Level 1: A1 CEFR 

AUDIENCE: This course is intended for beginner-level students with little or no English language ability. 

GOALS: The course focuses on developing basic linguistic competencies to understand and use English for communication in areas of immediate need (e.g. ask for information, check in a hotel) and on familiar, daily life topics (e.g. daily routine, likes-dislikes). 

OBJECTIVES: Through guided individual and group work, students participate in exploratory, question-and-answer interactions, planned and some unplanned role plays, simple, self- focused narratives, and listening activities that promote overall comprehension. Controlled pronunciation practice and speaking tasks (e.g. descriptions) provide the opportunity to focus on the perception and production of basic vowel sounds, numbers, and aspects of word stress. In addition, students engage in pre-reading, pre-writing, and simple reading and writing activities (e.g. email, blog) to develop comprehension and writing fluency. They also work to enhance the learning and practice of basic, formulaic, everyday vocabulary, as well as grammar, with an emphasis on simple sentence structure, core verb tenses, as well as high-frequency verb forms. 

ASSESSMENT: Students’ performance in this course is assessed through graded homework assignments, quizzes, unit tests, midterm and final level exams.  

Student Learning Outcomes

After the successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

1. Use simple sentence structures and everyday vocabulary to exchange information, describe personal experiences, and talk about friends, family, and daily life topics.

2. Demonstrate understanding of the gist and the main idea in brief, authentic and non-authentic, written and listening texts.

3. Write simple text types, such as a descriptive paragraph, a short email, or a blog using prewriting strategies and basic, formulaic vocabulary and sentence structure.

4. Identify and practice high-frequency vocabulary relevant to the learners’ immediate communication needs in daily life.

5. Identify and use simple sentence structures, main verb tenses, high frequency verbs (e.g. be and have), count and non-count nouns.

6. Perceive and produce basic vowel sounds, syllables, word endings, numbers, and some aspects of word stress, in controlled pronunciation practice and assessed speaking tasks (e.g. introductions, descriptions).