Course Outline

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General English Pre-Intermediate Level

This course includes teaching/learning modules for adult learners across the four macro skill areas of listening, speaking, reading and writing. Additional supportive modules are also in the structural skills areas of grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation.  

Prerequisites:

Students need an entry level of English equivalent to IELTS 3.5 to study English in this course.

Skills Development:

Listening:
  • Practise making predictions about a speaker’s discourse
  • Listen to the speaker’s gist and interpolate the main ideas of the speaker
  • Make relevant inferences when listening
  • Remember and understand new vocabulary
  • Identify intercultural references in a speaker’s discourse

Speaking:
  • Develop and demonstrate skills of reflection, analysis and interpretation
  • Develop and reinforce self-confidence, to give speakers an independence in communication and a sense of self-autonomy in self-expression in both formal and informal situations

Reading:
  • Gain a greater understanding and awareness of current affairs through reading  newspapers
  • Understand and identify different text types and genres, as they appear in varying contexts within newspapers
  • Understand and become familiar with the purpose, structure and language features of all text types as they appear in the newspapers

Writing:
  • Write particular text types and understand and use their associated language features
  • Identify text types in accordance with students needs and interests
  • Write text types using ‘the writing process’, showing a control and mastery over spelling, punctuation and sentence and paragraph structures

Entry Requirements

Our courses have different entry requirements. Placement in a course is offered through Confirmation of Enrolment, however you may be placed in a different course, depending on your Placement Test.

Placement Test

In addition to meeting the entry requirements, each student will sit a Placement Test before commencing the course.

Placement tests are based on the basic skills of reading, writing, speaking and listening.

A test score is comparable to standardised tests like the Cambridge Quick Placement test (PET) and IELTS scores.

General English – Elementary / Pre-Intermediate

Students must have the following IELTS (or equivalent) scores for entry to the General English course:

Elementary: for under 3.5 IELTS equivalent

Pre-Intermediate: 3.5 – 4.5 IELTS equivalent

Students with little or no English are asked to contact the Academic Manager to ensure their needs can be catered for.

IELTS Preparation

ELSPM offers IELTS preparation courses. It is generally believed that students can increase their score by 0.5 each 10 weeks. Different visas require different IELTS scores. Students must be at or close to the required score before beginning IELTS. The IELTS preparation course usually runs for 10 weeks each semester.

Regular Assessment

ELSPM has a regular assessment program that gives students a progress report every 5 weeks. These should be taken into account when you are planning your next level of study.

If you have any questions about Course Placement please contact the Academic Manager at manager@elspm.org.au