Teaching Teachers How To Teach …

A comprehensive course in Conversational English differs from a general English course because it prioritizes communicative competence over rote grammatical memorization. While grammar is the skeleton, conversation is the “skin and muscle”—it involves pronunciation, social cues, listening skills, and the ability to think on one’s feet.

Below is a detailed breakdown of a Conversational English curriculum mapped to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR).

🟢 Level A1: Beginner (The “Survival” Phase)

Goal: To handle basic, concrete needs and establish a first contact.

• Core Topics:
  • Greetings & Introductions: Saying hello, introducing oneself and others, basic pleasantries.
  • Personal Information: Talking about age, nationality, job, and family.
  • Immediate Environment: Naming common objects, describing the home and classroom.
  • Basic Needs: Ordering food at a café, asking for the price of an item, asking for directions.
  • Numbers & Time: Telling the time, dates, and counting.
• Skills Involved:
  • Phonology: Basic vowel and consonant sounds; word stress in simple nouns.
  • Functional Language: “I am…”, “Where is…?”, “I would like…”
  • Listening: Recognizing slow, clear speech and keywords.
  • Interaction: Asking and answering simple “Yes/No” or “Wh-” questions.

🟢 Level A2: Elementary (The “Waystage” Phase)

Goal: To conduct simple exchanges of information on familiar and routine matters.

• Core Topics:
  • Daily Routines: Describing a typical day, habits, and hobbies.
  • Past Experiences: Talking about your last weekend, childhood, or a previous trip (Simple Past).
  • Shopping & Services: Interacting with clerks, returning a product, making a doctor’s appointment.
  • Work & Education: Describing job duties, school subjects, and workplace environments.
  • Preferences: Expressing likes and dislikes (food, music, movies).
• Skills Involved:
  • Phonology: Sentence intonation (rising for questions, falling for statements).
  • Functional Language: Comparing things (“Better than…”, “The best”), giving simple advice (“You should…”).
  • Listening: Understanding the main point of short, clear messages.
  • Interaction: Maintaining a short conversation by asking “And you?” or “What about you?”

🟡 Level B1: Intermediate (The “Threshold” Phase)

Goal: To maintain a conversation and deal with most situations likely to arise while traveling.

• Core Topics:
  • Experiences & Stories: Narrating a sequence of events, telling a joke, or describing a dream.
  • Opinions & Feelings: Expressing agreement/disagreement, talking about hopes, fears, and ambitions.
  • Travel & Culture: Discussing cultural differences, travel mishaps, and sightseeing.
  • Health & Lifestyle: Discussing fitness, mental health, and diet.
  • Hypothetical Situations: “What would you do if…?” (Conditional basics).
• Skills Involved:
  • Phonology: Connected speech (linking words together, e.g., “want to” → “wanna”).
  • Functional Language: Asking for clarification (“Could you repeat that?”), paraphrasing when you forget a word.
  • Listening: Understanding the “gist” of a conversation even if some words are unknown.
  • Interaction: Using “fillers” (e.g., “Well…”, “Actually…”, “Let me see…”) to gain thinking time.

🟡 Level B2: Upper Intermediate (The “Vantage” Phase)

Goal: To interact with a degree of fluency and spontaneity that makes regular interaction with native speakers quite possible.

• Core Topics:
  • Current Events: Discussing news, social media trends, and global issues.
  • Abstract Concepts: Debating ethics, psychology, or environmentalism.
  • Professional Interaction: Conducting meetings, negotiating, and presenting ideas.
  • Nuanced Emotions: Expressing frustration, irony, or excitement using more precise adjectives.
  • Speculation: Discussing possibilities and probabilities about the future.
• Skills Involved:
  • Phonology: Mastering rhythm and stress patterns to sound more natural.
  • Functional Language: Using idioms and phrasal verbs in context; polite interruption techniques.
  • Listening: Following complex arguments and picking up on the speaker’s mood/attitude.
  • Interaction: Ability to argue a point of view, defend an opinion, and steer a conversation in a different direction.

🔴 Level C1: Advanced (The “Effective Operational Proficiency” Phase)

Goal: To express ideas fluently and spontaneously without much obvious searching for expressions.

• Core Topics:
  • Complex Social Issues: Political discourse, philosophy, and deep societal critiques.
  • Implicit Meaning: Understanding sarcasm, irony, and “reading between the lines.”
  • Professional Mastery: High-level networking, diplomacy, and subtle persuasion.
  • Cultural Idioms: Deep dive into slang, regional dialects, and culturally specific metaphors.
  • Critical Analysis: Discussing a book, a movie, or a theory in a sophisticated manner.
• Skills Involved:
  • Phonology: Precise control of intonation to convey subtle meanings (e.g., skepticism vs. genuine curiosity).
  • Functional Language: Using sophisticated discourse markers (e.g., “Conversely,” “Notwithstanding,” “In light of”).
  • Listening: Understanding speech even when it is fast, accented, or contains significant “noise.”
  • Interaction: Managing the flow of a complex group discussion; adapting register (formal vs. informal) instantaneously.

🔴 Level C2: Mastery (The “Proficient” Phase)

Goal: To understand with ease virtually everything heard and express oneself spontaneously, very precisely.

• Core Topics:
  • Everything: There are no longer “topics,” only “contexts.”
  • Literary & Academic Discourse: Discussing high-level academic papers or classic literature.
  • Nuanced Negotiation: The ability to use language as a tool for strategic influence.
  • Creative Expression: Using wordplay, poetry, and storytelling for maximum emotional impact.
• Skills Involved:
  • Phonology: Near-native prosody; ability to mimic different accents if desired.
  • Functional Language: Total command of the most obscure idioms and archaic expressions if necessary.
  • Listening: Understanding the most subtle nuances of meaning in any English dialect.
  • Interaction: Ability to lead a conversation regardless of the complexity of the subject; effortless agility in switching topics.

Summary Table: The Evolution of Conversational Skills

CEFR Level	Primary Focus	Communication Style	Key Linguistic Tool
A1	Survival	Fragmented / Basic	Simple Phrases
A2	Routine	Simple / Linear	Basic Sentences
B1	Independence	Connected / Narrative	Paraphrasing
B2	Fluency	Spontaneous / Argumentative	Idioms & Phrasal Verbs
C1	Precision	Nuanced / Professional	Discourse Markers
C2	Mastery	Effortless / Versatile	Stylistic Flexibility