How to teach exams

This course trains teachers to design and deliver effective exam preparation lessons. Each session is interactive and includes practical takeaways can be used immediately in teaching.  

The course will...

equip you with proven techniques for teaching exam skills, showing you how to use rubrics, descriptors, and procedures to deliver focused, effective preparation lessons.
immerse you in authentic exam activities, giving you the chance to try them out yourself and see how strategies work before applying them with your learners.
provide structured opportunities to lead short exam-focused activities, receive feedback, and refine your classroom techniques in a safe, supportive environment.
train you to transform coursebook tasks, design mock exams, and customise resources to suit different exams, student needs, and classroom contexts.
deepen your understanding of marking criteria by working with rubrics, scripts, and feedback techniques, enabling you to evaluate student performance accurately and constructively.

Course structure

The Teaching Assessment Course is offered fully online, every two weeks. The course work involves home assignments to prepare for each session. The timings below might vary based on participants’ needs and experience.

Session 1: Input and methodology
14:00 - 15:15
Session 2: Practical application
15:15 - 16:30
Day 1 - 26th September
Introduction to exam teaching
  • Understand different ESL exams and who takes them Learn how rubrics and descriptors work What are the characteristics of exam classes? 
  • Learn how rubrics and descriptors work 
  • What are the characteristics of exam classes? 
Hands-on introduction
  • What makes a successful exams teacher  
  • Understand student needs  
  • How to choose materials for an exam course
  • Achieving beneficial backwash 
Day 2 - 10th October
Reading Skills and Exam Strategies
  • What is measured in reading exams? 
  • Different types of reading tests
Reading application
  • Exam procedures and strategies for students 
  • How to prepare students for reading tests 
Day 3 - 24th October
Listening Skills and Exam Strategies
  • What types of listening tasks appear in exams? 
  • How are listening exams conducted? 
  • Which skills and abilities are tested in listening exams? 
Challenges and preparation
  • How students can prepare for a listening test 
  • Overcoming difficulties when listening 
Day 4 - 7th November
Speaking Skills and Exam Strategies
  • How speaking exams are conducted 
  • What is tested in speaking exams 
  • Understanding rubrics for assessing speaking 
Helping learners imrprove their speaking skills
  • Improve speaking skills & task awareness 
  • Practical teaching tips for improving pronunciation, linguistic range and accuracy 
  • Build student confidence 
  • Conducting mock exams 
Day 5 - 21st November
Writing Skills and Exam Strategies
  • Different exam writing tasks  
  • What is measured in writing exams? 
  • Analyse rubrics for assessing writing 
Tasks, feedback and genres
  • Approaching writing tasks through planning, drafting and proof-reading
  • Assessing writing and giving feedback on student writing 
  • Writing for different genres 
Day 6 - 5th December
Exam Readiness
  • Understanding B1, B2, C1, C2 Use of English 
  • Building lexical resource: collocations, word families, and topic-specific language 
  • Teaching grammar in context for accuracy and range
Getting students ready
  • How to maintain motivation and encourage learner autonomy 
  • Mock exams & study skills 
  • Support learners with nerves, confidence & stress management 
  • Design language building tasks for sample student(s) 

What previous trainees said:

Informative training sessions

„It was very helpful. The content was very informative and I enjoyed the style of the presentation.

The trainer could grab the attention of trainees”

„It was super informative – something we needed to learn about. Everything was perfect!”

Clear and easy-to-understand

„Everything was perfectly and clearly answered. Massive thanks for such a great training =)”

Practical applications

„Test analysis was practical and it was impressive to see how different practices are used in a language school”

What previous trainees loved

The presentation of different issues

Effective

Real-life examples and applications

Informative content

Relevant to my teaching practice

Positive environment

Dates and fees

Date
Course fee (including taxes)
26 September - 5 December 2025
14:00-16:30
(Part-time, meeting every second Friday, Online - Zoom)
52 000 HUF

What our courses look like

Take a sneak peek into our face-to-face teacher training courses.

Get to know our team.

