During school, university or adult life, you may want to study English for some reason (exams, university credits, work, life skills etc.) Start reaching your goals by choosing your target study level from the links below:
Course Content for B2 Adults
To meet the requirements for B2 level, school-aged Cambridge First candidates and adult leaners must undertake a course of study whose components are based on the following list:
Main lexical content
- General (home, health, food, people, time).
- Work (including money).
- Social life (shopping, leisure, holidays, making friends, travel and transport, entertainment).
- Study.
Grammatical content
Learners need to gain an awareness and control of grammar and in particular they need practice in using:
- modal verbs in everyday speech.
- common phrasal verbs.
- the present perfect, and other higher level tenses.
- the conditional in everyday statements.
- reporting what other people say (using indirect speech).
Focus on vocabulary
- Quantifying (e.g. a packet of biscuits, a pint of milk etc.)
- Adjectives at B2 level: advanced descriptions of objects.
- Idioms.
- Collocations.
- Complementation.
- Word stems, roots, affixation etc.
- Internal changes ( e.g. long - length).
- Compounding in word formation (compound nouns and so on).
Phonetic content
- Pronunciation of vowels, consonants and diphthongs in English.
- Focus on differences and similarities of certain sounds.
- Rhythm, stress and intonation.
Reading
Students will practice their general reading skills and specific reading skills for the First (B2) and Advanced (C1) exams.
- Reading quickly to understand general content (skimming). Exercises on speeding up reading ability.
- Reading for specific information or gist.
- Study of a wide range of texts likely to appear in the Cambridge English First exam including: coursebooks at this level, reading-skills books at this level (graded readers), book and film reviews, modern articles in which people discuss their hobbies, unabridged short stories, novels, non-fiction, current newspaper and magazine extracts on topics of interest, and articles available on the internet. Students are encouraged to follow up on their hobbies and interests by reading about sport, cars, fashion, culture, etc. in English.
- Reading to recognise the main ideas and finer details within a text i.e. what is implied, the writer's attitude.
- Looking at extracts from novels which focus on characters' feelings.
- Deciding on the attitude, ideas and opinions expressed by authors in their work.
- Practice at guessing the meaning of unknown words in context. Deducing the meaning of unfamiliar phrases in context.
- Following the development of a long text - text organisation features and structure.
- Providing verbal reviews of texts recently read for the Weekly Reading Scheme.
Writing
Learners are encouraged to record in detail new vocabulary using an efficient, personal system of their own choosing, following a class discussion.
- What do people write nowadays? A discussion.
- Everyday writing: shopping lists, SMS.
- Practice in paraphrasing (rewriting sentences from texts).
- Making notes while someone is talking.
- Improving spelling of ranges of words which can be formed from the same stem word e.g. compete, competition, including negative and plural forms..
- Specific writing tasks: postcards, notes, emails for invitations.
- Work writing tasks: letters, notes , simple reports of a factual nature for colleagues (with advice and evaluations).
- Real-life writing: TripAdvisor reviews, commenting on articles online.
- Using Google translate to check that your writing is correct. How to modify your writing to obtain a better result.
Speaking at B2 level
As a minumum, learners are expected to be able to converse showing a good deal of control of simple grammatical forms while attempting some complex grammatical forms. They should be able to speak in blocks of at least three or four sentences, with little repetition, generally accurate pronunciation and with little support. This course includes:
- How to keep up a conversation on a fairly wide range of topics.
- Talking for at least one minute on any given topic, with good organisataion of ideas and linking (play Just a Minute).
- Training in listening carefully to instructions and in asking for clarification.
- How to ask for factual information.
- Expressing opinions.
- Answering predictable questions on students' own lives, work, leisure time and future plans.
- Giving reactions to two thematically-linked pictures and comparing them (NOT describing them).
- Giving reasons.
- Presenting arguments, using a limited range of expression.
- Students should practice working in pairs and small groups focusing on initiating and responding to what other students have to say.
- Practice for students to talk about themselves and their everyday lives, for example the sports they enjoy, travel and holidays, work experience and so on.
- Training in responding promptly with complete and spontaneous answers. For example answering random questions picked from a hat.
- Role-play social occasions where they could meet new people, e.g. parties, train journeys, starting a new job.
Some grammar and vocabulary exercises will be consolidated orally using activities covering areas such as word formation, stem word transformations, paraphrasing, using synonyms, grammatical transformations of various types, saying things again 'in other words'. Students also benefit from predicting what could come up in an exam, taking time to brainstorm possible questions for each part of the speaking test, and perhaps working in groups answering each others' questions.
Listening
- Learners need to develop certain skills: following talks, listening for specific information.
Exam specific.
- Oral test at B2 or C1 level.
- Familiarisation with the written parts of the exams (filling in the answer sheet, etc.).
Course Content for B1 School-age learners
To meet the requirements for B1 level in 2020, school-age Cambridge B1 Preliminary candidates (and anyone else) must undertake a course of study whose components are based on the following list:
Main lexical content
- General (daily life; house and home; health, medicine and exercise; food and drink; people; free time; places and buildings; weather; environment; the natural world).
- Social life (social interaction; shopping and money; hobbies and leisure; travel and holidays; relations with other people; transport; entertainment and media; services).
- Study (education).
- Identity (clothes; language; personal feelings, experiences and opinions; personal identification).
