General Language Syllabus (higher)
General Language Course
Higher Level B1-C2 (Intermediate - Advanced Level)
1. Communicative/Thematic Content
• Current Affairs
• Mass Media & Communication
• Economic institutions, structures and trends
• Globalisation
• Environmental Issues
• Education
• Change & Development
• Ethics & Values
• Impact of the internet & IT
• Cities & Urbanisation
• People & Relationships
• Social life
• Understanding the country through language
2. Key functional content
• Language of Opinion
• Persuasion & Dissuasion
• Setting priorities
• Negotiating
• Dealing with enquiries
• Issuing and responding to invitations
• Conversational strategies
• Register – formal vs. informal
• Presenting information – style & structure
• Disagreement & Dissent
• Summarising complex information
• Using clear & direct language
• Telling stories and anecdotes
• Delivering good & bad news
• Making small talk
• Criticising with tact
• Assigning, accepting & denying blame
• Understanding and using nuance
3. Pronunciation
• Key sounds/phonemes
• Word Stress
• Sentence Stress
• Intonation
• Striking the right tone
• Blending words
• Common phrasal expressions
• Common Problems
4. Structural Content
Grammar
• Present
• Past
• Future
• Perfect aspect
• Modal Verb structures
• Imperatives
• Affirmative, Negative & Interrogative Structures
• Word order
• Word classes
• Articles & determiners
• Adjectival and adverbial phrases
• Building complex sentences
• Narratives
Non-thematic Lexis
• Prepositions
• Linking words
• Word-building (prefix and suffix patterns)
• Word families (noun-verb-adjective-adverb)
• Common idioms
• Common collocations
• Compounds
5. Cultural content
• Everyday conventions – greetings, phone, eating, tipping
• Gestures
• National traditions & customs
• Recent history
• Political Culture
• Business Culture
• Social & Family Life
• Multiculturalism & intercultural communication
• Religion & belief
• Education
• Regional differences
WHAT CAN YOU EXPECT AT THE END OF THE COURSE?
By the end of the course, you will be able to understand and use a wide range of language structures and functions, although you may continue to make syntactic errors. You will be able to understand non-standard variations of the language even if it is spoken at a fast, native like speed. You will be able to express complex ideas, look at more subtle nuances of the language, and handle yourself in a wide variety of communicative situations, both familiar and unfamiliar. You will able to deal effectively with the kind of language that arises in almost all working and personal situations.