Development of productive skills while preparing students for the English language exam

Problem and purpose. The article presents a set of exercises that facilitates the development of productive skills when preparing students for “Writing” section at the Russian State exam and a number of international exams (FCE, CAE). The research methodology is based on the following. The development of the above-mentioned skills goes through several stages while observing a consecutive set of exercises. Taking into consideration that paragraph is an essential part of any piece of writing students get acquainted with paragraph structure at the initial stage of studying. At the stage they also analyse coherence and cohesion of different passages and build their own paragraphs. The following stage of express debates promotes students’ capability to develop an argument and use counter-arguments to undermine the opponent’s argument. At the final stage students produce an independent piece of writing. Results. The article reveals the results of many years’ experience of the authors in teaching at Moscow universities and secondary schools. The experiment took place at the HSE Faculty of Pre-University Training. Conclusion. Practical application of the work and the universal character of the set of exercises makes it possible to use it while preparing students for national and international English language exams.