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FIRST DAY INFORMATION FOR FOURTH YEAR STUDENTS
Now that you have passed our CE/3rd year exam you may be wondering what this fourth year is about.Well, it's all explained in the school webpage in a rather technical sort of way.This is an attempt(not a terrorist attack) to sum it up in easier English. I hope it helps.
1-Objectives, or what you will be able to do at the end of the year.
2-Contents, or the language points(grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation)together with the skills and strategies you will learn to meet those objectives.
3-Teaching activities and style, or how it will all be taught and -hopefully- learnt.
4-Materials
5-Evaluation
6-Preparing for fifth year English
OBJECTIVES:As you may have already read or heard,English has little and easy grammar, a bunch of frequently-used short Germanic words, masses of Latin vocabulary(you are in luck there) and a very sophisticated sound system that makes listening comprehension and pronunciation exceedingly difficult.(There's always a downside!)
At the end of your fourth year you should be aware of what is and isn't correct English grammar(practically everything except inversion in conditionals and after negative/dramatic words).Grammar correction in writing should be practically perfect(in the sense of mastering all the basic structures and the 2000-3000 most frequently used words) given enough time to plan and revise your compositions.Spoken grammar is a different kettle of fish.Fluency should make up for the mistakes that arise from spontaneous production, though students should be able to monitor their speech correcting themselves and reflecting on what they are saying.
Vocabulary understood in its widest sense (including phrasals, idioms,word formation, etc)will be expected to be more than the basic 2,500 words that are most frequently used in English.This basic vocabulary will take you practically everywhere but fourth year students,should be able to convey finer shades of meaning in description, more precise details in narrations and so on.Correct pronunciation of frequently used words together with an acceptable rhythm and intonation will be an equally important objective even if it is not all that explicitly evaluated since it is an integral part of your spoken production.
Strategies are the way you guess the meaning of a new expression, the way you express a concept when you can't remember the exact word, and the countless operations that intuitively, or consciously,people perform to improve the language they are learning. After you have passed your 3rd year/CE exam, your strategies should be quite good, so it is mostly a matter of expanding on what you are already doing -practising and learning as you go along.
The skills are the four blocks of the language,which will be evaluated independently since they have different applications in real life.I am sure by now you have guessed they are speaking, listening, reading and writing.Throughout the year you should aim at improving your weakest points and consolidating your strengths in these blocks.It is interesting to note that by the end of May you should be able to pass the FC exam at the British Council, a prestigious certificate in Europe.It corresponds to stage B2 in the European Framework of Reference for Languages, so you should be able to reach this level in the four skills when you take the dialang test, which you may download at dialang.org.
CONTENTS:All the contents described in the school webpage are important, but particular emphasis will be made on the revision and extension of the tense system(especially the future and the past), reported speech,passives,conditionals,relative clauses,articles,phrasals,gerunds vs infinitives,connectors and the vocabulary related to the areas listed in the webpage.
TEACHING:The first and foremost important ingredient in the teaching pot is the students.A positive attitude will move mountains and all suggestions to improve or redirect language learning will be welcomed.Please do not hesitate to contribute at the fourth year feedback page.The account name is "suggestion time" and the password is 4444442.
The teaching style is essentially communicative.A lot of the reading, writing, grammar and listening can outside the classroom, so speaking will take precedence over everything else.On the other hand,the multimedia room sessions will help us to take communication to the "worldwide web". A lot of newspaper articles will be brought to class to enrich the language with fresh vocabulary and current issues.Fifty per cent of the work you will be doing will take place outside the classroom if you are an average student.The higher your level, the lower that percentage will be.This may sound too self-evident, but lots of students tend to forget it.
At an upper-intermediate level, when you are practically independent learners, it is easy to lose sight of your objectives.You have a fairly good grasp of the workings of the language and yet there are masses of vocabulary and difficult accents floating all around you.Some people call it the intermediate plateau bacause you have already climbed a long way and there is no clear sight of the next load of mountains. That is the reason why you will be doing lots of tests -one every Friday plus a few more- which will help you to focus on the course contents and give you a sense of achievement.
MATERIALS: Of the following, only the textbook pack is compulsory.The others are recommended.
