Course details

What is the course about?

This course will develop all areas of your English: speaking, listening and communication skills, reading and writing. You will give presentations and participate in formal discussions on various topics. We’ll look at how ideas are presented, how a writer communicates her point of view, tone and style, and how to recognise the key points of texts and read for detail while reading. You’ll be able to apply what you’ve learned in class to improve your writing skills, such as structuring and planning your texts, knowing your audience and purpose, selecting appropriate language, and effectively employing grammar and punctuation. There will be three tests for you to study for.

What will we cover?

This course prepares you to pass the Functional Skills Level 2 English exam. The course covers the three areas of the qualification: speaking and listening to communicate, reading and writing. This will include how to:
Speak and listen well
• Communicate information, ideas and opinions clearly and effectively in both discussions and presentations
• Identify different styles of writing and writer’s voice
Write well
• Punctuate writing correctly using e.g. colons, commas, inverted commas, apostrophes and quotation marks
• Use correct grammar effectively
• Express opinions and arguments with relevant and persuasive evidence
• Follow narratives and lines of argument
• Respond effectively to detailed or extended questions and feedback
• Follow an argument, identifying different points of view and distinguishing fact from opinion
• Spell words used in work, study and daily life, including a range of specialist words
• Adapt contributions to discussions to suit audience, purpose and medium
Read well
• Compare information, ideas and opinions in different texts, including how they are conveyed
• Identify implicit and inferred meaning in texts
• Understand organisational features and use them to locate relevant information in a range of straightforward and complex sources
• Analyse texts, of different levels of complexity, identifying levels of formality and bias