The Milestones in English approach – Reading
Reading tomorrow’s text better – Catherine Walter
Learning to play beautiful music does not start with playing
beautiful music. No one would expect to start learning the
cello by trying to play a concerto; rather, they would learn
how to use the bow and to finger the notes, to transition
quickly and accurately from one note to another, to
relate the musical notation on the page with the physical
movements needed to play, and to work on making all that
happen smoothly.
In the same way, becoming skilled at reading comprehension
in a second language is not best achieved solely by practising
comprehension. Of course, the goal of reading activities in
an English language course is to help learners achieve better
comprehension of the English language texts that they read.
However, this does not mean that all of the activities in the
classroom should be comprehension activities.
To read well in a second language, readers need to decode
written text accurately and fluently (Grabe, 2009). Accurate
decoding means being able to make a connection between
the words on the page, how they sound and what they mean.
Making a connection between the written words and how they
sound is important because readers of alphabetic languages
immediately convert what they read to silent speech in their
minds, using that silent speech to build a mental representation
of the text (Gathercole & Baddeley, 1993).
• Second language readers need practice in matching
common spellings and the way they sound, and they need to
recognize common words that are spelt irregularly.
Just as fluent playing of a piece of music is not only achieved
by playing it again and again, but by playing scales and
doing other exercises, fluency in reading comprehension is
not best achieved only by extensive reading – although this
has a part to play. Fluency development activities can help
(Nation, 2009).
• Second language readers need to focus on reading fast and
without hesitation.
Knowing how the words sound is useless if the reader
does not know what the words mean. Contrary to popular
myth, skilled readers who are reading a text for information
or pleasure do not spend a lot of time guessing unknown
words, because they already know all the words. Skilled
readers do not sample bits of the text and deduce what the
rest of the text means; they process the entire text, rapidly
and automatically (Grabe, 2009). Skilled readers do not use
context to infer meaning as often as less-skilled readers
do: they do not need to, because they know the words
(Juel, 1999). Second language readers who guess unknown
words usually guess them wrongly (Bensoussan & Laufer,
1984). To read a text comfortably without using a dictionary,
second language readers need to know the meanings of
98% of the words in a text (Hu & Nation, 2000). Note that
topic familiarity cannot compensate for second language
proficiency (Jensen & Hansen, 1995).
Milestones in English A2 © Oxford University Press 2016
• Second language readers need to learn the most common
and useful words at their level, and they need to be able to
recognize them quickly and automatically.
• They need to be aware of vocabulary systems, such as how
prefixes and suffixes work, so that they can recognize word
families, and can learn more vocabulary independently.
• More time should be spent on learning vocabulary than on
learning to guess unknown words; teaching about guessing
unknown words should be strategic.
To read well, second language readers need to be able,
accurately and fluently, to break down the grammar of
the sentences they are reading. They also need to know
how these sentences are put together to make a text.
Recognizing how sentences are assembled in a text means,
for example, recognizing the uses of determiners like this
and that, of words like which that link one part of a sentence
to another, of expressions like on the other hand that say
what the writer thinks about what follows.
• Texts for language learners should contain high-frequency
grammatical features in natural contexts.
• Second language readers should learn how ideas are linked
within texts, e.g. with pronouns, lexical links and discourse
markers.
Nation (2009) points out that what happens in many second
language reading activities is that the learners are helped
to understand the text in front of them. Nation says that the
question for the teacher of reading should rather be:
How does today’s teaching make tomorrow’s text easier
to read?
This is the aim of many of the teaching activities in
Milestones in English. Some of the activities that contribute
to better reading are not specifically labelled as reading
activities. For example, there is work on matching spelling
and sounds. There is a carefully staged vocabulary syllabus
based on the Oxford 3000 list of frequent and useful words
(Oxford University Press, 2014) and there is regular work on
vocabulary systems.
In addition, each reading text
• has intrinsic interest, so that learners will want to read it
• contains high-frequency, useful vocabulary
• contains useful grammatical features in natural contexts
• exemplifies features of natural connected texts.
Generally, the reading texts in Milestones in English are the
starting point for intensive language-focused learning of
reading skills. That is to say, the activities surrounding them
are part of a structured programme which aims to prepare
learners to read the next text that they will encounter more
skilfully.
Specialist Essays 1
The activities do this by:
• helping learners to read more accurately and/or more
fluently
• focusing on aspects of the current text that commonly
occur in other texts
• prompting learners to understand and reflect upon the
ways in which important grammar and discourse features
are exemplified in the text
• concentrating on working with features that occur more
often in written than spoken language
• providing activities that help learners to understand the
text as a whole
• providing teacher and learner with information about the
learner’s performance, as a basis for future work.
All these teaching activities contribute to a structured
programme which will move learners more efficiently
towards becoming better readers of English.
References
Bensoussan, M. & Laufer, B. (1984). Lexical guessing in context in
EFL reading comprehension. Journal of Research in Reading, 7(1),
15–32.
