Pre intermediate level what does it include. Levels of knowledge of the language. "zero level" of English
Pre-intermediate (pre-threshold level) is a level of English proficiency at which you are able to understand the meaning of familiar expressions, can ask simple questions and know the basic rules of grammar. But it is still difficult for you to speak spontaneously, and your vocabulary is still very small for free speech. Grammar rules are remembered, but it is still not possible to apply them accurately in practice. You can check your level on our website by running .
Let's look specifically at what kind of knowledge and skills a person with a pre-intermediate level of English has.
Grammar (Grammar) at the pre-intermediate level
This is, of course, very summary learned grammar. These are the basics of what a student owns at the pre-intermediate level. In fact, there are many more topics related to prepositions, articles, adjectives, compound nouns, etc.
Pre-intermediate vocabulary
Your vocabulary is about 2000 words and expressions. The lessons you have studied contain vocabulary by topic: the world aroud us, people, daily life, work, leisure and entertainment, communication and technology, social concerns, tourism …
You can roughly estimate the amount English words who know by using the site: www.testyourvocab.com
Conversation (Speaking) at the pre-intermediate level
You are able to talk in English about the weather, family, school or class, yourself, what you like to do, a little bit about your profession, your favorite animal, your country, celebrities and some other similar things. In addition, you are able to express your attitude to the subject of the conversation, to tell what you like and what you don’t like in connection with the topic. With a native speaker, you can even maintain a telephone conversation, if, of course, he speaks slowly enough and separately.
Reading
Letter
We can write a small pre-intermediate essay on any of the topics listed earlier in the conversation paragraph. We can also write or send an e-mail, as well as congratulate someone on the holiday.
These were the main points characterizing the so-called pre-threshold level of knowledge of English language.
Knowledge of English will vary from person to person. So, native speakers are fluent in it, foreigners who study the language for a sufficient amount of time can freely explain themselves in it on everyday topics, and those who have just started learning or have been learning English for a very long time know the language at an elementary level. Understanding at what level a person speaks a language is not so easy. For this, there are numerous tests on the Internet, they really help to determine language proficiency. But they check mainly the vocabulary and grammar of the student, but knowledge of the language is not only vocabulary and the ability to understand the rules. Therefore, the courses foreign language you will be offered not only a written test, but also a little talk with each potential student in a foreign language, they will ask him different questions and invite him to speak. Only after the student has shown his knowledge in oral and written speech, in grammar and vocabulary, it is possible to declare his level of language proficiency.
What levels of language proficiency are there?
Intermediate is an intermediate level of English proficiency. There are 6 or 7 such levels in total, depending on different approaches to determining the level of language competence: Beginner, Elementary, Pre-Intermediate, Intermediate, Upper-Intermediate, Advanced, Proficiency. Sometimes in foreign language courses, some of these levels are divided into sublevels in order to more accurately determine which group to enroll the student in.
What do you need to know at the Intermediate level?
At the Intermediate level, it is expected that he knows the basic tenses of the English language well, knows how to use them in writing and speaking. Its volume vocabulary is about 3-5 thousand words, which allows the student to speak quite well on everyday topics, understand English speech, compose written texts of normal complexity. At the same time, such a student may make mistakes in speech, speak not too fluently, stutter a little, or choose words for a long time. He understands quite complex texts well - stories, novels, written by literary language, popular science articles, can read the news, but does not always perceive them well by ear. A person with an Intermediate level is unlikely to be able to correctly maintain a conversation on specific and complex topics; he does not speak business vocabulary if he has not been specially trained in words and expressions with a certain specificity.
In general, the Intermediate level is a fairly good level of knowledge of the English language. It can also include those who are not fluent enough in oral speech, but read books well in English, and those who speak well, but are not very well versed in the written features of the language. This level is sufficient for employment with the requirement of compulsory knowledge of the English language. This level of proficiency is shown by good graduates of ordinary schools or students of grades 8-9 of specialized schools and gymnasiums with in-depth study of the English language.
Level English Pre-Intermediate- what does this mean and what knowledge do you need to have in order to reach this level in mastering a foreign language?
