Listening Part 1
• Cambridge PET – Reading Part 1
• Cambridge PET – Writing Part 1
• Cambridge PET – Speaking Part 1

This class consists of the lesson plan and the speaking part 3 worksheet (with answers!). All are available to download at the end of the post.

In Speaking Part 3, students listen to a short imaginary scenario and look at a few options that need to be discussed for two minutes. All the options are shown as pictures, so students are required to have a wide range of vocabulary that would help them talk about the prompts. They also need a language that would help them with their discussion, e.g. expressing and asking for opinions, making suggestions, agreeing and disagreeing with their partner, etc. Additionally, they’re expected to have a natural conversation that forces them to think about their answers and listen to the other candidate at the same time.

Start the class by talking about going on a school/work trip. What is the best/worst trip they’ve ever been on? What did they do? Then hand out the worksheet and look at the task adapted from B1 Preliminary for Schools Sample Paper (available to download from the official Cambridge website).

Some students from a small village school are going on a trip to their capital city. Talk together about the different activities they could do in their capital city, and say which would be most interesting.

Students work in pairs and think of six possible activities they could do on a school trip to the capital. Share the ideas with everyone else. If you want to unify the activity, you may want to choose the best answers from each group and write them down on the board. Then ask the students to think of the advantages and disadvantages of each activity. In the case of big groups, give each group different activity and ask them to discuss only one prompt each. With smaller groups, you can ask them to think about the pros and cons of all of the activities. Share the answers and write them down on the board.

Explain the premise of speaking part 3 – students talk to another candidate and discuss the activities shown in the picture. This task tests the ability to share ideas, ask and give opinions, make suggestions, and agree and disagree with the partner. Introduce the most useful vocabulary. Students work on their own and put the phrases in the corresponding categories.

Divide students into pairs. Using the exam task, the prompt answers and useful vocabulary, ask students to discuss the task and choose the best activity. At this point allow students to talk freely without being timed. Collect the ideas and ask for the reasons why they think that it is the best activity to do in the capital city.

It’s time to reverse this exercise. Now present students with seven prompts, taken from the B1 Preliminary Sample Paper. All of them are connected by the exam task. Ask students to work together and write an exam task that could be used to talk about the prompts. Use the example task from exercise 1 to write their tasks. Students share their ideas with the rest of the class. From this point on, you can go in two different directions:

• Students exchange their exam tasks and each group discusses their personalized task.
• Share the real exam task and see how close the predictions were. All groups discuss the same exam task.

Whichever you decide on, monitor the activity and provide feedback.

This is the way I would normally approach Speaking Part 3. It covers the main parts of the exam, teaches useful vocabulary and most importantly, gets students used to this type of task! Click below to download all the files!