Language Exchange Basics
Language Exchange Basics
OBJECTIVES
● Auditive comprehension:
○ Understand very short conversations about everyday or personal matters
(greetings, farewells, introductions, thanks and apologies), instructions and
simple directions.
○ Understand the most relevant of what is said in basic procedures (making
purchases, enroll in a course, check into a hotel).
○ Capture the most relevant information of ads, news and short messages.
● Reading comprehension:
○ Understand notes and short personal messages (SMS, emails, short stories)
○ Understand and extract general and specific ideas from very short texts with a
common vocabulary.
○ Understand very basic instructions for filling in sheets and forms.
○ Understand brief information, instructions and basic indications in public
places (signs and posters in streets, shops, restaurants and mediatransport).
● Oral expression:
○ Use common courtesy formulas (say hello, say goodbye, introduce, thank,
apologize, take an interest in people).
○ Ask for and offer objects, favors and everyday objects.
○ Ask for and give personal information (nationality, residence, activities,
interests, family, friends, time, etc.).
○ Make presentations and simple descriptions of people, places, activities and
interests.
● Written expression:
○ Write notes with very basic information, instructions and indications related to
daily activities "I'm looking for an orange couch set."
○ Write very simple personal correspondence.
○ Write short texts on familiar topics with simple sentences related to the
more basic "and, or, but, because" connectors.
Teacher G. Escobar
1. Provide and request general information:
○ On the name, age, surname, marital status, nationality, profession, phone
number, address, email, etc.
○ About people (occupations, family, skills, tastes, hobbies), times, dates,
meals, places (school and where you live), amounts of food and drinks.
○ On Who owns something.
○ Describe people, simple physical and emotional states.
○ Refer to daily actions or universal truths.
○ Refer to actions that happen at the moment that is spoken.
○ Describe people, objects (clothing, furniture, a building and its dependencies),
situations and actions.
○ About the weather.
○ Locate things in space (objects in the classroom, house, city).
○ Indicate the distance or closeness of something or someone.
○ About a past event.
○ Compare the present and the past tense.
○ Express ignorance or knowledge of a fact.
○ Refer to plans and projects.
○ Asking to speak out loud and giving the floor, interrupting, letting speak, etc.
4. Socialize:
○ Say hello, respond to a greeting and say goodbye.
○ Introduce yourself, make presentations and respond to a presentation.
Teacher G. Escobar
○ Asking for and giving information about someone.
○ Thank and respond to a thank you.
○ Congratulations and respond to a congratulation.
○ Call for attention.
○ Welcome someone and farewell.
○ Repeat a basic message.
○ Accept or decline.
Content
1. GREETINGS
2. INTRODUCE YOURSELF
3. THE ALPHABET
4. NOUNS
○ Concrete Nouns: through the five senses
○ Abstract nouns: ideas, concepts, feelings
○ Collective Nouns: name a group
○ Plural Nouns: make one into multiple
5. STRUCTURE OF SIMPLE PRESENT TENSE
○ The order of the elements in the simple sentence: affirmative (They live in
France), negative (They don't live in England) and interrogative (Do they live
in Paris?).
○ Short answers: Do you like coffee? Yes, I do.
○ Imperative sentence: Open the door, please.
6. PRONOUNS
○ Personal based on subject: I, you, he, I saw Peter yesterday.
○ Questions: wh-words.
○ Demonstrative: this, these, that, those.
○ Personal based on object: me, you, him, I saw him yesterday.
○ Possessives: mine, yours, his, That car is mine.
7. VERBS
○ Primary verbs: be, have, do.
○ Modal verbs: can / can't.
○ The -ing form after verbs like like, love, hate, ... I love skiing. (Gerunds)
○ Simple Present Tense: He often comes to Vitoria.
○ Present continuous: He is living in London at the moment.
8. ADJECTIVES
○ Predicative function: My car is red.
○ Attributive function: I like that red car.
○ Positive grade: John is tall.
○ Superlative degree: the ...- est / most (John is the tallest person in the room)
○ Comparative: ...- er / more … than (John is taller than his father).
