“There's nothing a teacher treasures more than to see a pupil succeed.”

First, look at the National Curriculum Levels descriptors, to find out what you need to know to do well in your written and speaking work. Level 6 is thought to be equivalent, more or less, to a GCSE grade “C”, it always pays to have a goal!

  Writing and Speaking 

One of the resources I think you should get to know is the Quality words sheet which is used throughout Key Stages 3 and 4. The idea is that you use more and more of these words as you grow more confident. It is fun to see how your sentences change from simple to elegant !

I’ll give you an example in English:

• I like school. I prefer holidays.
• I like school a lot but I reallyprefer holidays because it is more fun!

Which sentence do you prefer? Did you see what I did? I added just 4 words from the list of Quality words (also called “connectives”) and it transformed my two original sentences!

Another resource is the “High frequency words” ,

(from the Framework for teaching foreign languages Years 7, 8 and 9)

you will find them invaluable!

So, to summarise, in order to improve your Writing and Speaking, you need to know your Quality Words!

Do you want to improve your Listening and Pronunciation skills in one swell swoop?

Here is

The Ash-Dom Method

Want to see some examples of written work? Click here!

And another thing, cognatesare words which are related to words in your own language and therefore recognisable. Have a look !

 There is no need to feel like this! Remember that “a journey of a thousands miles begins with a simple step.”

And “Paris” was not built in a day!