Beginner Students of English
Beginner students are new to the English language, and conversation is limited to introducing themselves and perhaps one or two other phrases.
There are two types of Beginners. False Beginners are students who have had some exposure to English, and may have a limited vocabulary and sentence structure. They may have learned English during childhood or at school, and are returning to the subject later in their lives with no formal training. Total Beginners likely know nothing about the English language, however False Beginners may have learned imperfect English, and may take extra time to correct bad habits.
Intermediate Students of English
Students who are at an intermediate level can speak and read about a wide variety of topics using appropriate vocabulary and fairly correct, if basic, grammar. Students can confidently use all the main tenses, and are beginning to use phrasal and modal verbs. Intermediate students may need work on tone and style and may sometimes confuse verb tenses, but they have an awareness of pronunciation and what that entails. These students may have enough knowledge to explore other English topics, like Business English and can hold a basic conversation.
One-on-One and Small Class Sessions are based on the TOEFL, or Test of English as a Foreign Language. The TOEFL is an American test designed to establish how well a person speaks English. It’s often used by students who wish to move to the United States or attend American universities. Introduced in 1964, nearly 20 million students have taken the exam.
The TOEFL test consists of FOUR sections corresponding to the FOUR language skills. All 12-week lessons will have these components.
Speaking: This consists of 6 tasks, two independent tasks and four integrated tasks. In the two independent tasks, students must answer opinion questions about some aspect of academic life. In two integrated reading, listening, and speaking tasks, students must read a passage, listen to a passage, and speak about how the ideas in the two passages are related. In two integrated listening and speaking tasks, students must listen to long passages and then summarize and offer opinions on the information in the passages. Test takers are expected to convey information, explain ideas, and defend opinions clearly, coherently, and accurately.
Reading: The reading section consists of 3–5 long passages and questions about the passages. The passages are on academic topics; they are the kind of material that might be found in an undergraduate university textbook. Students answer questions about main ideas, details, inferences, sentence restatements, sentence insertion, vocabulary, function and suchlike. New types of questions require paraphrasing, filling out tables, or completing summaries. Generally prior knowledge of the subject under discussion is not necessary to come to the correct answer, though it may help.
Listening: This consists of 6 long passages and questions about the passages. The passages consist of two student conversations and four academic lectures or discussions. The questions ask the students to determine main ideas, details, function, stance, inferences, and overall organization.
Writing: The Writing Section consists of two tasks, one integrated task and one independent task. In the integrated task, students must read an academic passage, listen to an academic passage, and write about how the ideas in the two passages are related. In the independent task, students must write a personal essay.