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Hello and Welcome to Ready for FCE, a site where you will be guided through the process of studying for the Cambridge First exam. This site focuses on the skills you will need to learn in order to prepare, and provides you with new grammar and vocabulary topics and study skills in the blog each week. It also provides links to external sites and resources for you to use to practise the skills you learn here.

To use this site successfully, you should be at a high intermediate level, or an upper – intermediate level (CEF B1 – B2) and have at least a few weeks to prepare for the exam.
I recommend starting with the Grammar page first, or the About page to find out more about the FCE exam. You should also look at the Blog page, which will be updated weekly with new topics, hints and tips and answers to readers’ questions.

About Me

IMG_20200903_140900 My name is Shane and I have been a teacher since 2008. I spent 3 years as a high school language teacher before living for a short time in Japan teaching English to elementary school children. After that I became an ESL teacher and an ESL teacher trainer. I have been teaching the Cambridge FCE and CAE preparation courses in Australia for many years, which I thoroughly enjoy. My students often ask me to recommend good websites to help them and after some research, I discovered that although there are some good resources out there, it is hard to find everything you need in one place, especially good grammar explanations. As a result, I have created this website to help you on your way. If you should have any questions, just contact me using the link on the home page.

About the FCE exam

The Cambridge FCE exam consists of four papers. These are Reading and Use of English, Writing, Listening and speaking. The Reading part of the exam tests your ability to read different kinds of texts. These texts could be taken from a novel, or a newspaper or magazine. Use of English is designed to test your knowledge of grammar, vocabulary and collocation. You… Continue reading About the FCE exam

Contact

Use the form below to leave suggestions or comments. If you have a question related to the FCE exam or a general English question, please also leave it below. If a question is a popular/ common one, I may make it the focus of one of the Ready 4 FCE blog posts.

Grammar

Part 1 – Grammar Basics Firstly, we will look at the basics of English grammar. This is an important lesson, as the rest of the course will be built on the topics covered in this first section. Please read this section carefully, and do all the practice exercises before you continue. Now, let’s get started.… Continue reading Grammar

I worked with Shane for about 8 years and he is a very enthusiastic teacher with a passion for teaching. He was well liked amongst his students and always worked hard to make his lessons enjoyable for his students. His knowledge of grammar and writing skills is impressive and he made sure his students were always well prepared for the FCE exam . Shane and I taught FCE together for a number of years and it was an extreme delight to work with a teacher so dedicated to making his classes not only motivating but also memorable for the students.

Rachel (Australia)

I am an ESL teacher who taught EAP for 4 years after 20 years in Education. Shane was the trainer for my TESOL Certificate IV course. He was caring, conscientious and ensured that his students had the best learning outcomes possible. I would absolutely recommend a website that he has developed to assist students.