What levels of language proficiency exist
Intermediate - what level is it? A slightly different system is used to describe the levels of the English language than with other languages. According to the European Language Portfolio (CEFR), language proficiency is determined by the following levels A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2.
In the case of English, all levels receive an additional name from Beginner to Advanced. This is due to the fact that the system of English levels developed before the introduction of the CEFR. A brief description of each level from the point of view of the student's knowledge looks like this:
| Elementary possession | A1 Beginner | The student understands short messages in English, can tell about himself, about his work and free time, orient himself in standard everyday situations. Listening comprehension is mainly tied to the recognition of individual words and expressions. Written communication skills are minimal. |
Elementary | The student can tell in relative detail about himself, about the events of the past, about plans for the future. Owns three to four basic temporary forms. Speech is slow, some mistakes are possible even in basic forms. Recognizes familiar words and expressions in spoken messages. | |
| Self-ownership | Pre-Intermediate | The student understands oral and written messages in the normative language, can take part in a simple conversation, navigate in most standard situations. Can talk about past events, plans for the future, lead a conversation on abstract topics with the support of the interlocutor. The basic grammatical forms are generally stable. |
Intermediate | At this level, there is a transition from dialogical to monologue speech. The student consistently uses basic grammatical forms, can express shades of meanings to a limited extent. Such speech genres as presentation, story, retelling are beginning to be mastered. Listening comprehension allows you to perceive unadapted messages, to capture their general meaning, as well as a significant part of the details. | |
Fluency | Upper-Intermediate | The student is free to navigate extensive texts in English using a dictionary from time to time. Medium tempo speech, with linking elements, which allows you to effectively work with monologue genres. The student has some difficulty in expressing abstract ideas, but in most cases these difficulties are surmountable. The automatic use of non-basic grammatical forms begins. |
| C2 Advanced | The student understands any message- oral or written, owns shades of words and idioms. He communicates freely in the vast majority of situations, does not need the services of an interpreter or intermediary when communicating with native speakers. He speaks most of the grammatical means of the language. |
In fact, the English language levels do not fully correspond to the CEFR levels. For example, the Elementary level covers only part of A2, more accurately it could be described as intermediate level A1- A2, but for the sake of simplicity, these little things are usually ignored.
What you need to know at the Intermediate level
As you can see from the table, all levels are divided into three large groups: elementary possession, independent possession, and free possession. It is understood that at the Beginner and Elementary levels, the student can maintain a conversation, relying largely on the speech of the interlocutor, on Pre-Intermediate and Intermediate- communicate more independently and at the highest levels- express your thoughts and emotions in the language unambiguously and fully.
Most often, after a regular school and a non-linguistic university, people speak the language at a level up to Pre-Intermediate. Despite the fact that the Pre-Intermediate and Intermediate levels are related in the CEFR system, there is a significant difference between them. Knowledge of English at the Intermediate level implies the ability to communicate not only in a dialogue situation, but to build rather long monologue messages. Therefore, the issue of overcoming the "language barrier" is often associated precisely with the transition to the Intermediate (intermediate) level of the English language. To do this, you need not only to expand your vocabulary, to learn to understand native speakers, but to expand your knowledge of connected words and more complex grammatical forms. Only after that you can go to the Upper-Intermediate level.
Intermediate level- this is the minimum level sufficient for more or less free communication in the language on any topic. A person with such knowledge will be able to find a way out of any situation, solve any everyday problem. In addition, it is only at this level that stable knowledge is formed, which will remain with you for the rest of your life. In other words, if you started learning from scratch, it is recommended that you do not interrupt it until you reach the Intermediate level.
Intermediate level program
The course involves mastering following topics:
| Topic | Grammar | Vocabulary |
| Food | Present Simple and Continuous Action and non-action verbs | Food and restaurants |
| Sports | Past tenses | Sport |
| Family | Future forms | Family, personality |
| Introductions | Revision | Personal information |
| Money | Present Perfect and Past Simple | Money Numbers |
| Changing your life | Present perfect continuous | Strong adjectives |
| Transport and travel | Comparatives and superlatives | Transport and travel |
| Office | Revision | In the office |
| Manners | Obligation | Telephone English |
| Appearances | Must, may, might, should (deduction) | Describing people |
| Abilities | Can, could, be able to | -ed / -ing adjectives |
| Renting a flat | Revision | Houses and flats |
| The school | First Conditional and future time clauses | Education |
| Dreams | Second Conditional | Houses |
| Friendship | Usually Used to | Friendship |
| Describing a dwelling | Revision | Houses and flats |
| Work | Quantifiers | Noun formation |
| Men and women | Articles | Verbs / adjectives + prepositions |
| Careers | Gerunds and infinitives | Work |
| Meetings | Revision | Giving opinion |
| Resume / CV | Revision | CV |
| Shopping | Reported speech | Shopping |
| Cinema | Passive | Cinema |
| Heroes | Relative clauses | What people do |
| News | Revision | Giving and reacting to news |
| Luck | Third Conditional | Making adjectives and adverbs |
| Crime | Question tags | Compound nouns |
| Television | Phrasal verbs | Television |
| Apologizing | Revision | Apologies and excuses |
As can be seen from the program, the training includes not only everyday, but also more abstract topics. Level of knowledge of English Intermediate- it is, first of all, the ability to adequately express one's opinion and build monologic messages on a variety of topics.
Grammar material includes repetition of basic forms and familiarity with more complex forms, such as indirect speech. It is especially important to master the so-called "narrative tenses": Past Continuous, Past Perfect, Past Perfect Continuous, Future in the Past, because they are used in coherent texts. The final sharpening of these forms occurs already at the Upper-Intermediate level.
The test at the end of the level includes both oral and written parts. Vocabulary, grammar, listening comprehension, ability to tell a story and write an essay in English are tested.
Term of study at the level
Training takes 80 - 100 academic hours... Basic guide- textbook New English File published by Oxford University Press.
Intermediate courses
Besides we also offer special. Since we understand very well the specifics of this level, the main activities in the lesson are aimed at overcoming the speech barrier and developing independent language proficiency. In the classroom, there are many dialogical trainings, students work on presentations and projects, perform written assignments: write essays, letters, reports. Training takes place exclusively in English, which develops the ability to understand speech by ear.
For greater involvement of students in the process of independent language acquisition, we follow the principle of "learning through teaching" (Lernen durch Lehren): under the guidance of a teacher, students explain vocabulary and grammar to each other, tell news, retell texts they read on their own.
To increase the effectiveness of teaching face-to-face lessons, work is accompanied by the Soho Bridge Online online system, where students can train vocabulary and grammar for specific lessons.