Levels 7 and 8

Achievement Objectives

Oral language: Speaking

	Students should:
Level 7	speak confidently, clearly, and persuasively in a variety of situations to recount experiences and events, communicate and explore information, ideas, and opinions, and facilitate discussion	Interpersonal Speaking
Level 8	speak coherently, effectively, and persuasively in a variety of situations to debate ideas and opinions, recount experiences and events, communicate information and contrasting points of view, and promote focused discussion
Level 7	using a wide range of texts, narrate, recite, read aloud, present, or perform, individually and in groups, organising material effectively and choosing different techniques of speech and delivery to interpret and explore possible meanings and purposes	Using Texts
Level 8	using a wide range of texts, narrate, recite, read aloud, present, or perform, individually and in groups, adapting and integrating techniques of speech and delivery, to express well reasoned points of view, and interpret and communicate meanings for different purposes and audiences
	In achieving the objectives of understanding and using oral language, students should:
Levels 7 and 8	identify language features in a range of texts and describe, analyse, and evaluate their appropriateness and effects in terms of meaning, purpose, and audience, adapting these features for different situations	Exploring Language
Levels 7 and 8	discuss, interpret, and evaluate spoken texts in terms of their structure and their social, cultural, political, and historical contexts	Thinking Critically
Levels 7 and 8	interpret and evaluate information from a range of sources, and select and present accurate information coherently, using appropriate technology	Processing Information

Teaching, Learning, and Assessment Examples

Example 1

Achievement Objectives
Interpersonal speaking; using texts: exploring language; thinking critically

Teaching and Learning
Context: studying the characteristics of formal and informal speaking situations

In groups, students select an informal situation, such as ordering food at a takeaway, and develop a simulation of the situation, making choices about, for example, the participants, relationships, clothing, language, tone of voice, and body language.
Each group presents the simulation to the class.
They discuss with the rest of the class the situation, the relationships between participants, and their choices of verbal and non-verbal language features, justifying their choices in terms of their appropriateness for the situation.
The groups repeat the above process for a more formal context, such as meeting a potential employer.

Assessment

Each group compares their two simulations closely, discussing and evaluating the language used and analysing the influences on the choice of language.
The teacher and students assess these analyses.
In an open forum, students discuss the appropriateness of the language choices demonstrated in the simulations.

Extension Option

Students could listen to or view a scene from a comedy or sketch where the humour is created by the use of an inappropriate register for the situation, and identify the specific language features which contribute to the humour.

Links With Other Strands
Listening, Writing, Viewing, Presenting

Example 2

Achievement Objectives
Interpersonal speaking; using texts: exploring language; thinking critically

Teaching and Learning
Context: investigating the language of radio and television interviews

Students explore and discuss combinations of verbal and non-verbal features of language in a number of interviews conducted by different interviewers. They evaluate the effectiveness of the interviews in terms of their purposes and audiences.
Working in pairs, students develop and script an interview on an issue of interest or based on an incident in a literary text, for a particular audience and purpose. In role, they rehearse and record their interviews or present them to the group.
Other students identify the intended audience and purpose.

Assessment

The teacher assesses students' ability to use language appropriate to the audience and situation, the quality of questioning, and the students' responses.

Links With Other Strands
Listening, Presenting
Related examples in other strands at the same level: Listening, Example 1; Viewing, Example 2.

Example 3

Achievement Objectives
Interpersonal speaking; using texts: exploring language; thinking critically

Teaching and Learning
Context: a study of the language of the law, using literary or media texts

Students listen to a radio or recorded play or watch a short television clip dealing with a courtroom drama and identify features of the specialised language of the court and the verbal and non-verbal features of its delivery.
Students work in pairs. In the roles of barristers in an imaginary court of law, they prepare and present closing arguments for and against a selected fictional character on a charge which could have been levelled at the character.

Assessment

The teacher assesses the credibility of each presentation, its relationship to the original text, and the persuasiveness of the argument.
Each group assesses the appropriateness of the language features they selected in terms of the response from the class.

Links With Other Strands
Listening, Presenting, Viewing, Reading

Example 4

Achievement Objectives
Using texts: exploring language; thinking critically

Teaching and Learning
Context: a study of poetry

Students read a selection of poems silently, and then hear them read aloud by the teacher or from recordings.
The class discusses the ways in which the voice is used to clarify meanings by emphasising rhythm, highlighting particular words or phrases, and signalling the role and effects of line endings, stanza breaks, and other elements of structure.
Individual students choose one of the poems to discuss in depth, analysing and evaluating the verbal and non-verbal features in the presentation. These evaluations are shared.
Individual students select a poem they enjoy, and prepare a presentation of it for their group.

Assessment