Gathercole, S. E. & Baddeley, A. D. (1993). Working Memory and
Language. Hove, England: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Ltd.
Grabe, W. (2009). Reading in a Second Language: Moving from
Theory to Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hu, M. H. & Nation, P. (2000). Unknown vocabulary density
and reading comprehension. Reading in a Foreign Language
13/1:403–430.
Jensen, C. & Hansen, C. (1995). The effect of prior knowledge on
EAP listening-test performance. Language Testing 12:99–119.
Juel, C. (1999). The messenger may be wrong, but the message
may be right. In J. Oakhill & S. Beard (Eds.), Reading Development
and the Teaching of Reading, 201–12. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Nation, I. S. P. (2009). Teaching ESL/EFL Reading and Writing.
London: Routledge.
Catherine Walter is an award-winning teacher educator,
materials developer and researcher. Catherine lectures in Applied
Linguistics at the University of Oxford, where she convenes
the distance MSc in Teaching English Language in University
Settings, and she is a member of the Centre for Research and
Development in English Medium Instruction.

Reading in Milestones in English

Milestones in English includes Micro skills work on reading,
helping learners to identify common aspects of reading
texts, which in turn enables them to develop their reading
skills in general. These Micro skill boxes identify some specific
areas of reading skills that are exploited in Lesson 3 of the
units. This approach is used in combination with a more top-
down approach to reading where students read content-rich
texts as vehicles for grammar or vocabulary learning, and to
stimulate discussion on a topic of general interest to adults.
All reading texts have been carefully graded. Vocabulary
level in the texts is checked against CEFR levels to ensure
that only a minimum number of words are above the level
expected to be understood by learners at the level of the
Student’s Book.

Milestones in English A2 © Oxford University Press 2016 Specialist Essays 2

The Milestones in English approach – Listening
Training better listeners – John Field
In the early days of ELT, listening was mainly employed as a
means of presenting new language in a dialogue context.
In time, teachers and teacher trainers came to recognize
the importance of teaching the four skills for their own
sake, but there remained the problem of precisely how
to do it. For listening, they fell back on a method widely-
used in L1and L2 reading, as well as in early listening tests
– namely the comprehension question. More enlightened
teachers played short sections of a recording and asked oral
comprehension questions; but coursebook materials often
relied on a conventional lesson format where the teacher
sets comprehension questions in advance of listening, plays
a three- or four-minute recording and then checks answers.
This approach became very entrenched in ELT methodology,
but it was not without its critics. The most commonly
expressed reservation was that it tested listening rather than
teaching it. Other drawbacks were less often mentioned.
The method is very teacher-centred. The comprehension
questions are often in written form so that the task taps into
reading as well as listening. The focus on ‘comprehension’
diverts attention from the fact that there is much more to
listening than just the end-product. Above all, if a learner
gives the right answer to a question, it tells us nothing about
the way in which they arrived at that answer, so we cannot
help them to listen better.
Today, listening instruction has moved on. Current
approaches treat listening as a form of expertise, like driving
a car or learning chess. A novice trying to acquire expertise
in any skill starts out by needing to focus a lot of attention
on the basic processes that make up the skill (in the case of
listening, an L2 learner might need to concentrate on just
recognizing words). With time and practice, however, these
basic processes become more and more automatic and
demand less attention. This enables the novice to perform
more efficiently – in the case of the L2 listener, to switch
attention from word recognition to building up a wider
picture of the speaker’s purpose and the conversation as
a whole.
This perspective suggests the need to practise the
fundamentals of the listening skill as intensively as possible
in the early stages of a teaching programme. It also suggests
the wisdom of reserving some of the more complex
processes associated with context, interpretation or line of
argument for higher-level learners.
L2 listeners’ needs can be tackled in
three ways
Exposure to the input
Learners need to hear short clips which illustrate some
of the phonetic features of English that prevent listeners
from recognizing words. Words in connected speech do
not have standard forms like they do in writing. Because
Milestones in English A2 © Oxford University Press 2016
speakers take short cuts in producing them, they are often
subject to elision (didn’t ➞ ‘dint’), assimilation (ten pounds ➞
‘tem pounds’), liaison (tie up ➞ ‘tieyup’, go out ➞ ‘gowout’)
or resyllabification (find out ➞ ‘fine doubt’). Words that are
of lesser importance in an utterance are often reduced.
Function words in English have weak forms (have, of, a and
are can all be represented by the single weak sound schwa
/ə/), and words in commonly occurring chunks of language
often get downgraded in prominence (Do you know what I
mean? can be reduced to as little as ‘Narp mean?’).
The best way of dealing with these perceptual problems
is by using small-scale exercises that focus on examples of
just one of the features mentioned. The teacher reads aloud
these examples or plays a recording of them and learners
transcribe them. But this is no conventional dictation
exercise: it employs speech that is as natural as possible, not
read-aloud; and learners are not penalized for spelling errors.
For examples, see Field, 2008: Chap. 9.
