Level Descriptors

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 unit quizzes, midterm and final  exams, and speaking assessments. 

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).

AUDIENCE: This course is intended for learners with basic overall language ability in English.

GOALS: The course works to further develop basic language skills and strategies to understand and use English in everyday routines (e.g. exercise routines), simple exchanges on topics of immediate relevance (e.g. health, shopping), or more formal ones (e.g. work space, fitness programs). 

OBJECTIVES: Students are introduced to basic listening, communication strategies, and presentation skills to manage interaction and exchange of information on common daily practices (e.g. where you shop, how you exercise), as well as brief descriptions of past events. Through controlled pronunciation practice and speaking tasks (e.g. presentations) students review how to perceive and produce basic vowel sounds and consonant combinations, and learn to recognize contractions, word stress, and question intonation patterns. Individually or in groups, they are also given the opportunity to develop reading and writing competencies through exposure to and interaction with non-authentic and authentic text types, and high frequency vocabulary (e.g. food, everyday items). They engage in paragraph-level work with attention to sentence structure variation, review core verb tenses, and practice degrees of adjectives. 

ASSESSMENT: Students’ performance in this course is assessed through unit quizzes, midterm and final  exams, and speaking assessments. 

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

1. Use simple sentence structures and high-frequency vocabulary to exchange information, describe experiences, order food, give advice, and express and respond to opinions.

2. Use basic communication strategies to start, maintain, and end conversations appropriately.

3. Demonstrate understanding of main ideas, supporting details, and high-frequency vocabulary in non-authentic and authentic written and listening texts.

4. Write simple, paragraph-length text types, such as a work email, a brief summary, an online comment or post using pre-writing strategies and accurate and varied sentence structure and everyday vocabulary.

5. Identify and practice high-frequency vocabulary and verbs such as ‘do’, ‘have’, and ‘make’ in daily communication.

6. Identify and practice ‘if’ and ‘when’ sentence structures, core verb tense uses, and degrees of adjectives.

7. Review how to perceive and produce basic vowel sounds and consonant combinations; learn how to recognize contractions, word stress, and question intonation patterns in controlled pronunciation practice and assessed speaking tasks (e.g. role plays).

AUDIENCE: This course is intended for learners who demonstrate emerging ability to use English independently. 

GOALS: The course aims to develop linguistic ability to understand and communicate in common routine and non-routine situations  on topics that are familiar, of personal interest, or pertinent to everyday life (e.g. storytelling, weekend plans). 

OBJECTIVES: Individually or in groups, students engage in descriptive, and explanatory tasks (e.g. in presentations), express their opinions and attitudes with adequate support (e.g. in oral discussions and written, online comments or reviews) and devote attention to socio-cultural appropriateness of language use. In addition, in the context of controlled pronunciation practice and speaking tasks (e.g. presentations, role plays), students continue to train on perception and production of sounds and sound clusters in English as well as on word-and-phrase-level stress. They practice recognition of the general structure and important details in authentic, written and listening texts of varied length and complexity. Also, students are exposed to and enabled to recognize and use a wider range of word families, informal, and formal vocabulary of increasing complexity. Particular emphasis is given to types of sentences (e.g. conditionals), as well as to perfect tenses, modals and high-frequency phrasal verbs. 

ASSESSMENT: Students’ performance in this course is assessed through unit quizzes, midterm and final  exams, and speaking assessments. 

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

1. Use varied sentence structures and formal and informal vocabulary to share information/news, and engage in approval/disapproval, agreement/disagreement, and invitation/refusal acts.

2. Identify the general structure and important details in authentic written and listening texts of varied length and complexity.

3. Write multiple-paragraph text types, such as a personal statement, a movie review, or an opinion post by using accurate and varied sentence structure and some complex register-sensitive vocabulary.

4. Identify and activate new word families, informal, and formal vocabulary of increasing complexity.

5. Identify and practice types of questions, if-clauses, perfect tenses, modals, passive constructions, and some high-frequency phrasal verbs.

6. Review how to perceive and produce English sounds and word endings (e.g., -ed endings); identify thought groups, and contrastive stress in the context of controlled practice and assessed speaking tasks (e.g., presentations, role plays).

AUDIENCE: This course is intended for learners who demonstrate developing ability to use English independently. 

GOALS: The course focuses on developing language skills and strategies that enable learners to understand, talk about, and exchange information on familiar, concrete topics (e.g. topics of specific personal or professional interest) as well as on some unfamiliar or more abstract ones (e.g. culture, art). 

OBJECTIVES: Students are exposed to extended, factual, as well as propositionally and linguistically more complex written and listening texts (e.g. articles, opinion papers). They train to identify their overall structure, specific details, main points, and the interrelationships between ideas. Through individual or group work, students learn to participate in interactions on a wide range of familiar and other topics, listen actively, and express their opinions in a structured way (e.g. personal storytelling, discussions). Also, they continue to engage in controlled and semi-controlled pronunciation activities and speaking tasks (e.g. presentations, discussions) to review English sounds, recognize natural speech phenomena and intonation patterns. Students practice multi-paragraph writing (e.g. reports, product reviews) with emphasis on enhancing clarity, coherence, and prominence of the main points. In addition, they work on developing vocabulary depth (e.g. collocations, synonyms/antonyms), expanding thematic vocabulary (e.g. education, science) and clause repertoire, practicing reported speech, and new uses of modal verbs. 

ASSESSMENT: Students’ performance in this course is assessed through unit quizzes, midterm and final  exams, and speaking assessments. 

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

1. Use varied clause structures, as well as formal and informal vocabulary to share and react to a story or the news, offer and respond to an apology or a recommendation, and structure and support opinions.

