Skills Focus for YL levels

STARTERS
CONSTANTLY remind students to write in STAMPATELLO. Make sure all work in the book and all
homework is completed in clear CAPITAL or LOWER CASE letters. Be strict and make them rub it out
and write it again.

LISTENING – Make sure you don’t skip any parts of the listening in the book as there is a limited
amount of practice and we don’t have extra resources. TRY and extend the practice: use the
TRANSCRIPT to make a Gap Fill and also have students read the TRANSCRIPT aloud to highlight
structure i.e. the negatives ‘No, that’s not her. Sally isn’t wearing glasses’. MAKE SURE students can
recognise negative structures and check these in class.

LISTENING – practice recognition of words in sentences wherever possible; make some DICTATIONS
to use in class and practice numbers, especially the offset of ‘–TEEN’ words and ‘00’ i.e. 13 and 30.

REMIND STUDENTS they don’t have to spell numbers!! They can write ‘16’ not ‘SIXTEEN’.

Vocabulary –particularly for the mixed-up letters (Part 3 of Reading and Writing). PLAY MIXED-UP
letter games and other SPELLING GAMES and TESTS.

PREPOSITIONS – Absolutely essential for the LISTENING and SPEAKING. Use games and various
worksheets to reinforce this in class. Practice the EXAM speaking structure using the STORIELINEE
cut-outs or make your own activities.

‘I AM A _______________’ – Part 4 of READING and WRITING is difficult. Make your own texts or
find additional examples online. Find ways to teach the grammar and structure at sentence level so
they can PREDICT whether a noun or verb or adjective is required in the gap. TRY and do one of
these questions every week. Get them to make their own ‘I AM A _____________’.

WH- QUESTIONS: Another essential part of the syllabus. Students must learn that a WHO questions
relates to a name or person (the girl), that HOW MANY involves counting, that WHAT will entail and
object, WHERE requires a preposition and a place, and ‘WHAT are ____________ DOING?’ will
require a verb. Use our big KIDS BOX posters and make your own EXAM-STYLE questions.

PRESENT CONTINUOUS: Finally, try to practice VERBS every week so they are confident in using and
recognising them. IT IS DIFFICULT TO SEPARATE PRESENT SIMPLE from PRESENT CONTINUOUS and I
do not feel that students fully understand the difference. MAKE sure they understand that ‘BE’ is
required before ‘-ING’.

TRY TO MAKE THEM PRODUCE LANGUAGE AT SENTENCE LEVEL WHEREVER POSSIBLE, rather than
just getting them to learn and repeat single words or short phrases.

SHARED RESOURCES FOLDER: Puzzle Time for Starters / Get Ready for Starters / Funtastic English 2
STARTERS - QUESTIONS FROM THE SPEAKING EXAM TO PRACTICE IN CLASS
What is your favourite sport?

How do you COME to school?

Where is your school?

What is your favourite colour?

What is your favourite lesson at school?

Can you play the piano?

Is your house big?

Who are your friends?

What is your favourite food?

How many bedrooms in your house?

What is the name of your teacher?

How many brothers and sisters do you have?

What is the annual rainfall in Brazil?

What is your mother’s name?

Which pets would you like to have?

What sports do you play?

What colour are your eyes?

What are you wearing?

Where is the television in your house?

Who do you watch TV with?

Where do you have dinner?

What do you have for breakfast?

What do you watch on TV?

What sports do you play at school?

Where do you play sports?

What do you eat for dinner?

Are you wearing a jacket?

If it takes six men six days to dig a hole, how long will it take three men to dig half a hole?

What is in your bedroom?

Is your teacher a man or a woman?

Do you like milk?

Can you sing?

What time do you go to school?

When do you have breakfast?

MOVERS

PAST TENSE –the only major grammar advancement for MOVERS is the PAST TENSE. If you haven’t
started already you should practice verbs every week using a variety of games and worksheets.

