5 Essential Strategies to Teach Inferences in Exam Classes

This session will focus on understanding inferences, mainly in an exam context, although it will be useful for General English teachers too since making correct logical conclusions based on the text is a crucial skill for students to acquire, and not easy!

While reading and listening (even in L1), we interpret information on multiple levels, a substantial number of which are not on the surface. In order to fully comprehend the author’s ideas, we should be able to identify his or her attitude and opinion, which are usually not stated directly. Developed inference skills enable us to do that and a prerequisite for higher-order thinking. Without these skills, students cannot be considered proficient language speakers; therefore, testing inference understanding is included in all language exams to this or that extent.

During the session we will look at how inferences are included in exam tasks and work out 5 essential strategies to deal with Inference questions successfully. The strategies will be illustrated with examples from common English exams on different levels: starting from lower level ones (YL, A1-B1) to Cambridge C1-C2, EGE, and academic exams (IELTS/TOEFL/GRE/GMAT/SAT). Participants will learn how to identify inferences in various tasks (mainly in Reading and Listening), differentiate them from more familiar Factual Questions and help students overcome the most common difficulties with ease.