Training in expertise
Psycholinguistic models of listening have demonstrated that
the skill demands five distinct operations:
• Decoding: matching the signals that reach our ears to the
sound system of the language
• Lexical search: matching groups of sounds to words in our
oral vocabulary
• Parsing: combining groups of words into grammatical
units to obtain a simple point of information
• Meaning construction: interpreting the information in
terms of context and the goals of the speaker
• Discourse construction: adding the information to what
has gone before.
All five can be practised by means of small-scale exercises. In
terms of lexical search, a major challenge when listening to
any language is that there are no consistent gaps between
words in connected speech like those in writing. It is the
listener who has to decide where one word ends and the
next begins (Field, 2003). A useful exercise is therefore for
the learner to listen to a short passage of natural speech and
write down any words that he/she has recognized, then to
replay the passage several times, each time adding more
words. This kind of task is best done at the learner’s own
pace – for homework or in a listening centre. Parsing can be
practised by playing half of a sentence and asking learners to
use what they have heard so far to predict the rest. Discourse
construction can be practised by asking learners to fill in a
blank Table of Contents form. For multiple examples of these
exercise types, see Field 2008: Chaps. 10–13.
Compensating for gaps
It has been suggested that lower-level L2 learners need a
great deal of practice in cracking the code of speech before
they can move on to building more complex meanings.
Specialist Essays 3
This takes time, and learners feel frustrated when, despite
their listening instruction, they find they understand little of
what they hear on the internet or on TV, DVD and film. There
is thus a further need to train learners (especially adults) in
strategies which enable them to make the most of the little
they are able to extract from a piece of real-world speech,
at least until their listening improves. In one type of strategy
practice, they listen to a short recording, try to work out the
gist of what they have heard, share ideas in pairs, and then
listen again (perhaps more than once) in order to check if
they were right and to add new information. This type of task
helps learners who dislike the uncertainty of not recognizing
every single word, by encouraging them to make guesses.
It also helps those who are more willing to take risks, by
making them check their (sometimes rash) guesses against
what comes next. The fact is that listening to speech (even in
one’s first language) is always a highly approximate process.
Because words in speech vary so much, all listeners keep
having to form hypotheses about what they have heard and
revising those hypotheses as they hear more.
The tasks that have been suggested in this three-pronged
approach focus on particular components of listening
and are mainly small scale (some constituting just five
minutes of intensive practice). So where does that leave the
conventional comprehension task? Well, we do still need
it. We need it in order to integrate many of the processes
that have been mentioned. They do not operate in isolation
and a listener has to learn to use them in conjunction
with each other. The traditional comprehension recording
also provides exposure to a wide range of voices, either in
conversation or monologue. Adjusting to unfamiliar voices
is a part of listening that we take for granted in our first
language; but it can be demanding when the speaker is
talking in a second language.
Listening in Milestones in English
The approach to listening in Milestones in English draws
significantly on John Field’s research, through a carefully
graded listening skills syllabus focusing on features of the
spoken language. These decoding skills for listening can
be found in the skills development lessons and include the
following areas: hearing words that sound similar, hearing
weak forms and dealing with unknown words.
Milestones in English A2 © Oxford University Press 2016
But we should perhaps rethink some aspects of the
traditional comprehension task. Teachers and materials
providers need to draw more heavily on authentic material –
or at least use studio material that resembles natural speech
in its pausing patterns, hesitations, overlaps, false starts,
etc. Careful thought also needs to be given to the role of
the comprehension question. It is quite possible to design
questions that tap specifically into one of the five levels of
processing identified above. This should be done in a way
that reflects the capabilities of learners, with an emphasis at
lower levels on questions that target word-level cues and
factual information.
References
Field, J. 2003. Promoting perceptions: lexical segmentation in L2
listening. ELT Journal 57/4: 325–34
Field, J. 2008. Listening in the Language Classroom. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press
John Field is Senior Lecturer in the CRELLA research unit at the
University of Bedfordshire, UK. He is especially known for his work
on second language listening; and his Listening in the Language
Classroom (CUP, 2008) has become a standard work in the field.
His background in psycholinguistics (on which he has also written
widely) informs much of his thinking. He is currently applying it
to the notion of cognitive validity in L2 testing; and is developing
new types of listening test which more accurately reflect the
components of the skill. In another life, John was a materials
writer and teacher trainer: writing coursebook series for Saudi
Arabia and Hong Kong, radio programmes for the BBC World
Service and TV programmes for the Open University of China.
He continues to advise publishers on materials design.
Specialist Essays 4
The Milestones in English approach – Vocabulary
The Oxford 3000 and the Academic Word List
Vocabulary is a crucial area of adult language learning and
Milestones in English puts a strong emphasis on it. As well as
useful and transferable vocabulary sets that allow students
to speak in some detail and depth on familiar topics, there is
a dedicated page in every unit on vocabulary development,
which covers areas like word families, prefixes or suffixes,
collocations and fixed expressions.
