After lessons at SLA Basel: "It is better to have private lessons!"

Meet Jasmin Litschi! Jasmin passed her C1 Advanced Cambridge Exam with an overall score of 192 after 20 lessons of preparation at SLA Basel. We talked to her and asked her about this achievement:

First of all, congratulations! Could you tell us a bit about yourself and the reasons why you chose to take this exam?

Thanks! My name is Jasmin, I grew up in a small town in the countryside of Aargau. I did an exchange programme in Australia for five months a while back, and I also did a preparation course for this exam, but I didn’t take the exam there because I didn’t know that I wanted to study Education Sciences. I decided that after I came back. I had to do this exam because of my studies. I need to have C1 level at the end, so that I’m allowed to teach English at private schools.

And how did you learn your English?

I learnt some at school — I went to a Gymnasium, where it was a compulsory subject, and then there was Australia.

How did you prepare for the exam?

I took classes at SLA Basel and had an app on my phone with a lot of Use of English exercises. I also tried to watch TV in English as much as possible, read books in English and tried to speak English to everybody who can speak it. That was really hard, because with your friends you just switch to German all the time, you’re just used to that.

Can you tell us how important you think the preparation course at SLA Basel was for the exam?

For me it was really important. I think I wouldn’t have been able to do it on my own, just because I’m too lazy to do it. And with one or two classes a week I had a small aim every week instead of a big one at the end, so it was kind of step by step and not all at once.

What would you recommend to someone who is also going to take the same exam?

I would tell them to do a preparation course! I also think it was really good that I had lessons on my own. In other schools I saw that they had group classes, which are obviously cheaper, but I think you benefit more if you’re alone, even if the price is a bit higher. That’s my experience now, comparing this private course and the one I had back in Australia, I definitely think it is better to have private lessons.

Which part of the exam would you say is the trickiest?

For me, it’s the speaking part. Because I’m not on my own, I have to speak to somebody else. I just kind of get embarrassed if I realise that I made a mistake, whereas if i do it on a computer or other parts, I feel more confident.

So I guess I don’t need to ask which part is the easiest one for you: you got the highest possible score in the listening part! That’s amazing, how did you manage that?

Really… I don’t know. After the test I felt confident about the reading part, and as it turned out – it was the worst. The listening was really hard but turned out to be the best. It may have helped that I watched a lot of TV shows — the ones I understood better, like The Big Bang Theory, without subtitles and documentaries or films with weird accents with subtitles. I also tried to challenge myself with documentaries about different topics. And in the end I was also lucky!