Speaking Part 3: monopolising the collaborative task
In CPE Speaking Part 3, two candidates have two minutes to discuss a prompt: ways to encourage young people to volunteer, with the ideas school schemes, social media campaigns and family example. Candidate A speaks for about 100 of the 120 seconds. She uses phrases such as That's a good point, but I think and As I was saying without responding to Candidate B's content. Candidate B makes two short contributions, both interrupted. The examiner does not intervene except to time the task. In the one-minute decision phase, Candidate A chooses the answer alone and Candidate B agrees. The assessor must score both candidates on Interactive Communication and Discourse Management, and the teacher afterwards wants to give Candidate A feedback that is honest without punishing her for fluency.
1. Should the examiner have intervened at 60 seconds? Justify with the purpose of Part 3 and the assessment criteria.
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No. The examiner's role in Part 3 is to set up the task and manage time, not to chair the discussion or enforce turn-taking. Intervening would alter the sample and could advantage or disadvantage either candidate. Part 3 exists to assess interactive communication, including initiating, responding, developing and negotiating a decision. Candidate A's monopolisation is evidence for the assessor, not a problem for the examiner to fix. The assessor should note concrete behaviours: A speaks 100 of 120 seconds, interrupts B twice, uses agreement tokens without building on B's content, and takes the decision alone. Those behaviours lower A's Interactive Communication score even if her grammar and lexis are strong. The examiner should not mark A down for fluency alone; the criterion is interaction, not dominance.
2. Give Candidate A two specific feedback points and one repair strategy she can use in the next timed practice.
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Feedback point 1: her turn-openers are not doing interactive work. That's a good point, but I think acknowledges a point without naming it; at C2 she should paraphrase B's content before disagreeing, for example You said social media reaches people who would not join a school scheme; I'd add that reach is not the same as commitment. Point 2: she never yields. She should use a deliberate hand-off after each contribution, such as What's your view on the family example? or Would you prioritise that over school schemes? Repair strategy: in the next two-minute practice, impose a rule of three turns: contribute, invite, respond. She can count invitations silently. The goal is not to speak less but to make her fluency serve the interaction, which is what the Interactive Communication scale rewards at C2.