Generally speaking, the more advanced a student becomes the more they will be able to explore language and improve increasingly subtle functional demands. Here's a short overview of some of the most important language functions by level. Students should be able to accomplish each task by the end of the course. Naturally, students should also master language functions of lower levels:
Beginning Level
- Expressing likes
- Describing people, places, and things
- Asking yes / no and information questions
- Comparing people, places, and things
- Ordering food in a restaurant
- Expressing abilities
Intermediate Level
- Making predictions
- Comparing and contrasting people, places, and things
- Describing spatial and time relations
- Relating past events
- Expressing opinions
- Showing preferences
- Making suggestions
- Asking for and giving advice
- Disagreeing
- Asking for a favor
Advanced Level
- Persuading someone
- Generalizing about topics
- Interpreting data
- Hypothesizing and speculating
- Summarizing
- Sequencing a presentation or speech