In developing the vocabulary syllabus across the five levels
of Milestones in English, special attention was paid to the
Oxford 3000 and the Academic Word List (AWL). The Oxford
3000 is a tool to help teachers and learners focus on the key
vocabulary needed to become proficient in English. The
AWL was developed by Averil Coxhead and contains 570
word families. In contrast to the Oxford 2000, the AWL does
not include the most frequent 2000 words in English. The
list is made up of the words which would be most useful
for students preparing for study in tertiary institutions. The
Oxford 3000 and the AWL are integrated into the vocabulary
syllabus. Items from the Student’s Book that appear in
the Oxford 3000 or the AWL are shown in the vocabulary
checklists at the end of each Review section. As you would
expect, at the lower levels of Milestones in English a high
proportion of words on these wordlists are in the Oxford
3000, and as students progress through the course to higher
levels they will learn more vocabulary that sits outside this
core 3000.
The Oxford 3000 – The words students
need to know to succeed in English
Which words should students learn to succeed in
English?
The English language contains literally thousands of words
and, as language teachers or language learners, it is often
difficult to know which words are the most important
to learn. To help with this, Oxford University Press’s ELT
dictionary team created the Oxford 3000 – a list of the 3000
words that students really need to know in English. It was
drawn up in collaboration with teachers and language
experts. The Oxford 3000 words are included in most OUP
learner’s dictionaries, including the Oxford Advanced Learner’s
Dictionary.
The Oxford 3000 words are marked with a key in OUP’s
learner’s dictionaries, and are available on the www.
oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com website. You can look
up the entry for each word, and hear it pronounced in
either British or American English. At elementary level,
OUP learner’s dictionaries focus on the Oxford 2000, which
includes 2000 of the words on the Oxford 3000 list.
Milestones in English A2 © Oxford University Press 2016
How was the Oxford 3000 created?
There were three key requirements in creating the
Oxford 3000:
1 sources – to provide evidence of how the English
language is actually used
2 criteria – to use when analysing the sources
3 expertise – to provide insights into the vocabulary needs
of learners of English.
1 Sources
The Oxford 3000 is a corpus-based list. A corpus is an
electronic database of language from different subject areas
and contexts which can be searched using special software.
When lexicographers analyse a particular word in the corpus,
the corpus shows all of the occurrences of that word, the
contexts in which it is used, and the grammatical patterns of
the surrounding words.
The Oxford 3000 is informed by the:
• British National Corpus (100 million words)
• Oxford Corpus Collection (developed by Oxford University
Press and including different types of English – British
English, American English, business English, etc.)
By using this combination of corpora, we can understand
how English is currently used and which words are used
most frequently.
2 Criteria
When deciding which words should be in the Oxford 3000,
corpus frequency alone was not used as a guide to inclusion.
Three core criteria were identified:
1 frequency – the words which appear most often in
English
2 range – the words which appear frequently AND across a
broad range of different contexts
3 familiarity – words that are not necessarily used the most
frequently, but are important in general English.
The combination of frequency, range and familiarity means
that the Oxford 3000 is more pedagogically informed than a
list of words based on frequency alone. For example, when
the corpus was analysed, it was found that we talk about
‘Friday’ and ‘Saturday’ more frequently than ‘Tuesday’ or
‘Wednesday’. However, when learning the days of the week,
it is useful to learn all of them at the same time – not just the
most frequent ones. For this reason, all the days of the week
appear in the Oxford 3000.
3 Expertise
A group of lexicographers and around 70 English language
teachers from English language schools all over the world
worked together on the Oxford 3000, bringing classroom
experience and linguistic expertise together to create a list
that truly supports the needs of language learners.
Specialist Essays 5
Why use the Oxford 3000? Most frequent word Coverage Total
When the research team looked at the families
corpora using the criteria mentioned
above, they found that around 3000 words 1st 1,000 74.1%
covered 80–85% of vocabulary in a general 2nd 1,000 7.2% 2,000 = 81.3% coverage (74.1% + 7.2%)
English text.
3rd 1,000 3.9% 3,000 = 85.2% coverage (81.3% + 3.9%)
Here are the results of the research into
frequency and coverage – that is, how 4th 1,000 2.4% 4,000 = 87.6% coverage (85.2% + 2.4%)
much text is covered by the thousand most 5th 1,000 1.8% 5,000 = 89.4% coverage (87.6% + 1.8%)
frequent words, the next thousand most
12,500 word families
frequent words, the third thousand most
cover 95% of text.
frequent words, and so on.
By learning the first 3000 words, students
build a very strong vocabulary base which covers a Beyond the Oxford 3000
significant majority of the words they will see in texts. The As students advance in their learning, the vocabulary they
Oxford 3000 therefore provides a useful springboard for need will depend on the areas of English that they are
expanding vocabulary and is a valuable guide in vocabulary interested in. The Oxford 3000 will give them a good base for
learning. If a learner comes across a new word and it is in the expanding their lexical knowledge.
Oxford 3000, they can be sure that it is important to learn it.