Often people who have already learned a language, understood it well from a school course or university, or once studied it at special seminars, think that their level of knowledge is insufficient for the Pre-Intermediate level. But often they are mistaken - it is enough to improve their knowledge a little, remember the basic rules and their language skills will correspond to this level.
It should be understood that this is not the Elementary level, where a beginner does not have special knowledge to learn the language. Must have some experience, English language skills, ability to understand simple sentences aurally. But these are not transcendent skills that can be mastered in a fairly short period of time.
You have a Pre-Intermediate level of English if you:
- Basically, you understand what they say to you in English, the speech of a foreigner does not seem to you something completely incomprehensible. You can also answer, even in fragmentary phrases. You can also ask a counter question and maintain a dialogue;
- Your knowledge of tenses is limited: you feel more or less confident using only simple grammatical constructions, but you get confused when it comes to more complex sentences;
- You have certain basic knowledge that you received sometime at school or university, and you "remember something";
- If you passed the Elementary level language proficiency test without any problems.
The level of English Pre-Intermediate is a kind of basis. When a beginner to learn a foreign language reaches this stage, he has a certain knowledge base with which he can delve into a new field of knowledge for him.
So, for example, you can cross this level of knowledge and achieve even greater results if you sign up for English language courses using the Dragunkin method. In three or four months (depending on the intensity of the classes), you will be able to get an Intermediate level of knowledge, which allows you to communicate fluently in English.
Pre-Intermediate Level Program: How Your English Language Skills Will Develop
The passage of this stage involves the study of a number of topics, without which you will not be able to feel fluent in a conversation in a foreign language. The list of topics is quite large: food, friends, entertainment, family, hobbies, travel, news, animals, etc. But it only at first glance seems that the amount of work is immeasurably large. No, many of the topics intersect and complement each other, and your ability to memorize foreign words will also develop with the development of each new section.
Thus, if you start learning English from the Pre-Intermediate level, your vocabulary will increase exponentially. This knowledge will become a kind of lexical platform in your mind: memorization of more complex words, specialized topics for work, business will be built on already known materials.
In addition, you will have the ability to read more difficult material: news articles, magazines, more complex literary texts, travel messages and more. Also, after reading, you will be able to form and express your opinion in English without any outside help.
English comprehension will also improve. Often, beginners cannot catch a single word in a text that is spoken by a native speaker. The words blend into each other and are almost impossible to distinguish. But, passing the Pre-Intermediate stage, students begin to distinguish between individual words and understand the meaning of the statement even at a fairly high rate of pronunciation. Moreover, the vocabulary used in the texts is not so simple: awareness of this will add motivation to any student.
When you start going through the Pre-Intermediate stage, you will have to spend quite a lot of time development of writing skills. And on this stage You will need to write your own essay. And this great way test your acquired grammar skills. If by ear it is not always possible to determine where a mistake was made, then it is easy to find and correct shortcomings in the written text.
So, after passing this stage of knowledge of a foreign language, you will be able to independently tell about yourself, your preferences, hobbies, travel plans. You can also read advertisements, announcements, news notes. You will have the opportunity to express your thoughts in writing, and express your opinion on various issues. For those who study English: the Pre-Intermediate level will give you the opportunity to independently travel in foreign countries. Of course, not everything will always be easy, but you can enjoy it.
Learning English from the Pre-Intermediate level: what is the result?
If you understand that your level of language proficiency corresponds to the Pre-Intermediate level, we would advise you to take English courses. A good option for structuring all knowledge and improving skills is the Dragunkin English course in Minsk.
Even if you passed the test, it would be nice to repeat everything that is passed in the first lessons - for many students, the information that is given there turns out to be some kind of revelation.
Now you know what you need to know to reach this level of knowledge. But remember that there is always room for improvement and improvement. In order to speak English fluently, the Pre-Intermediate level will obviously not be enough.
