Teaching across proficiency levels

Proficiency levels become a fundamental factor when teaching a target language. A teacher must be prepared in any of the three levels: Beginning, Intermediate and Advanced.

Beginning level

Teaching beginners can be a difficult step for teachers because teachers will be the ones who will create a good insight of English in their students` mind. Students at this level don`t need to be so focused in grammar and other complex sides of the target language. In this level, the teacher should use students´ native language in a measured way because they don´t have any knowledge about their target language; therefore, they need to get meanings, pronunciations, and spelling of the words they are learning. Furthermore, in this level the teacher has to teach students simple greetings, and instructions as well as choral repetition, short and simple activities. However, the material the teacher uses has to be related with the real life situation, and the teacher´s pronunciation and correction must be clearly visible during the class so that they are a model to be followed by his/her students.

Intermediate level

At this level, students are capable to hold some easy conversations, structures, and sentences and one of the teacher´s task is to help students continue automatizing their learning process of the target language. Now, students are able to do better in activities such as: working in pairs or groups, fluency exercises, chain stories, short role-plays, and many others. The teacher´s task at this level is to continue improving students´ understanding, listening, reading, writing, and speaking skills, obviously adequated in the level they are. Moreover, the teacher now is able to give some sorts of short grammar explanations and pronunciation is more emphasized. A last point to take into consideration is that Student Talking Time (STT) should take place instead of the vague overuse of Teacher Talking Time (TTT).

Advanced level

Advanced students are capable to stand long conversations, understand more grammar complex explanations, and comprehend complex listening and reading practices. The natural language must be taught in its natural fluency, pronunciation and flow. The teacher must be ready with his working- material in the classroom for students are demanding lots of activities in order to improve their target language knowledge. Activities such as: complex role-plays, skimming ad scanning reading practices, and others should be implemented in the class. At this level, students are more likely native speakers. Consequently, they need to be involved in a context where they can put into practice all the knowledge they have acquired.