David Juhasz
Managing Director and Director of Teacher Training
My first experience of teaching came as a high school student helping my fellow classmates understand Present Perfect a little more, and from that moment onwards I fell in love with the English language and language teaching. I hold a Cambridge DELTA, multiple Master’s degrees, and I’m a PhD Candidate in Language Education. During my 10-year stint abroad I was awarded multiple scholarships (Erasmus+, Erasmus Work Placement, Fulbright), held every role imaginable in a language school, became a CELTA and DELTA trainer, worked as an IELTS Senior Examiner, etc. and spent a considerable amount of time in the summer school industry where I won awards. I’m very excited to manage IH Budapest as a company now as I completed my CELTA here a very long time ago – guess that’s what you call completing the full circle!
Borbála Szőcs
Teacher Training Operations Manager
You might know me as Borka and I work on the administration side of the department. I’ve been working in the Teacher Training team for a couple of years now and still enjoy the relaxed and friendly yet highly professional environment here in the school. If you come to IH Budapest, be prepared to be tempted to stay in the city or even (who knows?) to join the teaching staff one day… There is a great social life in the school and a lot to discover in Budapest which attracts a lot of people: the beautiful architecture, pubs, great cultural events, festivals, concerts of every style and for me on top of all of it, it’s a fantastic place to do various outdoor activities in every season of the year!
Vanja Glavaski
Teacher Trainer – CELTA
Hi, I’m Vanja. I’m originally from Serbia, but I’ve lived, studied and worked in Serbia, the US and Hungary. These days, with mostly online work, I generally share my time between beautiful Szentendre, Hungary and amazing Pula, Croatia. I’ve been working for IH Budapest for over a decade as a teacher trainer, mostly on the CELTA, but also on shorter courses. Other than that, I’ve done numerous teacher-training webinars for different companies and held workshops at ESL conferences. Beside teaching and teacher training, I have background in literary translation, I am a Cambridge speaking examiner and, of course, I teach ESL, which I enjoy very much. One of my particular interests is using technology in education and I strive to continuously develop in that and other professional fields.
Luca Tenyi
Teacher Trainer – CELTA
Having spent the better part of 15 years in the UK and working as a teacher and teacher trainer (with some breaks that somehow always involved IH Budapest) I find there is a certain something about this school that keeps drawing me back. I have now permanently moved home to freelance from here and I am very excited to reacquaint with my native city and equally excited about being part of the Teacher Training team.
Eszter Szenttornyai
Teacher Trainer – CELTA
Hi, I’m Eszter and I’m from Budapest. Ever since I started teaching, IH has been an important part of my career. The first lesson I ever taught was during my CELTA course and this was so enjoyable that I decided to do a master’s degree in TEFL. When I started teaching in a high school in Hungary, I came back for the DELTA, too . These days I teach English in different contexts and I’m also involved in teacher training. I travel whenever I can, wherever I can because I just love to explore cities.
Amal Pecsi
Teacher Trainer – CELTA
Hi everyone, my name is Amál and I’m from Budapest. Before moving into CELTA training, I taught English for over 15 years in different contexts and countries, to students of different levels and ages, and it’s all been a lot of fun. Most recently, I worked in Vietnam for over four years, and before that I taught in France. I love working in an international environment, which is why I really enjoy being at IH: you get to meet and work with so many interesting people from all over the world. After all these years, I’m happy to be home: Budapest is definitely one of the coolest places in Europe, particularly in the summer.
Steve Oakes
Honorary Former Head of Teacher Training – Retired
In autumn 1988, after a number of years working in the film business in New York, I observed an ESL class near the UN, taught by volunteers. I immediately fell in love with teaching and made an instant career change, scraping by as a volunteer/lowly paid (and untrained) teacher for awhile and then going to Japan in July 1989, where I worked as a highly paid (and still largely untrained) teacher for a few years. After completing the CTEFLA (now the CELTA), I moved to Hungary at the end of 1991 and have been here since, first working as a teacher, then teacher trainer, and finally as Head of Teacher Training. I co-tutor on DELTA courses and spent a few years recently co-writing a coursebook called Speakout. I’ve made Budapest my home, and I think that everyone who comes here gets a sense of why that might be.
Sarah Graham Juhasz
Teacher Trainer – CELTA
Sarah holds a BA in International Relations from the US, a Master’s degree in Education and International Development from the UK, and holds the Cambridge CELTA and DELTA qualifications from the Czech Republic. She has lived and worked in multiple countries and continents (Czech Republic, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Latvia, Tanzania, USA, UK, Hungary) as a teacher, trainer, examiner, education consultant, and training coordinator in the field of NGOs.

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