Pre-Intermediate - the level to which all those who have already left the Beginner courses behind them, but cannot yet say that they speak English at a solid intermediate level, go to. And you need to know the peculiarities of this intermediate level at least in order to control the process of your learning, to be able to choose the most suitable textbooks, manuals, courses. In fact, the line between Pre-Intermediate and Intermediate is quite thin, some courses omit intermediate levels altogether, offering groups only for beginners, intermediates and advanced. However, if it is necessary to pass any exam, this difference will be very noticeable indeed.
For example, in order to successfully pass the exam in English, you must have an Intermediate or Upper-Intermediate level. This exam does not require anything super complex, only the most general grammar and vocabulary, but the knowledge must be reliable. The level of English Pre-Intermediate in this case will be clearly insufficient, because it is somewhat unstable. The knowledge is there, but it is still too sketchy. There is no freedom or confidence in answering grammar questions, reading or listening, although everything seems very familiar.
To understand the difficulty of dividing a language into levels, try to answer the question: how does knowledge accumulate from lower levels to the higher ones? Getting acquainted with phonetics and pronunciation, we must inevitably master some set of words, at least the simplest grammatical constructions, etc. In fact, when studying a language, we do not move up the steps, stepping from one to another, but we plunge into a reservoir, going deeper and lower, and seeing in front of you everything the same as it was at the beginning, but in a broader perspective.
Pre-Intermediate versus Beginner and Intermediate levels
At the previous level, Beginner or Elementary, we get acquainted with a wide variety of topics, such as greetings, talking about yourself, characteristics of people; household vocabulary is assimilated (clothing, furniture, food, etc.) The student learns the rules of reading, at the end initial course he can really read, but only fairly simple texts, the reading of the rest can hardly be called such, rather it is the analysis of texts with a dictionary, and not reading. A beginner can fill out a questionnaire or write a birthday greeting to a friend via e-mail, but a lengthy letter recounting all the local news would require strenuous effort from him. His manner of reading resembles the reading of a child who has just learned how syllables form words, and still spends quite a lot of effort on the actual process of reading, and not on understanding. And even if he reads fluently, he encounters many seemingly read, but completely incomprehensible passages. Beginner's knowledge is enough to communicate with gestures and words at the airport, shop, on the street. Any interlocutor will understand you, but will also understand that your knowledge is very shallow and will try to speak more slowly and simply.
At the Pre-Intermediate level, all the same knowledge is deepened, emphasis is placed on grammar and further expansion of the vocabulary. The main thing at the end of this level is to master the structure of the language, since at the next level an active movement "in breadth" already begins, it is not for nothing that Intermediate is sometimes called functional in the West, because it is a reliable knowledge base that provides a lot of opportunities, including for work or study at the university. You need to be prepared for this, therefore, at the Pre-Intermediate level, basic ideas about grammar are collected, which are finally fixed at the Intermediate level. All other skills, such as reading, speaking, develop, but it is at this level that different students clearly reveal their inclinations and abilities. Someone understands that he has excellent hearing and a certain artistry - he perfectly recognizes the nuances of pronunciation and reproduces them, someone, on the contrary, has a strong logical mind and clicks grammatical tasks like nuts, but cannot connect two words in any case , it is felt that the student has not yet reached the "fireproof amount". If he stops studying at this point, he will inevitably forget most of what he has learned, and subsequently he will have to start all over again.
If at the elementary level the student understands only clear and slow speech on familiar topics, at the intermediate level he can listen to and understand any popular TV shows, then Pre-Intermediate, the level that is intermediate between them, is very difficult to characterize unambiguously. Yes, you can already understand fluent speech, but selectively. You can talk about your musical tastes, but find it difficult to justify your preferences. You can read not only fairy tales, but also adults literary works. Although it would be difficult to call it pleasure, because you will have to do some work on translating incomprehensible words and parsing complex structures, since even the most fascinating detective stories by Agatha Christie, written in a fairly simple and clear language, cause difficulties for students with a Pre-Intermediate level.
Vocabulary at various levels is approximately:
- Beginner - 1000 words;
- Pre-Intermediate - 1200 words;
- Intermediate - 1500 words.
