All morning we had been listening to the importance of processes, timing, audio recording, 
stop watches, what not to wear; noisy jewellery, short skirts (as if!), low cut tops or shorts, told not to be violent towards the students (!), smile, relax, be punctual and professional… my head was spinning. And as if that wasn’t enough to think about, the IELTS examiner’s main job is to grade the level of spoken English of the candidate.
So came the time for my first real student. I had arrived at my room at the university in Shanghai early, checked all the materials, decided which questions to ask, decided how to arrange the seats, checking the air-con was working, checking the digital recording device was working, checking the stopwatch worked, pen works, enough rough paper… So now I’m ready for my first student. The two people in my head are now having this conversation;
– I don’t want her to come in
– She’s waiting on a chair outside your door
– I don’t care, I don’t want her to come in
– She’s waiting
– I am too nervous to do this
– She’s more nervous than you
– I doubt it
– Open the door
– No
– Open it
– No No No=
– Do it NOW
– OK don’t shout, I’m going
“Hello, come in….” and off we go. Confidentially rules mean I cannot talk about what goes on in the examination but when she said “I sorry, I’m a bit nervous”, I thought “You and me both love”. When I had finished I was pleased that I remembered to do everything and in the right order. My IELTS examiner cherry has been picked nothing I will do from now on will be quite as stressful as my first IELTS examination.
It’s not the processes, the exact words to use or remembering to do everything in the right order but what makes it stressful is that it’s so important to the candidates. The marks they get will determine whether they can study abroad in an English speaking country, or emigrate or get a certain job. So there’s a huge responsibility on examiners to get it right and to give everyone a consistent examination.
It doesn’t seem that long ago that it was me getting nervous and dreading the results of an exam and now I’m on the other side of the fence and to be honest it’s not that different!