(soft music)
- In this video, I'm going to talk about
one of the differences we noticed
among language learners in language classrooms,
and that is level.
Knowledge of what constitutes different
language levels, the abilities and the language
that we teach at these levels comes with experience.
But I wanna give you a broad overview
and you thinking about this very important topic.
Different schools and different organizations
use different systems of classification
for language level.
Most of them revolve around three basic levels
and that is, beginner, intermediate, and advanced.
The system I'm going talk about today is a broad
five-level system, and to inform that,
I'm going to use tow different systems of classification
used by two different organizations.
One of those is from my graduate school,
on my model, Colorado State University,
and their level system appropriately called
Language Levels.
And the other comes from TESOL, which is
the Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages,
and there're five levels of language proficiency.
Starting at the lowest level,
what we might call Level One,
CSU calls True Beginner and TESOL calls Starting.
We have learners that have limited or no understanding,
limited or no communicative ability.
Their utterances are usually limited
to a single word or one to three words,
and they construct meaning through gestures
and by interpreting visuals and graphs and things
more than the words.
At this level, you're going to be teaching
very basic vocabulary, very basic sentence construction,
nouns, verbs, adjectives, subject-verb-object,
and subject-verb agreement.
Level two would be what CSU calls Beginner,
and what TESOL calls Emerging.
At this level they're using some vocabulary
and grammar but very simple.
They are able to understand short phrases and questions,
and they are able to give short answers.
They're still producing a lot of basic errors,
a lot of systematic errors, and their communication
is highly hindered by these errors.
At this beginner level, you're going to be teaching
the simple tenses: past, present, and future,
as well as things like modal verbs,
and maybe moving into a slightly higher level of vocabulary.
Level three would be what CSU calls, Low Intermediate,
and TESOL calls, Developing.
And at this level students are generally able to interact
and communicate but still making numerous errors.
They are able to understand a bit more complex speech,
they generally need steemit repetition,
both in aural input as well as in reading.
They need to read things multiple times to understand them.
At this developing level, we're teaching maybe expanding
beyond simple sentences into compound and complex sentences,
and we're looking at the different aspects
of grammar: the continuous/ progressive aspect
and maybe even moving into the present perfect a little bit.
Level four would be what CSU calls High Intermediate,
and TESOL calls Expanding.
And at this level, students generally have
and adequate level of language
from most of their day to day interactions.
They still have difficulty when dealing
in less familiar settings
or more academical, more formal settings.
They generally can converse with a high level
of fluency, and using more complex grammar.
So at this level, you're going to be teaching them
to expand their sentences into longer sentences,
elaborating on their ideas, teaching some grammar points
like clauses: adjective and adverb clauses,
noun clauses as well as maybe the passive voice
and things like reported speech.
Finally the highest level, level five,
CSU calls that Advanced, TESOL calls that Bridging.
At this level, the learners are near proficient.
They still make occasional errors,
as adult learners always will,
but generally that doesn't hinder their communication.
At this level, you're going to be focusing more
on whatever they specifically need English for.
You're gonna be helping them create extended presentations,
or writing academic papers,
maybe learning technical vocabulary within their job.
You're also helping them with colloqualisms and idioms,
and things that will help them sound more
like a native speaker and totally understand
everything a native speaker say.
So that is a general five-level overview of language levels.
I should point out that if you're interested in
teaching and you're up in the future,
you would look into something called
The Common European Framework for reference of languages,
and that's a six-level system that's being adopted
across all of Europe.
And so I encourage you to look into that
and look at many different systems as you start
to explore different levels of language.