LISTENING – As before, don’t miss any opportunities in the book to practice listening and try to
extend the task by making a GAP FILL from the transcript or by reading the TRANSCRIPT aloud.

LISTENING PART 4 – This is difficult and requires a good knowledge of the structure of the question
i.e. they will mention all of the pictures but will use NEGATIVE statements or different time periods
to rule out incorrect answers.

R&W DEFINITIONS – Part 1 READING and WRITING - There are plenty of definition games you can
play. We also have past papers.

R&W PART 3 – REPLIES in CONVERSATION - This is quite hard to teach so perhaps practice is the best
method – Use past papers or write your own scripts and have students doing ROLEPLAY.

R&W PART 4 – SENTENCE LEVEL GRAMMAR is essential here. USE past papers and also make your
own texts or get students to remove words from a text and swap with each other. MAD LIBS and
reading short rhymes and stories could help.

PART 5 – Easily the most difficult part. Students must be able to recognise PAST TENSE verbs to do
well. Also, the grammar can be quite difficult as they have to transform verbs with similar meaning
and use different structures. They must recognise VERB + PREPOSITION, ARTICLE + NOUN, LIKE +
INFINITIVE or GERUND, ON + day of the week, AT + place, INFINITIVE of purpose (He went to his
bedroom TO SLEEP).

PART 6 – Also difficult to teach so use past papers and practice frequently. Personally, I would get an
Italian speaker to explain relative clauses as they are similar in Italian. They need to know
COMPARATIVES and SUPERLATIVES. Also they must UNDERSTAND third person ‘S’ and pronouns
such as THEM and THEIR.

MUST and HAVE TO (HAD TO): Along with the past tense this is the other important grammar to
introduce and practice. You will also have to spend a bit of time on COULD as the past form of CAN.

SHARED RESOURCES: Puzzle Time for Movers / Get Ready for Movers / The Jungle Book, Ladybird
Readers
FLYERS

There is a lot of grammar to introduce for FLYERS and the book doesn’t do a very good job of
explaining or introducing it in a logical way. You will have to create your own resources and
worksheets and activities and possibly explain some concepts in a simple fashion.

LISTENING – Follows the same structure as the two previous exams but is much harder and so needs
practice more than anything else.

PRESENT PERFECT: This is by far the hardest grammar you will have to teach because it is very
difficult to explain conceptually to young children and they probably won’t understand its purpose.
Note that they only really need to RECOGNISE the form and understand it in the READING and
WRITING. My advice would be to teach it separately in a number of its functions i.e. for EXPERIENCE
(Yes, I’ve been to Paris), TASKS either completed or not completed (Yes, I’ve done my homework /
No, I haven’t done my homework), RESULTS in the present (I’ve broken my leg / I’ve lost my phone)
and possibly UNFINISHED ACTIONS starting in the PAST (I’ve lived here for 5 years).

FUTURE – make sure you teach the future forms (it’s not a tense). Although it’s not a big part of the
exam it is essential for their PROGRESSION and ability to express themselves.

PART 3 READING and WRITING – Use ROLEPLAY and MIXED UP dialogues. Acting out stories is great
on lots of levels.

PART 5 – The most difficult part along with part 7. Use past papers and focus on TRANSFORMING
pairs of sentences from one to the other (you can write you own examples). They should be getting a
feel for English at this level –if not they might need double lessons or extra homework.

PART 6 – Lots of practice and past papers. Once again, you will need to try and focus on RELATIVE
CLAUSES, PRONOUNS, COMPARATIVES, VERB + PREPOSITION, PREPOSITIONS etc. Do more
READING, and get Ss to make their own gap fills; DICTATIONS (including RUNNING DICTATIONS) may
also help

PART 7 – They must have a generative understanding of English grammar to do this. Use past papers
and also make your own gap fills or have students make a gap fill from a text and swap with each
other. READING rhymes and stories and doing MAD LIBS can also support understanding.

SHARED RESOURCES: Puzzle Time for Flyers / Get Ready for Flyers / Wizard of Oz, Ladybird readers