Welcome to course February - June 2019!

Some important highlights to take into account:

Students at levels 9 and 10 are expected to achieve a proficiency level in which they can do the following:

Listening and Speaking:

• CAN contribute effectively to meetings and seminars within own area of work or knowledge; keep up a casual conversation with a good degree of fluency, coping with abstract expressions.
• CAN  pick up nuances of meaning/opinion.
• CAN keep up conversations of a casual nature for a period of time and discuss abstract/cultural topics with a good degree of fluency and range of expressions.
• CAN deal with unpredictable questions. 
• CAN make critical remarks/ express disagreement without causing offence.

To achieve proficient Listening and Speaking skills, continuous practise and commitment to eagerly participate in all class activities are required. Students will need to submit evidence of work by completing required tasks during the course. This portfolio of evidence will account for final grade.

Reading and Writing:

• CAN read quickly enough to cope with an academic course, and CAN take reasonably accurate notes in meetings or write a piece of work which shows an ability to communicate.
• CAN understand complex opinions/arguments as expressed in serious newspapers.
• CAN write letters in a way that errors as occur will not prevent understanding of message.
• CAN understand the general meaning of more complex articles without serious misunderstanding.
• CAN, given enough time, write a report that communicates the desired message.
• CAN scan texts for relevant information, and grasp main topic of text. 
• CAN write a piece of work whose message can be followed throughout.

To develop an advanced writing proficiency level, assignments have to go through due process:

1. Prewriting: This is the planning phase of the writing process, often using diagrams for mapping out ideas, topics, thoughts. Audience and purpose should be considered at this point.
2. Drafting: Create an initial composition by writing down all ideas in an organised way to convey a particular idea or present an argument. Audience and purpose need to be finalised.
3. Revising: Students review, modify, and organise their work by rearranging, adding, or deleting content, and by making the tone, style, and content appropriate for the intended audience. The goal of this phase of the writing process is to improve the draft.
4. Editing: At this point in the writing process, writers proofread and correct errors in grammar and mechanics, and edit to improve style and clarity. Having another writer’s feedback in this stage is helpful.
5. Publishing: In this last step of the writing process, the final writing is shared with the group. Sharing can be accomplished in a variety of ways, and with the help of computers, it can even be printed or published on line.

https://www.time4writing.com/writing-resources/writing-process/

Also, please keep in mind that if you want to really achieve the expected writing level, you have to complete all the course assignments following the required steps and taking care of correcting errors, such as grammar, spelling and punctuation.

As part of your evidence portfolio, you will need to get a notebook and write a journal with whatever comes to your mind at the end of the day. You are free to choose the topic and write about anything you want, the important thing is you do it. Challenge yourself to use new vocabulary all the time.


How to improve your vocabulary

One elementary strategy to work vocabulary is to get a notebook to record new  words or create a separate section in your notebook.

To really learn new vocabulary you have to follow these steps:

• Write the new word, pay attention to its correct spelling, pronunciation and stress.
• Write a description of what you think it means.
• Check the different definitions in a dictionary.
• Find out which part of speech it is or if it can be used as different parts, for example: "need" can be a verb or a noun.
• Write sentences using the word.
• Find synonyms and antonyms for the word.
• Play word games such as cross-word puzzles.
• You may also want to search for the origin of the word!
• Any other strategy you can think of.

There is a great variety of online resources  to help you with this task:

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/es/diccionario/ingles/

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/

https://www.dictionary.com

Good luck, but remember that good luck is only possible if you work hard!