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Dear Reader,

As a general disposition, I don't think I would describe myself as an especially belligerent person. Yes, I'm willing to fight for injustice, and I will fight you (with words) for the last pack of orecchiette on the shelf during the Italian week at Lidl - a time honoured unmissable tradition here in the UK where I have made many a friend. However, much like our wise Constitution, I abhor war in all its forms. And given the times we live in, the thought of it unfortunately doesn't feel quite as remote as it once did, which is immensely worrying.

While that is true, the more I work with teachers preparing for the oral exams of the concorsi or the percorsi abilitanti, the more I find myself thinking of these exams metaphorically like... a battle you prepare for.

In The Art of War, which you can read for free thanks to Project Gutenberg, ancient Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu posits that:

Personally, I heed these words: strategy and tactical preparation for this exam are more than half the battle.

So this week, I'm going to put on my medieval knight hat and give you a little idiom-based Art of War adapted for the oral exam, in 6 points. This should be useful if you're preparing for the current (or a future) concorso, the final exams of the percorsi abilitanti, but also other exams you might take in the future.

Ready? Grab a metaphorical sword and let's get into it ⚔️

1. Go in armed to the teeth

Yes, the syllabus is endless, and so are the questions they could ask you. However: you can prepare for this. You will not know everything, because nobody can know everything; but you can prepare for how to handle most eventualities. Get as much prep done as you can (within reason) beforehand: the presentation template, the documents you need to cite (download them and save them to a folder), the structures you could use for your lessons. Revise the materie disciplinari, practise answering questions about them, time yourself, record yourself, listen to yourself (cringey but worth it). And if you need a consultation for the 24 hours before your exam, book it in advance. Preparation is not going to prepare you for everything, but it is going to prepare you for most things, and more importantly, it will increase your self-confidence - which will improve your performance in such a stressful exam.

2. Don't choose the wrong horse

You know when you get a traccia and you have this urge to use a pre-made lesson or activity that you really enjoy... although it doesn't quite fit the topic you got? That's the wrong horse: don't choose it. Instead, think of a few possible activities or loose lesson structures that you enjoy and feel comfortable with beforehand, so that when you get your traccia, you can pick the right one for the topic. Easy examples: you've got a whole lesson ready that centres on a grammar structure, but then you get an ESP traccia on semi-conductors; you love teaching with authentic videos, but you get a traccia for a low A1 class. You want to avoid shoe-horning, i.e. forcing something into a lesson that doesn't quite fit. Olga Sergeeva talks a little about this in this post, complete with a nice downloadable lesson plan about being a software developer. As an aside, this is a good example of a well-rounded lesson plan, covering not just the usual skills but also listening, phonology and discourse in a thorough way.

3. Pick your battles

Both in your prep and on the day of the exam: pick your battles. I often get questions about what you should focus on in your prep given the very little time available. I generally abhor the answer "it depends" as much as I abhor war, but it does apply in this case: it depends on what you already know and can do, and what you still need to work on. For clarity, you've got 3 things to cover: lesson planning, materie disciplinari and C1 level spoken English. That's your starting point. What do you need to work on? If you already know how to plan a lesson and you've done it plenty of times, is your prep time perhaps better spent revising that pesky literature? Vice versa, if you can't figure out how to plan a lesson but feel confident with your content knowledge, study how to plan a lesson¹. At the exam, choose your priorities: if they give you 15 minutes to present, don't waste time on details they don't want to hear about but focus on your activities and assessment. You can watch a simulation of how to do this in 15 minutes at the end of the updated course on lesson planning.

4. Don't leave your flank exposed

In other words: don't give the committee reasons to question you (more than they would, anyway). Examples I've seen of this of this include: spelling mistakes, translation mistakes², incorrect timing in your activities, activities that are too difficult/too easy for the target class, details copied incorrectly from the traccia, missing assessment grids, lessons focusing too much on one skill, lessons going off topic, missing details on inclusion measures, references to documents or theories that cannot be adequately explained.

5. Never wave a white flag

Like I always say in my classes: never give up, never surrender. We don't show weakness. In case you were wondering, weakness is something I celebrate, not abhor, however in the case of the oral exam, we need to remember that 30% of your grade comes from their assessment of your English. If they ask you a question and you don't respond at all, they have less material to assess your English. Further, when I see some of the super niche topics that sometimes come up in the domande disciplinari, I have the very strong suspicion that they are designed with the purpose of seeing how you cope... because they know that chances are you've never even heard of the thing. So, show them how you cope. We discuss strategies for handling questions we don't know the answer to in our exam coaching lessons.

6. Don't waste your ammo

From the bottom of my heart because I've a) experienced it first person and b) seen it happen to teachers: don't waste your ammunition. You only have a finite amount of energy³, which is precious and needs to be preserved so that you get to the exam not completely burned out. I know from experience that this is easier said than done, but remember that you're doing the best that you can, and your best has to be enough.

And with that, dear teacher, I bid you adieu for this week. If you've got the exam coming up, or anything else with which you could use a bit of luck, here it is: good luck! 🍀

I wish you a lovely Sunday with your loved ones.

Take care, dear teacher ✨

¹ I get questions about this from people who wonder whether AI can replace them in doing the lesson plan. My answer as of February 2026: most of the AI tools I've tried out can't replace you in designing a good lesson plan. I believe they can help you to a great extent, particularly in generating ideas, but when I tried to get them to design a professional lesson plan for the concorso, they always fell short. Examples of why: their activities were not in line with the aims; they were super generic in their descriptions of what the teacher and learners did; they can't seem to get assessment grids right, particularly in terms of the descriptors. I could go on, but the point is AI can help you, but I don't think it can replace your brilliant brain entirely.

² Though what counts as a translation mistake is highly debatable since there are so many terms that are fundamentally Italian and difficult to translate. I always recommend: when in doubt, go with the double Italian-English version, which at least clarifies what you are referring to.

³ That is, unless you are my child, in which case you're currently bouncing off the walls/jumping on the bed with your swimsuit on top of your Spiderman outfit and your Elsa crown, repeatedly shouting "pantaloni shorty!" and with no immediate plans for your tank to run out of energy enough for your mother to catch her breath.

P.S.: My weekly suggestion for things to listen to/watch/read to improve your English while relaxing: Did you know that the Transport for London website has a Poem of the Day section? Me neither, until this week. They also have an archive where you can catch up on older poems of the day. I find this endearing and lovely enough for a Sunday read.

✨Cool things I heard this week

I passed my oral exam with 95 yesterday! Thank you for all your efforts and your team's efforts to help out!

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