Social and workplace Adult English communication courses
comprise the following:
- Basic English
- Beginner (Level 1 & 2)
- Pre-intermediate (Level 3 & 4)
- Intermediate (Level 5 – 7)
- Advanced (Level 8 &
The duration for each level is 40 hours for about 4 months.The courses are designed to encourage students to communicate with confidence in their daily conversations.Standardized notes and other materials are provided. All classes use our very own P.S.F. method which the lecturers use bilingual communications to effectively facilitate students’ comprehension of the lessons.At all levels, the emphasis is on encouraging students’ participation in the learning process. They are especially encouraged to speak in the language they are learning. Conversation, acting, sharing, public speaking and other activities and games are facilitated by the use of specially designed teaching aids.Students are strongly encouraged to sit for an external examination from University of Cambridge ESOL Examinations as we train and give trial ESOL examination according to students’ performance after 50 hours of learning for each level.
Basic English
This course is intended for students with little or practically no knowledge of the language.
Lessons are confined to only two tenses and other aspects of simpler grammar. The
teaching is in bilingual format to expedite the student’s understanding of the lessons.
At the end of the Basic English course, students will be able to understand and use 100 to
150 simple sentences. They should be able to speak very simple English. At this stage,
however, the main objective is to build some form of foundation before the students can
proceed to the next level – the Beginners Level O
Beginner (Level 1 & 2)
This level is geared towards students with some knowledge of basic English. The students
should be able to speak in short and simple sentences with more vocabularies.
Additional types of tenses and more other aspects of grammar will be taught. At this stage,
bilingual communication is still relied upon for better comprehension.
Upon completion of Level 1 & 2, students will have mastered more than 200 sentenc
Pre-Intermediate (Level 3 & 4)
At this extensive stage, students are expected to master more advanced
grammatical structures as well as a repertoire of 150 – 250 common English
expressions.
At this level, the bilingual approach will be still applied but it will be kept to the
minimum. Instead, the time devoted to speaking in English will be increased and
encouraged. More and more tenses will be taught together with aspects of nontense grammatical knowledge.
Translation exercises will be always set to make the students grasp correctly the
grammatical sentences in specific situation. These will be followed by conversation
and acting exercises to boost their verbal confidence.
Students who pass the final test will proceed to the Intermediate (Level 5 – 7).
Intermediate (Level 5 – 7)
Students must be able to comprehend well the Pre-Intermediate levels and an
understanding of basic grammar is a prerequisite. They must also be able to communicate
in Pre-Intermediate levels confidently. They may find the contents of this level somewhat
easier, especially the contents of the conversations. These conversations restate the
specific grammatical rules that will help them towards a deeper understanding of
intermediate grammar.
The senior teachers involved will use the ratio of 70% – 80% speaking in English and 20% –
30% bilingualism method to explain the more difficult aspects of the language to ensure
that their lessons are fully understood in the effort towards fully English lessons. Apart
from the usual conversations and grammar exercises, students will be assigned with more
reading materials of specific and general interests to encourage them to read.
There will be 20 lessons on specific points of grammar, which will be reinforced by written
exercises.
Their particular interest is the expansion and consolidation of their vocabularies to enable
them to express themselves better in both written and spoken for the language.
Those tenses, the same as taught in the pre-intermediate level, will be re-emphasized,
coupled with more complex grammar exercises to be done by the students. There will also
be more of the mandatory public speaking exercises and sharings to be held in the
classroom.
Advanced (Level 8 & 9)
This is the highest stage in the study of conversational English and grammar at Standard.
At this stage, students are required to expand upon their vocabularies to express
themselves better and to avoid the excessive use of clichés and stock expressions. They
must now be capable of a superior command of the language.
Henceforth, the lecturers will be using only English as the medium of instruction. 20% –
30% of the course involves writing skills whereby the students are trained to express their
own views and ideas. They will also explore deeper into the intricacies of English
grammar.
To enhance teaching methods, teaching aids such as CD/ VCD will be utilised.