9. DETERMINERS
○ Articles a / an (a car, an apple), the (the house).
○ Numerals: Ordinals (first, second, ...) and cardinals (one, two, ...).
Teacher G. Escobar
○ Quantifiers; many, few, a lot, some, any, a little, much.
○ Demonstrative: this, these, that, those.
○ Possessives: my, your, his, her, their.
○ Interrogatives and exclamatory: whose, which, what, who.
10. PREPOSITIONS
○ Of time: in, on at.
○ Of place, in on at, behind, between, below, next to.
○ Of direction: from, to, up. down, right, left.
11. ADVERBS
○ Expressions that denote time, day and date.
○ Adverbs of place: here, there, far, near.
○ Temporary expressions of the present: now, today.
○ Time expressions of the past: yesterday, last week.
○ Adverbs of degree: quite, very.
○ Common adverbs: carefully, slowly.
○ Adverbs of frequency: always, usually, never.
○ Frequency expressions: once, twice a week.
12. COMPLEX SENTENCES
○ Sentences of purpose: to.
○ Conjunctions: and, but, so, then.
○ Cause sentences: because, therefore.
○ Temporary sentences: when, before, after.
13. PAST TENSE
○ To be verb review
○ Regular (I visited my parents last week)
○ Irregular (We went to the cinema last night).
14. FUTURE TENSE
○ Auxiliary verb; will (I will learn to play the piano)
○ Most frequent abbreviations related to the lexicon of this level.
BASIC VOCABULARY
❖ Personal identification: Gestures to greet and say goodbye.
❖ Housing, home and environment
➢ The home: types, location, parts and distribution.
➢ Furniture, objects and utensils.
➢ The city: location, parts, streets, buildings, green spaces and
monuments.
❖ Daily life activities:
➢ Lexicon related to fractions of time: years, months, weeks, days, parts
of the day and time.
❖ Health and physical care: Parts of the body.
❖ Human and social relations:
➢ Lexicon related to the members of a family.
➢ Lexicon related to friendship, feelings, love.
➢ Lexicon related to the world of work.
❖ Education: Lexicon related to classroom activities and school supplies.
❖ Feeding:
Teacher G. Escobar
➢ Vegetables, fruits, grains, meat, drinks.
➢ Lexicon related to food and types of packaging.
➢ Names of utensils related to food.
❖ Shopping and commercial activities: Names of objects of personal use
❖ Science and Technology: Lexicon related to cell phone, computer, internet.
TEACHING MATERIAL
★ TYPES OF TEXTS READ IN CLASS
○ Personal and Formal letters.
○ Orders and instructions: recipes, instructions, directions for finding places.
○ SMS and emails.
○ Curriculum vitae.
○ Schedules and calendars.
○ Menus and letters.
○ Forms and questionnaires.
○ Simple articles from magazines and newspapers.
○ Web pages.
○ Narrations and descriptions of past and present events.
★ TYPES OF LISTENING EXERCISES
○ Conversations of a colloquial nature with friends, family, colleagues.
○ Conversations in places like banks, stores, agencies.
○ Conversations on the phone.
○ Messages from the answering machine.
○ Job interviews.
○ Radio and television information.
○ Weather forecasts.
★ TYPES OF WRITING EXERCISES
○ Personal letters, SMS and emails.
○ Information signs and regulations.
○ Forms and questionnaires.
○ Narrations and descriptions of past and present events.
1. Adequacy:
1.1. Communicative intention.
1.2. Context and situation.
1.3. Level of language.
2. Textual coherence:
2.1. Structuring of the content.
2.2. Main and secondary ideas.
2.3. Lexical selection and language functions
3. Textual connectors:
3.1. Prosodic and orthographic elements (intonation and punctuation).
3.2. Recurrence resources (pronouns, synonymy, basic semantics)
3.3. Spatial (location) markers.
Teacher G. Escobar
3.4. Temporary markers (to express successive actions).
3.5. Markers or textual connectors of link and logical relationship between
sentences or paragraphs.
3.6. Markers to maintain the oral speech.
Teacher G. Escobar