Dictionaries and the Oxford 3000

The Oxford 3000 app
Oxford 3000 is a list of the most important and useful words OXFORD
to know in English informed by corpus-based research. In a
recent survey, over 60% of teachers told us they believe that
learning the Oxford 3000 expands their students’ vocabulary.
The new Learn the Oxford 3000 app for iPad/iPhone™ helps
students learn the Oxford 3000 with practice exercises and
tests to check progress.

The Oxford Essential Dictionary

The Oxford Essential dictionary explains 19,000 British
and American words and phrases in easy language, with
examples to show how to use the words correctly and
hundreds of illustrations to make difficult words clear.
There are notes to help students avoid mistakes in spelling,
grammar, and pronunciation and over 1,000 synonyms and
opposites help them build their vocabulary.
Two thousand keywords show students the most important
words to learn and are listed in the back of the dictionary.
Study pages cover skills such as telephoning, writing letters
and emails, and everyday conversation.

The Oxford English Vocabulary Trainer app

The Oxford English Vocabulary Trainer offers students a fresh
and dynamic way to learn vocabulary. Students can practice
Milestones in English vocabulary unit-by-unit and the app
gives them personalized, intelligent feedback. The app also
makes use of spaced repetition: words are practiced at the
point when the learner is likely to forget them. Gaming
features such as badges, knowledge and experience points
motivate students to keep practicing. It also includes the
Oxford Essential Dictionary with multilingual dictionary
support for learners around the world.
The Oxford English Vocabulary Trainer is available on the App
Store for Apple users, or on Google Play for Android users.
A free 14 day trial is available to all users.

Milestones in English A2 © Oxford University Press 2016 Specialist Essays 6

The Milestones in English approach – The CEFR
The CEFR – Anthony Green
The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages
(or CEFR), published by the Council of Europe in 2001,
is intended to help teachers and others to develop and
connect language syllabuses, curriculum guidelines,
examinations and textbooks. It takes what it describes as
an ‘action-oriented approach’ to language education: the
purpose of learning a language is to enable the learner to
communicate increasingly effectively in a growing range
of social situations that are relevant to his or her individual
needs.
For many educational systems, the CEFR’s concern with
effective communication represents a shift in emphasis.
Instead of focusing on what learners know about a language
– how many words they know or how accurately they can
apply grammar rules – the key question for the CEFR is
what learners might actually want to do with the language
or languages they are learning – the activities they might
need to carry out and the ideas they might want to express.
Achievement in language learning is measured by the
learner’s degree of success in using languages to negotiate
their way through the world around them.
Although practical communication is seen to be a
fundamental goal, the CEFR does not try to suggest how
this goal should be reached. It is not a recipe book that tells
course designers what to include or that tells teachers how
to teach. Instead, it offers a common set of terms that can
apply to learners of different languages in different countries
within a variety of educational systems. These common
terms make it easier to draw comparisons and connect
what happens in language education in one setting to what
happens elsewhere.
It is part of the Council of Europe’s educational philosophy
of lifelong learning that learners should be able to move
easily between informal learning, schools, universities and
workplace training courses in different places to pick up and
keep track of the practical skills that they need. This is much
easier if everyone shares the same basic terms for talking
about teaching and learning. If a ‘Beginner’ level class in one
school is like an ‘Elementary’ level class in another school, or
a ‘Preliminary’ class in a third and the ‘Getting Started’ book
in textbook series X is like the ‘Grade 2’ book in series Y, life in
the English classroom can soon get very confusing.
Having a shared descriptive language is very useful for
course designers because it helps us to see how a particular
course can fit into a learner’s individual language learning
career. In the CEFR, levels of language ability are set out –
running from Basic (A1 and A2), through Independent (B1
and B2) up to Proficient (C1 and C2). These levels are based
on teachers’ judgements of the relative difficulty of ‘Can
Do’ statements describing how learners are able to use
language. For example, at the A1 level a learner ‘can use
simple phrases and sentences to describe where he/she
lives and people he/she knows’, but at B2 ‘can present clear,
Milestones in English A2 © Oxford University Press 2016
detailed descriptions on a wide range of subjects related to
his/her field of interest’. The system helps learners to monitor
their progress, find suitable learning materials and identify
which qualifications might be within their reach.
Of course, not every learner will need or want to ‘present
clear, detailed descriptions on a wide range of subjects’.
The framework is not a specification of what learners ought
to know, it simply provides examples of what is typically
taught and learnt at each level. Users are free (in fact they
are encouraged) to add to the comprehensive, but far from
exhaustive range of Can Do activities presented. People
do not all choose to learn languages for the same reasons:
they prioritize different skills and aspire to reach different
objectives. Nor does everyone progress in their language
learning in quite the same way. Someone who has learnt
a language informally while living in a country where that
language is spoken may chat confidently with friends and
colleagues, but find it more difficult to read a novel. On the
other hand, someone who has learnt from books may read
and translate with assurance, but struggle to keep up with
the dialogue in films.