Of course, these figures are highly arbitrary. Some courses offer such a Pre-Intermediate, at the end of which you will know about 1800 words. In any case, in order to communicate freely or read as native speakers do, you need to know about 8 thousand words. If you know more, then goes already about special knowledge or erudition. 1500 words - this is enough for everyday everyday communication or confident, but not yet free reading.
Pre-Intermediate - the level at which you can:
- Speak familiar words clearly and understandably.
- grammatically correct sentences in oral and
- Tell about yourself, describe a situation or a person, express an opinion.
- Ask the interlocutor to explain the incomprehensible place.
- Feel confident in everyday life and on tourist trips.
- Capture the main meaning of any text, including scientific articles.
- Read with a dictionary literary works written in simple language.
- Distinguish all sounds, it is good to hear familiar words in fluent speech. It is good to understand clear, not too fast speech.
- Write a fairly meaningful letter to a friend using simple grammatical constructions.
- Fill out the form, questionnaire, questionnaire.
Pre-Intermediate - the level at which it is impossible:
- Freely read literary works "that you have long dreamed of."
- Understand the nuances of the style of a particular author.
- Talk with friends on difficult philosophical topics.
- Understand people who have some kind of pronunciation, such as fluent, accented speech.
- Keep up a simple conversation on a topic that you "didn't go through", for example, discussing with a car-lover neighbor his new car if you typed your vocabulary on travel texts.
- Confidently make a scientific report, make a presentation and answer questions from the audience.
Of course, as mentioned above, all these skills depend on the course, the purpose and direction of training. For example, people with a general Pre-Intermediate level can successfully communicate on work topics, for example, in the IT field. Of course, this is possible subject to the study of specific vocabulary. And although everything else, like watching popular movies, will be difficult, in certain situations a person with a Pre-Intermediate English level will feel confident.
Or in courses, you will definitely come across the concept of “English language levels” or “English language proficiency levels”, as well as such incomprehensible designations as A1, B2, and more understandable Beginner, Intermediate and so on. From this article, you will learn what these formulations mean and what levels of knowledge of the language distinguish, as well as how to determine your level of english.
The levels of English were invented so that language learners could be divided into groups with approximately similar knowledge and skills in reading, writing, speaking and writing, as well as to simplify testing procedures, exams, for various purposes related to emigration, study abroad and employment. This classification helps in recruiting students into a group and preparing teaching aids, methods, language teaching programs.
Of course, there is no clear boundary between the levels, this division is rather conditional, necessary not so much for students as for teachers. In total, there are 6 levels of language proficiency, there are two types of division:
- Levels A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2,
- Beginner, Elementary, Intermediate, Upper Intermediate, Advanced, Proficiency levels.
In fact, these are just two different names for the same thing. These 6 levels are divided into three groups.
Table: English language proficiency levels
The classification was developed in the late eighties - early nineties of the last century, it is fully called the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment (abbr. CERF).
English levels: detailed description
Beginner level (A1)
At this level you can:
- Understand and use familiar everyday expressions and simple phrases aimed at solving specific problems.
- Introduce yourself, introduce other people, ask simple personal questions, such as “Where do you live?”, “Where are you from?”, be able to answer such questions.
- Maintain a simple conversation if the other person speaks slowly, clearly, and helps you.
Many who studied English at school speak the language at about the Beginner level. From the vocabulary only elementary mother, father, help me, my name is, London is the capital. You can understand well-known words and expressions by ear if they speak very clearly and without an accent, as in audio lessons for a textbook. You understand texts like the “Exit” sign, and in a conversation with the help of gestures, using individual words, you can express the simplest thoughts.
Elementary level (A2)
At this level you can:
- Understand common expressions on general topics such as: family, shopping, work, etc.
- Talk about simple everyday topics, using simple phrases.
- Tell in simple terms about yourself, describe simple situations.
If at school you had 4 or 5 in English, but after some time did not use English, then most likely you speak the language at the Elementary level. TV shows in English will not be understood, except perhaps for individual words, but the interlocutor, if he speaks clearly, in simple phrases of 2-3 words, in general, you will understand. You can also incoherently and with long pauses for reflection tell the simplest information about yourself, say that the sky is blue and the weather is clear, express a simple wish, make an order at McDonald's.