2. Identify the overall structure, specific details, main points, and the interrelationships between ideas in authentic, factual, as well as thematically and linguistically more complex written and listening texts.

3. Write multiple-paragraph text types, such as a report, a product review, or a response to a post by clearly and coherently foregrounding the main point/s.

4. Expand in-depth knowledge of concrete and abstract thematic vocabulary to describe, talk about, and discuss a wide range of everyday or more formal topics.

5. Review main verb tenses; learn and practice reported speech, special uses of modal verbs, as well as relative and conditional clause structures.

6. Review how to perceive and produce English sounds; recognize natural speech phenomena (reductions and some linking) and intonation patterns in controlled and semi-controlled pronunciation activities and assessed speaking tasks (e.g. presentations, discussions).

AUDIENCE: This course is intended for learners who demonstrate advancing ability to use English independently. 

GOALS: The course aims to consolidate language skills and strategies that enable learners to understand and use fairly complex language on both familiar and unfamiliar, concrete and abstract topics in personal, social, academic, and professional contexts. 

OBJECTIVES: Individually or in groups, students analyze the structure of diverse, authentic written and listening texts (e.g. articles, job advertisements), contextual clues, textual relationships, lines of argument, and coherent devices. Activities at this level focus on summaries and multiple-paragraph writing on the basis of varied information sources. Through group discussions and debates, role plays and presentations, students practice how to communicate appropriately by adjusting their language choices to the topic, audience, and situation. They also learn how to structure and deliver effective, well-supported presentations on academic and non-academic topics of interest. Through controlled and semi-controlled pronunciation practice and speaking tasks (e.g. presentations, discussions), they continue to work on English sounds, phrase stress and rhythm, natural speech phenomena, and pragmatic uses of intonation. Students are trained to effectively utilize descriptive vocabulary in written or spoken production on a wide range of topics and with adequate attention to levels of formality. In addition, special emphasis is placed on construction grammar (e.g. gerundial and infinitive phrases, passive constructions), as well as on noun and adjective phrases.  

ASSESSMENT: Students’ performance in this course is assessed through unit quizzes, midterm and final  exams, and speaking assessments. 

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

1. Use fairly complex grammatical structures and vocabulary to talk about familiar and unfamiliar, concrete and abstract topics such as purchases, projects, personalities, and life improvement.

2. Structure and deliver effective, well-supported presentations on academic and non-academic topics of interest such as research and technology, solutions to a problem, etc.

3. Analyze the structure of authentic written and listening texts of a wide thematic scope and genre, contextual clues, textual relationships, lines of argument, and coherent devices.

4. Write multiple-paragraph text types such as an opinion or a persuasive essay, a statement of purpose, or a performance review, by synthesizing information from several sources.

5. Use descriptive vocabulary effectively on topics such as personal characteristics, job relationships, and emotions with adequate attention to levels of formality.

6. Identify and practice the use of multiple-part constructions such as gerundial and infinitive phrases, passive constructions, as well as noun and adjective phrases.

7. Review how to perceive and produce English sounds; practice phrase stress and rhythm, natural speech phenomena (linking), and pragmatic uses of intonation (e.g. in requests, exclamations, or imperatives) in controlled and semi-controlled pronunciation activities and assessed speaking tasks (e.g. presentations, discussions).

AUDIENCE: This course is intended for learners who demonstrate proficient ability to use English independently. 

GOALS: The course aims at refining learners’ ability to understand and use language appropriate to register, topic, and audience almost effortlessly. 

OBJECTIVES: By participating in individual and group activities, students learn to analyze and critically engage with a wide variety of authentic, complex written and listening texts across disciplines and genres. They practice guessing meaning from context, identifying main/supporting ideas and points of view, and inferring logical relationships. Also, through a range of oral and written production tasks and assignments (e.g. essays, reports, summaries, presentations), students are trained to communicate strategically, with adequate attention to the organization of information, use of sources, register, and style. They review how to perceive and produce English sounds, practice rhythm, and recognize natural speech phenomena and intonation uses in controlled and semi-controlled pronunciation activities and speaking tasks (e.g. presentations, discussions). In addition, they work on mastering phraseology (e.g. phrasal verbs, idioms), word associations, and a broad range of vocabulary, including academic and technical language in their field. Similarly, students review and develop a better command of verb tenses, phrasal constructions, clause structures (e.g.  relative and ‘if’ clauses), and subject-verb agreement. 

ASSESSMENT: Students’ performance in this course is assessed through unit quizzes, midterm and final  exams, and speaking assessments. 

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

1. Use varied and complex grammatical structures and vocabulary to talk about familiar and unfamiliar, concrete and abstract topics such as past experiences, food options, life style and environment.

2. Practice oral summaries, individual and group presentations on formal topics such as artificial intelligence and business planning to communicate strategically, with adequate attention to the organization of information, use of sources, register, and style.

3. Analyze authentic, complex written and listening texts across disciplines and genres; practice guessing meaning from context, identifying main/supporting ideas and points of view, and inferring logical relationships.

4. Write multiple-paragraph text types such as discipline-specific essays and data-based reports, summaries and movie reviews by synthesizing information from several sources.

5. Identify and practice phraseology (e.g. phrasal verbs, idioms), word associations, and a broad range of vocabulary, including academic and technical language.

6. Review and practice verb tenses, phrasal constructions, clause structures (e.g. relative and if clauses), and subject-verb agreement.

7. Review how to perceive and produce English sounds, practice rhythm, and identify natural speech phenomena and intonation uses in controlled and semi-controlled pronunciation activities and speaking tasks (e.g. presentations, discussions).