The framework captures such differences by providing a
terminology for the range of social situations where learners
may need to use languages and the kinds of knowledge,
skills and abilities – competences – they might bring into
play to achieve effective communication. Developing
language abilities can involve ‘horizontal’ growth – coping
with new contexts for language use – as well as ‘vertical’
progression through the CEFR levels. Horizontal progress
could include shifts in the focus for learning between the
written and spoken language, between more receptive
language use (reading and listening) to more interactive
(exchanging text messages and emails or participating
in conversation) as well as shifts between different social
domains (such as shifting from more academic to more
occupational–workplace related language use).
Increasingly, English language textbooks include Can Do
objectives derived from the CEFR in each unit. However,
unlike Milestones in English, most have only incorporated
the CEFR retrospectively, often after publication. This can
certainly help to situate them in relation to other courses
and systems of qualifications, but using the framework in the
development process can bring much greater benefits. This
is because in addition to providing a shared terminology, the
framework poses challenging questions that help designers
and other users to think about, describe and explain why
they choose to learn, teach or assess language abilities in the
way that they do. These questions keep the language learner
at the heart of every decision. Examples of the wide range
of issues that developers are invited to consider include ‘the
communicative tasks in the personal, public, occupational
and/or educational domains that the learner will need to
tackle’, ‘how communicative and learning activities relate
Specialist Essays 7
to the learner’s drives, motivations and interests’ and the
‘provision … made for learners to become increasingly
independent in their learning and use of language’.
Although the CEFR can provide us with shared terms, it is
clear that people working in different places may sometimes
understand the framework in quite different ways. The Can Do
statements are inevitably open to a range of interpretations.
For example, phrases and sentences that are considered
‘simple’ by one teacher may seem rather ‘complex’ to another.
There have been complaints that the A2 level represented
in one textbook is as difficult as the B1 level in another.
This has serious implications: if there is not at least a similar
understanding of the levels among users of the framework,
many of the potential benefits of the CEFR will be lost.
Recognizing the need to build shared interpretations and to
provide more concrete guidance, the Council of Europe has
called for the production of ‘Reference Level Descriptions’
which can show in much greater detail how the CEFR
applies to specific languages. For English, a good deal of
work has already been done. Threshold (first published in
1975, but updated in 1990) is effectively a specification of B1
level objectives. Other books cover CEFR A1 (Breakthrough),
A2 (Waystage) and B2 and above (Vantage). All of these are
available in print or as free e-books via the English Profile
The CEFR in Milestones in English
The lesson goals at the beginning of each lesson in the
Milestones in English Student’s Book show not only what
language points are taught in each unit, but also what the
communicative goals are. The learning outcomes presented
on the Review pages give learners an opportunity to reflect
on these communicative goals and evaluate their own
performance. Information on how these goals map to the
CEFR can be found in the unit overview pages at the start of
each unit of the Teacher’s Notes, available on the iTools USB
and as part of the Milestones in English with Oxford Online
Skills Program course.
Milestones in English A2 © Oxford University Press 2016
website at www.englishprofile.org. At the same site, you
can find information about the ongoing work of English
Profile which aims to further build our shared understanding
of the CEFR as it applies to English.
To make the most of the CEFR and its place in the Milestones in
English series, I would encourage teachers to learn more about
the framework and the ways in which it can help to guide the
teaching and learning process (as well as some of the many
criticisms that have been made of its use). It is worth taking
the time to find out about the overall descriptive scheme as
well as the more familiar levels. The best place to start is the
Council of Europe Language Policy Division website (www.
coe.int/t/dg4/linguistic) where the rather more reader-
friendly Guide for Users, the CEFR itself and many related
resources can be downloaded free of charge.
Anthony Green is Professor of Language Assessment at the
University of Bedfordshire, UK. He has published widely on language
assessment issues and his recent book Language Functions Revisited
(2012) sets out to fill the gap between the broad descriptions of
levels provided in the CEFR and the level of detail required for
applications such as syllabus or test design. His main research
interests concern the design and use of language assessments and
relationships between assessment, teaching and learning.
Specialist Essays 8
The Milestones in English approach – Writing
Writing is important – Mark Searle
In academic contexts the ability to write is of central
importance. Traditionally, course work and examinations are
based on written output with learners presenting content
knowledge through highly conventionalized written
forms such as essays or lab reports. Yet, writing is both an
institutional instrument for assessment and also a powerful
aid to individual learning; learners not only learn to write,
but can write to learn. Through writing, learners are able to
notice deficits in their own language, test hypotheses and
develop the ability to reflect on their written output (Swain &
Lapkin 1995; Nation & Newton 2009 pp. 115–130). Writing is,
as such, central to the process of language learning.
Milestones in English gives prominence to writing skills
because of the importance of writing at university and also
because of the significance of writing in the wider context
and language learning process. To fully engage the learner
in the production of academic texts and to facilitate the
learning of new language, the process writing approach
is used. In this approach time and attention are given to
each stage of the writing process from detailed planning to
review, revision and redrafting.
