BAR ILAN UNIVERSITY – EFL UNIT
MATHILIM (BEGINNERS) MERUKAZ SYLLABUS
(160 hours) 07 LEVEL ENGLISH
(Psychometric: 0 – 77)
EXIT REQUIREMENTS
Upon completion of the Intensive Beginners Level 07 course, the student will be
able:
i.
to read and comprehend English texts of general interest at a
popular and pre-academic level (approximately 1000 words)
ii.
to extract information and reasonable deductions at the sentence
and paragraph level from the text in order to demonstrate
comprehension of the texts
iii.
to write short answers varying from a few words to a complete
sentence in English.
The student will acquire the following skills:
i.
reading skills (at word, sentence, and paragraph
level)
ii.
general language skills (listening, speaking
and writing sufficient to
participate in the lesson, communicating with the teacher and
writing short answers to language and comprehension
questions).
LANGUAGE SKILLS
A.
Understand the meaning conveyed by grammatical structures.
B.
Understand the meaning of a sentence with the help of syntactic clues.
C.
Master vocabulary adequate for reading simple popular texts [1] and
deduce meanings of other words via morphological, syntactic and
context clues.
D.
Master the rudimentary production skills of simple sentences and the
understanding of basic spoken language.
READING SKILLS
E.
Recognise high-frequency words, reference words, basic transitions
and connectors, and syntactic clues.
F.
Make reasonable deductions about the meaning of words and
sentences.
G.
Identify subject area of the text.
PRODUCTION & RECEPTION SKILLS
H.
Master the production skills for simple utterances.
I.
Write basic sentences necessary for testing written comprehension
K.
Comprehend basic spoken language used in instruction.
LANGUAGE SKILLS
SKILL A: Understand the meaning conveyed by grammatical structures.
1.
Recognise the following tenses: Simple (Present, Past & Future)
Progressive (Present) and understand how they affect meaning; this
includes statement, interrogative and negative forms.
2.
Recognise of stative verbs and the Imperative
3.
Recognise the passive voice and understand how it affects the focus
of the sentence.
Passive voice – present simple, past simple
Recognise modals - of present or future meaning (can, could, may,
might, should, must) and understand their meaning.
4.
5.
Recognise noun plural endings, including the use of articles (a, an,
the) and quantifiers (some, any, much, many).
6.
Understand the first conditional form.
7.
Recognise possessive pronouns.
8.
Recognise ordinal numbers (first, second, third ......)
9.
Identify reflexive pronouns (--self, --selves).
10. Identify relative pronouns (that, who, which).
11. Identify prepositional patterns of place, time, direction, and manner.
Identify prepositional verbs (wait for, look for) and frequency adverbs.
12. Recognise the comparative and superlative forms.
Recognise degrees of equality (as ... as, not so/as.as),
comparison ( --er, than, more than),
superlative ( --est, most), including irregular forms
SKILL B: Understand the meaning of a sentence with the help of syntactic clues.
1.
Identify the parts of speech (noun, verb, adjective, and adverb).
2.
Recognise basic English sentence structure: subject (and modifiers),
verb, complement (and modifiers) Focus on subject and main verb as
carriers of meaning.
3.
Identify modifiers - adjunct nouns (gold watch, city hall) compound
adjectives (red-hair, well-known), intensifiers –modifying adjectives
and adverbs (very, somewhat, quite)
4.
Note the noun-phrase word order.
5.
Identify adverbials as additional units of information.
Identify adverbials of place, manner, time, purpose, cause, result, and
concession.
6.
Use markers (conjunctions) to understand the logical relationship in
the sentence, i.e., the type of information conveyed by each adverbial.
7.
Understand the structure of compound sentences.
Identify conjunctions (and, but).
8.
Identify phrase connectors and sentence connectors (either/neither ....
or/not).
9.
Recognise the use of reference markers - pronouns and other words
that substitute for preceding words in a text.
Recognise the indefinite object pronoun (one, ones).
Identify the antecedents of these reference markers.
10. Read sentences in meaningful units.
SKILL C: Master vocabulary adequate for simple popular texts and deduce
meanings of other words via morphological, syntactic and context clues.
1.
Enrich vocabulary generally by building up a knowledge of high frequency words
used especially in academic texts; learn to discover the meaning of words within
a context.
2.
Deduce the meaning of words by their form, i.e. identifying prefixes and suffixes.
3.
Deduce the meaning of unfamiliar words by understanding how they function in
a sentence (grammatical classes, parts of speech).
4.
Recognise which words are more important for the general meaning of the
passage and which words are less important.
5.
Use the dictionary to find the appropriate meaning of words in context.
6.
Identify specific lexical items such as:
i. Compound nouns (headache, housewife)
ii. Cognates
iii. Phrasal verbs
SKILL D: Master the rudimentary production skills of simple sentences and the
understanding of basic spoken language.
1.
Produce (spoken and written) basic simple sentence structure,
integrate the skills as listed in A, B, and C, including basic articulation,
interaction and expression
2.
Understand the basic spoken language, i.e. rudimentary listening
comprehension.
READING SKILLS
SKILL E: Recognise high-frequency words, reference words, basic transitions
and connectors, and syntactic clues.
1.
Use dictionaries, (hard copy, computer and electronic). Develop an
appreciation and knowledge of these reading aids.
2.
Use reference words within and between sentences to discover
meaning, and basic transitions and connectors to reveal the
relationship between clauses and sentences.
SKILL F Make reasonable deductions about the meaning of words and
sentences
1.
Construct the specific meaning of words and phrases at the sentential
level.
2.
Identify the function of sentences as they relate to each other and to
the paragraph as a whole.
SKILL G: Identify the main idea of a text and the purpose of the writer.
1.
Identify the main idea of a text by referring to opening or closing
paragraphs of a text, by using markers and content.
PRODUCTION & RECEPTION SKILLS
SKILL H:
Master the production skills for simple utterances.
1.
Master the articulation of English sounds and the names of the letters
of the alphabet.
2.
Participate in simple dialogues and question and answer exchange.
3.
Answer simple questions relating to a text and concerning teaching
instruction and classroom management.
SKILL I:
Write basic sentences necessary for testing written
comprehension.
1.
Produce basic sentence structures.
2.
Manipulate sentence structure such as combining sentences and
passivization.
3.
Express simple ideas and reactions to texts and about subjects under
discussion.
SKILL J:
[1]
Comprehend basic spoken language used in instruction.
1.
Follow and understand the teacher’s reading of a text.
2.
Follow basic instructions and classroom management orders.
3.
Comprehend basic teacher explanation of textual exposition.
See attached vocabulary list in the Appendix.