Grammatical content
Learners need to gain an awareness and control of grammar and in particular they need practice in using:
- modal verbs in everyday speech.
- common phrasal verbs.
- the present perfect, and other higher level tenses.
- the conditional in everyday statements.
- reporting what other people say (using indirect speech).
Focus on vocabulary
Cambridge B1 exams at this level include items which normally occur in the everyday vocabulary of native speakers using English today.
- Lexis appropriate to their personal requirements, for example, nationalities, hobbies, likes and dislikes.
- Idioms.
- Idioms.
- Quantifying (e.g. a packet of biscuits, a pint of milk etc.)
- Adjectives at B2 level: advanced descriptions of objects.
- Idioms.
- Collocations.
- Complementation.
- Word stems, roots, affixation etc.
- Internal changes ( e.g. long - length).
- Compounding in word formation (compound nouns and so on).
Phonetic content
- Pronunciation of vowels, consonants and diphthongs in English.
- Focus on differences and similarities of certain sounds.
- Rhythm, stress and intonation.
Reading
Students will practice their general reading skills and specific reading skills for the First (B2) and Advanced (C1) exams.
- Reading quickly to understand general content (skimming). Exercises on speeding up reading ability.
- Reading for specific information or gist.
- Study of a wide range of texts likely to appear in the Cambridge English First exam including: coursebooks at this level, reading-skills books at this level (graded readers), book and film reviews, modern articles in which people discuss their hobbies, unabridged short stories, novels, non-fiction, current newspaper and magazine extracts on topics of interest, and articles available on the internet. Students are encouraged to follow up on their hobbies and interests by reading about sport, cars, fashion, culture, etc. in English.
- Reading to recognise the main ideas and finer details within a text i.e. what is implied, the writer's attitude.
- Looking at extracts from novels which focus on characters' feelings.
- Deciding on the attitude, ideas and opinions expressed by authors in their work.
- Practice at guessing the meaning of unknown words in context. Deducing the meaning of unfamiliar phrases in context.
- Following the development of a long text - text organisation features and structure.
- Providing verbal reviews of texts recently read for the Weekly Reading Scheme.
Writing
Learners are encouraged to record in detail new vocabulary using an efficient, personal system of their own choosing, following a class discussion.
- What do people write nowadays? A discussion.
- Everyday writing: shopping lists, SMS.
- Practice in paraphrasing (rewriting sentences from texts).
- Making notes while someone is talking.
- Improving spelling of ranges of words which can be formed from the same stem word e.g. compete, competition, including negative and plural forms..
- Specific writing tasks: postcards, notes, emails for invitations.
- Work writing tasks: letters, notes , simple reports of a factual nature for colleagues (with advice and evaluations).
- Real-life writing: TripAdvisor reviews, commenting on articles online.
- Using Google translate to check that your writing is correct. How to modify your writing to obtain a better result.
Speaking at B2 level
As a minumum, learners are expected to be able to converse showing a good deal of control of simple grammatical forms while attempting some complex grammatical forms. They should be able to speak in blocks of at least three or four sentences, with little repetition, generally accurate pronunciation and with little support. This course includes:
- How to keep up a conversation on a fairly wide range of topics.
- Talking for at least one minute on any given topic, with good organisataion of ideas and linking (play Just a Minute).
- Training in listening carefully to instructions and in asking for clarification.
- How to ask for factual information.
- Expressing opinions.
- Answering predictable questions on students' own lives, work, leisure time and future plans.
- Giving reactions to two thematically-linked pictures and comparing them (NOT describing them).
- Giving reasons.
- Presenting arguments, using a limited range of expression.
- Students should practice working in pairs and small groups focusing on initiating and responding to what other students have to say.
- Practice for students to talk about themselves and their everyday lives, for example the sports they enjoy, travel and holidays, work experience and so on.
- Training in responding promptly with complete and spontaneous answers. For example answering random questions picked from a hat.
- Role-play social occasions where they could meet new people, e.g. parties, train journeys, starting a new job.
Some grammar and vocabulary exercises will be consolidated orally using activities covering areas such as word formation, stem word transformations, paraphrasing, using synonyms, grammatical transformations of various types, saying things again 'in other words'. Students also benefit from predicting what could come up in an exam, taking time to brainstorm possible questions for each part of the speaking test, and perhaps working in groups answering each others' questions.
Listening
- Learners need to develop certain skills: following talks, listening for specific information.
Exam specific.
- Oral test at B2 or C1 level.
- Familiarisation with the written parts of the exams (filling in the answer sheet, etc.).
Learner Profiles
A list of learner types who require different teaching considerations:
Trinity College Learner Profiles - B2, C1, C2
Trinity College ISE Levels - A2 to C2
- Primary school learner
Up-to-date teaching methods recommend starting at an early age with a second language; the earlier the better. Children will not resist the introduction of a language to the school curriculum and should steadily learn it with few problems. Focus is usually on children's vocabulary, useful school words and lexis commonly used with beginners.
- Secondary school learner
- High school learner
- University student (studying IELTS or TOEFL)
- Ex-student (or Masters/Ph.D. student) preparing for study abroad
- Student intending to take SAT test
- Young adults who hope to emigrate
- Workers needing English for their jobs or careers
These include office workers, military personnel, technicians in various disciplines.
- Adults focusing on conversation skills
- Teachers who need English to teach CLIL
- Pensioners learning for fun