The aim has been to support learners as much as possible,
both incrementally across the course, and specifically within
each writing lesson. So each lesson offers a scaffolded
structure in which the learner is given specific help with
both a language feature typical of the text and a process
writing sub-skill. Model texts are combined with pre-writing,
targeted language, drafting, peer-review and revision
activities to reflect the complex, iterative nature of writing. To
further develop the learner into a well-resourced reflective
writer the Student’s Book contains writing checklists which
can be used to give focus to the peer review stage of
production. Supplementary photocopiable resources are
also offered to the teacher in terms of additional model texts
and criterion-based mark sheets for each writing task. The
former give the learner more help in terms of language and
process writing whilst the latter offer assistance in corrective
feedback.
The approach to writing in Milestones in English finds
its theoretical origins in the literature on L2 language
production (Levelt 1989; de Bot 1992) and its pedagogical
allegiances in the process writing approach (e.g. Arndt
& White 1991). Essentially, L2 writing is seen as a hugely
demanding competition for limited cognitive resources
in which higher order skills such as planning, whole text
organization and self-monitoring work in a trade-off
relationship with the need to produce meaning at word,
clause and sentence level. The lessons in this course aim to
identify, isolate and balance these competitive elements.
Planning
Research suggests that more-successful L2 writers spend
more time on the planning process than less-successful
Milestones in English A2 © Oxford University Press 2016
writers and that planning influences the final written output
(e.g. Manchón & Roca de Larios, 2007). The planning stages
are essentially preparations for written discourse through
which the learner converts pre-linguistic ideas or concepts
into conventional written forms. As such, planning includes
three major, often co-occurring, stages for the learner:
1 Selecting appropriate content.
2 Converting that content into available or target language.
3 Adapting that available language to the conventions of
academic language and genres.
It is very important that learners respond to the challenge of
writing by thinking about planning and self-monitoring, as
well as to grammatical and lexical difficulties. Simply put, this
means that learners, especially lower proficiency learners,
cannot successfully write and think at the same time.
Because of this the planning stages become very important
as they allow the learner to select and organize the content
and to develop the language required for the writing task. In
other words, the learners do the thinking before engaging
in composition. Writing is also regarded as an iterative,
non-linear process in which revision and self-monitoring are
central to the production of the final reader-ready text.
What this means in practical terms is:
• The pre-writing activities are important.
• If in doubt spend more time on planning and pre-writing
activities.
• Do not just focus on content but think about how
language can express that content. Exploit the model
texts and Focus on language boxes to help with this.
• Learners with a non-Roman language and/or low L2
proficiency may need more time and help converting
content into language. Analysis of the model texts
and use of the supplementary model texts will be
beneficial here.
• Planning activities can be effective when done in pairs
or groups as learners can learn from each other and may
respond well to the social experience of collaborative
working.
• Regard the first draft as part of the pre-writing stages.
When possible use this as a developmental tool. Do not
summatively assess the first draft. Writing is essentially a
recursive process and learners need the chance to revisit
their first drafts; if this is done in a guided and focused
way, through peer and self-review, there is a chance of
greater language gain.
Composition
The aim is not to produce one perfect text in each unit.
Errors will happen and progress through the course will not
always be linear. The aim is, rather, to provide a meaningful
learning experience in which the higher order skills of
planning and self-monitoring are developed alongside the
Specialist Essays 9
linguistic and discourse resources required to produce a
range of academic texts. Each composition is, therefore,
part of a developmental process. An assumption is that
writing skills and linguistic knowledge can be developed
incrementally but may not be acquired easily. Because of
this it is important to keep in mind the contents of previous
writing lessons and, when appropriate, to refer learners back
to previously practised language or skills. So when working
on today’s text learners should be mindful of previous work.
Revision
Revision is important for improving today’s text – and
generative in terms of developing the meta-skills required to
make tomorrow’s text better. The Review and revise activities
are based on the assumption that writing is an inherently
iterative process and that written texts are the product of
reflection and change. This assumption is supported by the
finding that the ability to think about texts critically and to
make improvements or changes at word or phrase level
and at a macro/structural level are indicators and drivers
of proficiency. Revision can be used to develop learners’
linguistic and discourse knowledge and to improve self-
monitoring. Learners may be reluctant to revisit their texts
but it is essential to work on this as this is where some of the
most significant learning happens.
A note on correction
There is much debate about the nature and effectiveness of
written corrective feedback (e.g. Truscott 2004; Ferris 1999),
but it is generally agreed that some is better than none. The
marking sheets provided in the Teachers’ Materials for each
task are designed to help. It is possible that mistakes are the
result of hypothesis testing in which the trial has produced
an error. As such, corrections must be designed to assist
the learning process and make learners better prepared for
tomorrow’s task. Heavy-handed, over-correction may inhibit
learning and suggest that the learners are being tested
rather than taught. Rather, learners should be encouraged
to develop self-monitoring skills and, when appropriate,
questioned rather than spot-corrected.