Beginner - Elementary levels can be called "survival level", Survival English. It is enough to "survive" during a trip to a country where the main language is English.
Intermediate level (B1)
At this level you can:
- Understand the general meaning of distinct speech on general, familiar topics related to everyday life (work, study, etc.)
- Cope with the most typical situations on a trip, travel (at the airport, in a hotel, etc.)
- Write simple connected text on topics that are common or familiar to you personally.
- Retell events, describe hopes, dreams, ambitions, be able to briefly talk about plans and explain your point of view.
Vocabulary and knowledge of grammar is enough to write simple essays about yourself, describe cases from life, write a letter to a friend. But in most cases oral speech lags behind writing, you confuse tenses, think over a phrase, pause to pick up a preposition (to or for?), but you can more or less communicate, especially if there is no shyness or fear of making a mistake.
It is much more difficult to understand the interlocutor, and if it is a native speaker, and even with fast speech and a bizarre accent, then it is almost impossible. However, simple, clear speech is understood well, provided that the words and expressions are familiar. You generally understand if the text is not very complex, and with some difficulty understand the general meaning without subtitles.
Level Upper Intermediate (B2)
At this level you can:
- Understand the general meaning of complex text on concrete and abstract topics, including technical (specialized) topics in your profile.
- Speak quickly enough so that communication with a native speaker occurs without long pauses.
- Compose clear, detailed text on various topics, explain the point of view, give arguments for and against various points of view on the topic.
Upper Intermediate is already a good, sound, confident command of the language. If you are talking on a well-known topic with a person whose pronunciation you understand well, then the conversation will go quickly, easily, naturally. An outside observer will say that you are fluent in English. However, you can be confused by words and expressions related to topics that are poorly understood by you, all sorts of jokes, sarcasm, allusions, slang.
You are asked to answer 36 questions to test listening, writing, speaking and grammar.
It is noteworthy that to test listening comprehension, phrases like “London is the capital” recorded by the speaker are not used, but short excerpts from films (Puzzle English specializes in learning English from films and TV shows). In English-language films, the speech of the characters is close to how people speak in real life so the test may seem harsh.
Chandler from Friends doesn't have the best pronunciation.
To check the letter, you need to translate several phrases from English into Russian and from Russian into English. The program provides several translation options for each phrase. To test knowledge of grammar, a completely ordinary test is used, where you need to choose one option from several proposed ones.
But you are probably wondering how the program can test the skill of speaking? Of course, an online English proficiency test will not test your speech as a person, but the test developers came up with original solution. In the task, you need to listen to a phrase from the movie and choose a cue that is suitable for continuing the dialogue.
Talking is not enough, you also need to understand the interlocutor!
The ability to speak English consists of two skills: to understand the speech of the interlocutor by ear and to express one's thoughts. This task, albeit in a simplified form, tests how you cope with both tasks.
At the end of the test you will be shown full list questions with correct answers, you will find out where you made mistakes. And of course, you will see a chart showing your level on a scale from Beginner to Upper Intermediate.
2. Test to determine the level of English with a teacher
To get a professional, “live” (not automated, as in tests) assessment of the level of English, you need English teacher who will test you with assignments and an interview in English.
This consultation is free of charge. First, your city may have Language school, which offers free testing for knowledge of the language and even a trial lesson. Now this is a common practice.
In short, I signed up for a trial test lesson, got in touch on Skype at the appointed time, and the teacher Alexandra and I held a lesson, during which she “tortured” me in every possible way different tasks. All communication was in English.
My trial lesson on SkyEng. Checking grammar knowledge.
At the end of the lesson, the teacher explained to me in detail in which direction I should develop my English, what problems I have, and a little later she sent a letter with detailed description level of language skills (with marks on a 5-point scale) and methodological recommendations.
This method took some time: three days passed from the application to the lesson, and the lesson itself lasted about 40 minutes. But it is much more interesting than any online test.
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