Third Year Language (CEFR: C1)

‘Can do’ statements

The following descriptors provide an indication of the passive and productive abilities of students passing this course.

Listening comprehension

• Follow extended speech, live or broadcast, on abstract and complex topics of academic or vocational relevance.
• Follow extended discussion even when it is not clearly structured and when relationships are only implied and not signalled explicitly.
• Follow the essentials of lectures, talks and reports and other forms of academic/professional presentations which are propositionally and linguistically complex.

Reading comprehension

• Understand in detail a wide range of lengthy, complex texts likely to be encountered in social, professional or academic life, occasionally with time to reread them.
• Scan quickly through books and articles within his/her field of interests and assess their relevance to the task at hand.
• Read extensively, eg. enjoying novels without consulting a dictionary unless I want to note precise meaning, usage or pronunciation.
• Understand formal letters connected or unconnected to his/her field of work or study with the occasional use of a dictionary.

Spoken

• Express him/herself fluently, adopting a level of formality appropriate to the circumstances.
• Keep up with animated discussions on abstract or complex topics involving a number of speakers.
• Give clear, well-structured presentations on complex subjects in his/her own field, expanding and supporting points of view with appropriate reasons and examples.

Written

• Write clear, well-structured texts on complex topics in an appropriate style with good grammatical control.
• Put together information from different sources and relate it in a coherent summary.
• Present different points of view in a paper, developing an argument, highlighting the most important notes, and supporting reasoning with examples.
• Maintain a high degree of grammatical control.