Know your English level
and group lessons
Hello everyone!
My Substack page is now one year old! Thank you so much to everyone who follows me and reads my posts!
Today, I’m going to give you some information about my group lessons and how you can join them.
But first, do you know what your level of English is? Why is it useful to know this and how can you find out what your level is?
How to describe your level
Sometimes learners tell me that they are level 3, for example, and I have no idea what this means. This is because different countries and different schools have their own levels and numbers. The first school I worked in had twenty levels, believe or not! In my second English-teaching job, we had six levels. So level 6 in the first school was low but level 6 in the second school was advanced!
We need a system to describe the levels so that everybody knows what it means. There are two ways to do this. We can use words like “beginner”, “intermediate” or “advanced”. A lot of books for English learners still use these words.
The other option is to use the Common European Framework of Reference (or CEFR). This isn’t known only in Europe but is used worldwide.
Here are the levels in both systems:
A1 (Beginner/Elementary)
A2 (Pre-intermediate)
B1 (Intermediate)
B2 (Upper Intermediate)
C1 (Advanced)
C2 (Proficiency)
In my experience, the two different ways to describe levels don’t match up perfectly. I think elementary coursebooks cover some A1 and some A2 material, for example.
Why is it useful to know your English level?
If you are learning English on your own and you know what level your English is, it’s easier to find suitable learning materials. For example, you can search the Internet or YouTube for “B1 listening practice” or “A2 English reading”.
When you are practising your reading or listening skills, I recommend finding material at the right level for you. If you use something that’s too easy, you won’t learn anything. If you use something that’s too difficult, you might not understand it, you might lose your confidence or you might just get bored checking all the new words in a dictionary. The right level is something with a few new words so you are learning something but not too many.
It’s also useful to know your level if you want to join a class with other learners who are at the same level as you are. If you are interested in group conversation lessons, you possibly don’t want to be with people who are much stronger or weaker than you are.
(Actually, if you have a high level of English, it’s a useful skill to be able to alter your language so that somebody with less English can understand you but I can understand that you wouldn’t want to do this in a lesson.)
How to find out your level
1. Read descriptions of what you should be able to do at your level. The simplest descriptions I’ve found are here: https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/english-levels/understand-your-english-level
More detailed descriptions can be found here: https://www.coe.int/en/web/common-european-framework-reference-languages/table-2-cefr-3.3-common-reference-levels-self-assessment-grid
2. Guess your level and try reading or listening to something which is aimed at that level. If it’s too easy or too difficult, then try a different level. A good website for this is learnenglish.britishcouncil.org. Go to “skills” and then find the reading or listening section.
3. Do a test. I’ve found the following websites where you can test your level for free:
British Council Test (you have to create an account but it’s free):
learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/english-levels/online-english-level-test
or englishonline.britishcouncil.org/free-english-level-test-cefr-2/
Other tests:
preply.com/en/learn/english/test-your-vocab (this one is vocabulary only)
Duolingo and italki also have tests but I think you have to pay for them.
Group lessons
Last week, I told you I was planning to start group classes. Well, my first classes start next week!
Are you looking for a comfortable place to practise speaking English? Do you like meeting new people? Do you enjoy learning about other countries and cultures? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, then my group lessons are for you!
These lessons will be an opportunity for you to practise your English in a very small group of between 2 and 6 students. You will also be able to meet learners from other countries and make new friends. Group lessons are a great way to learn about different cultures at the same time as improving your English!
Lessons are $10 for one hour.
I’m going to start with lessons for students around the B1 (intermediate) level. If you are a B2 student, you are welcome to join too and even a strong A2 student can benefit.
I’ve planned two lessons for next Thursday (29th February) at two different times. If these times are not convenient and you want to try group lessons, send me an email or write a comment and I’ll see what I can do.
If you’re higher or lower than B1 and you would like me to create a class for your level, please let me know! Please understand that it depends on numbers. Obviously, I can’t do a group class for just one person!
If my group lessons are a success, I’ll be able to offer more classes to more levels and at different times. If nobody joins the classes, I’ll stop running them and go back to doing just one-to-one lessons. So please don’t take too long to decide! Join the classes while you can!
How to join group lessons
I’m running the lessons on italki (italki.com) so first you need to sign up for an italki account. It’s free to sign up. Even if you decide not to have lessons, there are free learning materials and discussion forums on the site. There’s also an app.
If you use this link to sign up for italki - italki.com/en/affshare?ref=af3471934 - I think you will get $10 back after you buy your first italki credits. (It's new to me so I can’t promise it works! I’d be grateful if somebody can confirm this!) Please understand you only get $10 if you pay for lessons. You won’t get it if you just sign up for a free account.
To find my profile, please go to italki.com/en/teacher/3471934. You might want to look at this link first to see what I offer and then use the first link to sign up and create your account. My group lessons appear at the bottom of my page.
I hope some of you will sign up for my lessons and I’m looking forward to meeting you!
Bye for now!
Katie
PS Thanks for reading! I’m Katie Salter and I teach British English online. I help adult learners to speak better English through conversation practice and grammar lessons.
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An excellent article ofrece English.
Very useful post on working out where you are on your English language learning journey.... great article