This section is designed to give the viewer a sense of what students at different ESOL levels are capable of. Teacher trainee students often express confusion as to exactly what a student at “Lower Intermediate” level or “Beginner” level can do and how to plan appropriately for that level. Planning activities that are far too difficult or mind-numbingly simple can be equally problematic and it is hoped that these excerpts from various levels will assist in clarifying the kind of tasks and activities students can be expected to perform.

In this section, we follow a Beginner 1-2/Literacy class as they learn to communicate on the topic of clothing and shopping. The lesson contains a Warm Up, Review, two Communicative Activities (a Card Game and a Dialogue) and a brief closing activity. Despite the low level of the class, this lesson is very student-centered, with plenty of authentic interaction and creative use of repetition and practice. The students are encouraged to take risks within a safe, respectful atmosphere where mistakes are seen as part of the learning process.

This section introduces the viewer to a series of classroom activities in which the students practice new language through interactive games or communicative activities. There is a Jigsaw activity, a Running Dictation and a Board Game, as well as Role Plays, “Toastmaster” pairs, a whole class and pronunciation Information Gap and a Find Someone Who mingle. These activities are just a few of those used in the communicative classroom but as the viewer will see, they can be used at every level, even when students have little language to work with.

This section focuses on the teaching of a particular grammar point, starting with an activity that sets the context and creates a need for the target structure, which, in this case, is the Adjective Clause. The viewer can see how the instructor elicits the form and meaning of the target grammar point from the students, before encouraging them to use the structure in context in order to improve their ability to describe locations in their new home town.