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 Six ESOL classes are offered, from beginner level (for students who speak no English) and continuing up through basic, intermediate and advanced classes. All students are assessed prior to the start of classes for proper placement.
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Beginning: |
| Level 0-1 Assessment Score: 0-299 |
1a-Students do not speak or understand English. Class focus is on survival language, mainly for oral communication. Practice and review of basic vocabulary with repetition and reinforcement will be highlighted. Students will work closely with teacher for guidance.
Grammar Focus:
- Present tense
- Plural vs. Singular
- Basic sentence construction
- Simple verbs
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Communication Skills:
- Personal information
- Greetings
- Survival vocabulary
- Non-verbal cues, gestures
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| Level 1 Assessment Score: 300-400 |
1b-Students know some English vocabulary. Beginning grammar and basic reading, writing, speaking and listening skills will be the focus of this class.
Grammar Focus:
- Present/ Present Continuous tenses
- Subject/object pronouns
- Descriptive adjectives
- Who, what, where, when
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Communication Skills:
- Read, write, and understand complete simple sentences
- Read and follow one-step directions
- Simple answers to yes/no or information questions
- Complete authentic forms and applications
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High Beginning: |
| Level 2 -3 Assessment Score: 401-438 |
Students can understand and respond to simple, clearly stated sentences. They can communicate basic needs and ideas using simple sentences. Students know some basic English grammar and can write personal information and simple affirmative sentences. The class will work on the continued development of grammar, reading, writing, speaking and listening.
Grammar Focus:
- Negative statements
- Comparatives/superlatives/ synonyms/
antonyms
- Question formation
- Past tense and future tense verbs
- Simple modals
- Simple conjunctions, prepositions, pronouns
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Communication Skills:
- Generate original statements (likes, dislikes, descriptions)
- Ask and respond to simple questions related to basic needs
- Simple social conversations on familiar topics
- Fill out forms, write lists,short messages, notes
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Low Intermediate: |
| Level 4 Assessment Score: 439-472 |
Students' spoken English is good. They can function independently in most situations and can participate in most basic English conversations. Students can communicate on the phone to express a limited number of needs. Students have an increased but inconsistent understanding of grammar. Intermediate reading, writing and conversational skills will be the focus of this class.
Grammar Focus:
- Future and past tense irregular verbs
- Pronouns and possessives
- Irregular high frequency words (would, again)
- Use conjunctions (and, but, because, when)
- Determiners (this, that, neither, nobody)
- Imperatives
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Communication Skills:
- Relate a sequence of events
- Use formal and informal courtesies
- Request and provide information beyond the minimum
- Begin to use vocabulary to talk about local current events, world issues, cross-cultural discussions)
- Short paragraph writing
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High Intermediate: |
| Level 5 Assessment Score: 473-506 |
Students' spoken English is very good. They can understand intended meaning in various contexts: on the phone, social situations, jokes. They can discuss ideas and express opinions and beliefs fairly comfortably. Students can distinguish between, and use, present, continuous, past and future tenses. High intermediate reading, writing and conversational skills on current topics will be the focus of the class.
Grammar Focus:
- Introduction to the present perfect
- Prepositions
- Indirect pronouns
- Modals
- Transition and sequencing words: also, first, next, after, etc.
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Communication Skills:
- Pronunciation/stress
- Discussing ideas, opinions
- Journal writing, brainstorming
- Write a paragraph with a beginning, middle and end
- Discuss and write about cause and effect
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Advanced: |
| Level 6 Assessment Score: 507-540 |
Students' spoken English is very good. They are able to speak English in all contexts although they may make occasional grammatical and/or structural errors. Students can elaborate on complex ideas and clarify themselves well enough to make meaning understood. Students understand and use many advanced grammatical structures. The focus of this class will be to strengthen, clarify and self-correct student language through advanced reading, writing and discussion.
Grammar Focus:
- Participle adjectives (interested vs. interesting)
- Reported speech
- Complex sentences
- Present perfect, past progressive tense
- Passive voice
- Advanced function words: prepositions, conjunctions, auxiliary verbs(which, in spite of, although, neither/nor)
- Transitional phrases (my point is, in that case)
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Communication Skills:
- Elaborate on complex ideas (use examples, explanations, descriptions)
- Develop and express ideas in an organized manner (with a main idea, supporting details and conclusion)
- Compare and contrast information
- Paraphrase or summarize information (oral and written)
- Develop advanced vocabulary and word choice ( including antonyms and synonyms, phrasal verbs, idioms)
- Write a three-paragraph essay (self-correct, revise, rewrite, use dictionary, spell check on a computer)
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