Information Concerning the Oral Examination for Certificate Business English

Date of the Oral Exam:

    The oral exam takes 30 minutes and will be given at certain times scheduled by appointment on Wednesday and Thursday, February 4 and 5. On February 4, all day, and on February 5 until 14:00 the oral exam will take place in AB 110. The place of the oral exam on February 5 after 14:00 will be announced later.

Proposal

      All candidates must submit a proposal of the topic they intend to discuss. Please read the information given below, by "Submission of Prposals !

Length of Time

The oral examination takes a total of thirty minutes. During the first five minutes of the exam, the candidate is to deliver a presentation on a theme from the field of business or economics. The rest of the examination will be in the form of a discussion with the two examiners.

Choice of Topic

A list of possible topics can be found here.  

Grading Criteria

There are three grading criteria for the oral examination.  These are (roughly translated from the Prufungsordnung) 'language', 'style' and 'content'.  By 'style' we mean the usage of appropriate academic register.  Some students with very good English-language skills (perhaps obtained during a stay in England or the United States) don't do as well as they had expected because they use a style which is too colloquial.  In judging the 'content' of a candidate's performance, we consider both the 'breadth' and 'depth' of the candidate's coverage of the subject matter.  'Breadth' indicates the range of facts and details which the candidate is able to integrate into the discussion.  A significant portion of these should, of course, be related to business and/or economics.  'Depth' indicates the ability of the candidate to express the relationship (e.g., implication, contingency and process) of these facts to each other. 

The exam will test the relevance and coherence of what you say, as well as the accuracy and style of your English. Thoughtful comment and good interaction with the examiners will improve your grade; reading from notes or giving a memorized speech will lower it.

Submission of Proposals

All candidates should submit a proposal of the topic they intend to discuss by the time of the written exam on January 29 at the latest .  The proposal should be printed and in the following form:

• Title
• Paragraph describing the background and the issues involved.
• Bullet list of five to eight points or questions of discussion which could be raised during the discussion. These won't necessarily come up during the exam, but may provide a stating point for the discussion.

Examples of an oral proposal can be found here and here.

If you have any questions please contact Jim Potter: potter[at]euv-ffo.de .