English

This is a four-semester course, A2, after Common European Framework. The course was started in October 2008. A student in this class should be a beginner, but not a zero one languagewise. That person should cope with the most primary language points, such as numbers 1-10, colours or saying his/her name.

In 2009/10 we meet once a month 4 x 45 minutes. We have two written tests per year. We finish with an oral exam which covers the whole material done In the two years. One of the written tests is in the winter term, the other one is in summer. Every student is entitled to two non-legitimate absences per term. At the end of the winter term, either zal. Or 4+ is given on the basis of successful attendance. The summer term pass is the joint mark of the two written tests in the year. The mark in the tests don’t affect the final exam result in any way.

One/ones, adjectives describing people, informal letter describing family members, possessive pronouns, ordinal numbers, months, saying who it belongs to, past simple with irregular verbs, phrasal verbs, understanding an article, recognising a person from short description, present simple, adverbs of frequency, clothes, a request to a colleague, present continuous, adverbs of manner, names of activities, naming rooms, revision of clothes, describing what we are doing, present simple and continuous, health weather, talking on a simple subject, complaining in a shop, a simple letter of complaint, comparing adjectives, media, comparing people and things, superlative adjectives, film types, a short film review, prefer+noun/-ing, will for offers and decisions, art, expressing preferences, discussing and planning things, present perfect with never/ever, travel, holiday activities, sports, personal experiences, regular and irregular verbs in present perfect, understanding the key points of a brochure, writing a holiday postcard to a friend, ing form as a noun only in subject position, types of transport, booking a ticket, understanding basic hotel information, booking a room, can/can’t, have to/ don’t have to, road rules and signs, traffic offences and penalties, wh-questions—revision, types of schools, education, understanding and making simple explanations, present continuous for the future, making future plans.

The textbook is Total English by Mark Foley and Diane Hall, A2, published by Pearson-Longman, 2007.

The textbook includes, apart from the student’s book which we do every class, also a set of audio cassettes, CD’s, a workbook for grammar and vocabulary revision, CD-ROM with some make-up material, DVD, video, and the textbook website, www.longman.com/totalenglish

I would also recommend Raymond Murphy’s Essential Grammar in Use for extra grammar practice.