TEXTBOOK
Inside Out Level IV: Student's Book, Workbook and Workbook CD.
GRAMMAR AND USAGE REFERENCES
Grammar for First Certificate with Answers, by Louise Hashemi and Barbara Thomas and First Certificate Language Practice, by Michael Vince, Heinemann ed. These two books complement each other.The first one has lots of listening material and exam practice, the second one develops the finer points of grammar at a higher level.There are, however, lots of free online materials if you have the patience to surf for them.
The highest level comes from Practical English Usage, by Michael Swan, Oxford ed.This is an excellent book which will take you through your fifth year clarifying differences between formal and conversational grammar, American and British English, etc, with a lexical index at the end.Again the web has all the answers, but you have to know how and where to look for them.When you google something you have to weed out "foreign English" mistakes, and this is not always immediately obvious.
DICTIONARIES
ONLINE http://www.onelook.com - highly recommended.
MONOLINGUAL Collins Cobuild and Oxford/Longman dictionaries for intermediate to advanced learners. Oxford, largest edition.
BILINGUAL Oxford, largest and latest edition.
READERS (the deadline is the end of the month)
October: The Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, by Mark Haddon(oral test). November: Option A:The Name You Once Gave Me,by Mike Phillips,option B:Star Sullivan,by Maeve Binchy and option C:How to Change your Life in Seven Steps, by John Bird, founder of the Big Issue;all of them in the collection "BBC Quick Reads"(oral test)
December-February: Crime Never Pays (classroom activities).For those who have already read it:A Tangled Web, Oxford Bookworms, OUP.
March-May: 50 Facts that should change the world.
EVALUATION
As was previously mentioned, there will be an exam every Friday, that is, each of the seven Fridays you have to come to class(*).Apart from that, some classroom activities will be turned into tests and feedback on performance will be almost immediate.The final evaluation will comprise four parts: Speaking, Writing, Listening and Reading+Language test. Each part is assessed separately and amounts to 25% of the total. In May you may fail one of these parts and do it in September, but if you don't pass then, you will have to do the whole year again. Homework and classwork are extremely important and will also be evaluated.FINAL EXAM: between May 16th and the end of the month.
(*)FRIDAY EXAMS AND LESSONS
Monday groups:Nov 23rd,Feb 1st,March 7th,Apr 18th (+MONDAY 17TH TEST)
Tuesday groups:Nov 9th,Dec 14th,Jan 11th,Feb 22nd and April 4th(+ OCTOBER 19TH and MAY 9TH lessons)
HOLIDAYS
October 9th and 12th;November 1st and 2nd;December 6th-8th and 21st-31st;January 1st-6th and 21st-22nd;March 1th-31st and May 1st.
PREPARING FOR FIFTH YEAR ENGLISH
Once you have passed your fourth year exams, be prepared for the shock.If you thought your English was good enough because you scraped through your exams with little effort you are in for a great disappointment.Moving from the intermediate plateau to the Advanced front requires effort, perseverance and time.The harder you work this year, the more comfortable you will feel in your fifth year class, no matter how unchallenging the fourth year course materials may seem to you.Appearances are deceptive!
Visiting an English speaking country, making the most of the net and reading between May and October are essential since languages are not a handful of exam questions but a long term project that dies like unwatered flowers if unattended.
Books recommended for the summer are:
1.The Oxford Bookworms Collection of Short (unabridged)Stories, OUP (apart from what you have already read).Particularly recommended are From the Cradle to the Grave(human interest) and A Window on the Universe(Science Fiction).
2.The books in the "BBC Quick Reads" collection(apart from what you have already read).
3.For more adventurous readers: My Best Friend's Girl by Dorothy Koomson (Best-selling 2006 British fiction), How to be Good, by Nick Hornby(thought-provoking comedy), Thinks, by David Lodge (humour, science,literature and romance)and 1984 by George Orwell.
4.For culture vultures: Mother Tongue, by Bill Bryson(humour, popular linguistics) and the novels The Blind Assassin, by Margaret Atwood(Canadian), Atonement, by Ewan McEwan (British,just turned into a film)and Boyhood, by Coetzee(South African,Nobel Prize).
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