Fortune telling CAE lesson and Use of English might not seem like they have much in common, but they actually make a surprisingly good combination. Use of English Part 4 is all about one thing – changing the wording without changing the meaning. And what better way to introduce that idea than with deliberately vague fortune-telling predictions?
Use of English Part 4 is a real challenge for me when I teach my CAE candidates. They need to have a solid grasp of phrasal verbs, collocations, grammar, and fixed expressions…to name a few. Honestly, it seems almost impossible for them to learn and remember all of them. This lesson will get your students to think about how the same sentence can be interpreted and expressed in different ways before introducing them to the techniques for Cambridge C1 Advanced Reading & Use of English Part 4.
Keep scrolling to the end of the post to grab the presentation, worksheet, and teacher’s notes that’ll help you share this information with your students. The main activity is based on a free Cambridge English resource, Advanced Sample Papers 1.
Warmer: Vague Fortune-Telling Predictions
Start by giving students six deliberately vague predictions about their future. Students first work individually and choose the prediction they think is the vaguest and most universal. There isn’t a single correct answer here, so encourage them to explain what makes their chosen prediction so open to interpretation. They then compare their choices with a partner and discuss the predictions. This is a useful way of introducing the main idea behind the lesson: when we paraphrase something, the wording can change, but the meaning needs to stay the same.
Fortune-Telling: What Do You Mean?
Next, students see a short conversation between a fortune teller and a client. The fortune teller gives a prediction, the client asks, What do you mean?, and the fortune teller explains the prediction using different words. Students compare the two versions and decide whether the paraphrase changes the original meaning. This is a really simple way of introducing an important exam skill before students are given any formal explanation of Part 4.
Paraphrasing: Same Meaning or Not?
Students then look at two more fortune-telling predictions. For each one, they get three possible paraphrases and have to choose the one that keeps the original meaning. The interesting part is that the incorrect options aren’t simply bad English. They are designed to sound plausible while changing something important. For example, an option might change: the time of an event, the certainty of a prediction, whether something has already happened, or add information that wasn’t in the original. This is a great opportunity to remind students that a grammatically correct answer isn’t necessarily a correct answer. In Part 4, meaning comes first.
Sentence Analysis: Identify What Needs to Change
Now students move towards the format of the actual exam. They look at predictions where part of the second sentence is missing and identify which part of the sentence needs to be paraphrased. They also work out how many words they need. This helps them start thinking strategically rather than simply trying to find synonyms. Before they write anything, encourage them to ask – What information is staying the same? What needs to change? What word am I required to use?
Understanding CAE: What This Part of the Exam Tests
Remind your students that this part of the exam focuses on checking what they know about phrasal verbs, common collocations, fixed phrases, and different grammar structures like the passive voice and reported speech. A focused CAE paraphrasing practice activity helps them see how these elements are tested. Look at some phrases and the way they’re reworded. Figure out the paraphrased parts of the sentence and what they’re testing. For example, take They are currently renovating the hotel. When it changes to The hotel is currently being renovated, it tests the knowledge of the passive form in the continuous tense.
Main Task: Real Exam Practice with Support
It’s time to put students’ skills to the test with the Use of English Part 4. To make things easier, they’ve been introduced to all the transformations they are about to encounter in this part of the exam, which can be found and downloaded in Advanced Sample Papers 1. They should approach this like it’s the actual exam – underlining the parts of the phrases that need rewording and thinking about how to use the given words in a sentence. For example, the sentence below focuses on testing their understanding of phrasal verbs with insist.
Final Speaking: Become the Fortune Teller
After completing the exam task, the lesson returns to the original theme. Students write three predictions about another person’s future. Each prediction has to use a different type of transformation from the list they have just studied. This gives them a reason to actually use the language rather than simply identify it. Then comes the fun part.
Students exchange their predictions with a partner. Their partner has to paraphrase each prediction without changing its meaning. This is a nice reversal of the earlier activities. At the beginning of the lesson, students were deciding whether someone else’s paraphrase had the same meaning. Now they have to create the paraphrase themselves.
Students get their original predictions back and decide whether their partner’s paraphrases have – same meaning, almost the same meaning, or a completely different meaning. I really like this as a final check because it brings students back to the central idea of the whole lesson – paraphrasing isn’t about changing as many words as possible. It’s about expressing the same idea in a different way.
Final Discussion: What Does the Future Hold?
Finish by giving students a few minutes to talk about the predictions their partners wrote about them. They can discuss which prediction they think is most likely to come true, which one they would most like to come true, and which one they found the most interesting or surprising.
If you’re looking for a way to make CAE Use of English Part 4 feel a little less dry, I think this lesson is a good example of how a strong theme can do a lot of the work. Students get plenty of focused exam practice, but they’re not staring at sentence transformations for an hour. The fortune-telling theme gives them a reason to care about whether the meaning changes, which is exactly what they need to understand for Part 4.
What does the future hold for you as a teacher?