Writing in Milestones in English
The approach to writing in Milestones in English guides
students from sentence to paragraph to essay. Each writing
lesson provides a model text to demonstrate key discourse
features of the chosen text type. Focus on Process Writing
boxes feed in information on key skills, enabling students to
develop the writing skills they need for further academic study.
Milestones in English A2 © Oxford University Press 2016
Corrective feedback must not be limited to localized surface
errors such as grammatical mistakes, spelling or vocabulary
but should look to macro concerns such as planning and
paragraph design. These whole-text concerns are best dealt
with in the pre-writing stages, but in the final drafts it is
important to consider whether the order and sequence of
content is logical and appropriately realized. The criteria of
the marking schemes reflects this dual approach.
References
Arndt, V. & White, R (1991). Process Writing. Longman. London.
de Bot, K. (1992). A bilingual production model: Levelt’s “speaking”
model adapted. Applied Linguistics 13/1 1–24.
Ferris, D. (1999). The case for grammar correction in L2 writing
classes: a response to Truscott (1996). Journal of Second Language
Writing, 8, l–l1.
Levelt, W. (1989). Speaking: From Intention to Articulation.
Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Manchón, R.M. & Roca de Larios, J. (2007). On the temporal nature
of planning in L1 and L2 composing. Language Learning 27 (4),
549–593.
Nation, I. S. P. & Newton, J. (2009). Teaching ESL/EFL Listening and
Speaking. Routledge, Taylor and Francis. Abingdon UK.
Swain, M. & Lapkin, S. (1995). Problems in output and the
cognitive processes they generate: a step towards second
language learning. Applied Linguistics 16/3:371–391.
Truscott, J. (2004). Evidence and conjecture on the effects of
correction: a response to Chandler. Journal of Second Language
Writing 13, 337–343.
Mark Searle is a lecturer, teacher trainer and course designer
working in EMI and EAP contexts. Mark has taught on the ELT
component of the MSc ALSLA and designs and delivers EMI
teacher training courses at the University of Oxford Department
of Education. He also works for the British Council as a teacher
trainer on the Academic Teaching Excellence initiative, training
NNS academics to teach in L2 English. Mark has also designed
and delivered EAP programmes in pre-sessional and in-course
contexts both in the UK and abroad. In addition to this Mark has
worked as a course director, examiner (ARELS/OUDLE), academic
consultant and teacher.
Specialist Essays 10
The Milestones in English approach – Study skills
and strategies
Becoming an independent learner – Ernesto Macaro
A lack of precision is an unfortunate and recurring feature
of the areas of ‘study skills’ and ‘strategies’. This is particularly
the case in second language learning where it is generally
accepted that when we talk about ‘skills’ we are talking about
the four skills of reading, listening, speaking and writing, and
therefore it all gets rather confusing. So let’s start by defining
our terms. What are study skills and how do they differ from
strategies?
Study skills are the general approaches that students
can apply to their learning. At a very broad and abstract
level they can be conceptualized as learning with less
dependency on the language teacher or tutor. This has
come to be known as autonomous learning, or self-
regulation (Schunk & Zimmerman, 2008) where the student
takes increasing control of their own learning and thereby
the learning becomes more frequent and (hopefully) more
effective (Allen, 2013; Rose & Harbon 2012). This self-
regulation can be applied to aspects of study such as time-
management, note-taking, vocabulary learning, drafting
and redrafting written work, and revising for an exam. In
Milestones in English, there are regular opportunities for
students to reflect and practise these study skills.
Learning strategies, on the other hand, are the mental
operations that a language student can apply to a particular
language learning activity (Macaro 2006). They are the many
thought processes that students of a language deploy
in order to solve a particular problem during a specific
language learning or language use task.
How are study skills and strategies applied? If we consider
any language learning activity to be some kind of a
‘language learning task’, what does a student bring to
that task? Clearly they bring knowledge about the second
language that they have acquired in the past and how
it interacts with their first language. This knowledge will
consist of: vocabulary knowledge, knowledge about the
patterns and rules of the language (whether implicit or
explicit), knowledge about the sounds of the language;
pragmatic knowledge (how language can be used in
specific situations to put across meaning); knowledge about
how that language is used by particular groups of people,
and so on. But students also bring something else to the
task: their ‘know-how’ – a behaviour which is directly applied
to ‘doing something with the knowledge that they currently
have’. This ‘know-how’ is a combination of study skills and
strategies. These are the ‘added value’ that a student can
bring to their language learning and the ingredients which
will lead them to be more independent as learners. So, let
us look at a couple of examples of how study skills and
strategies differ.
Milestones in English A2 © Oxford University Press 2016
Let us take the activity: looking up an English word in a
dictionary in order to use it in an essay. Making a decision
in the first place to look up a word that a student doesn’t
know or is unsure of provides the opportunity for skills and
strategies to come into play. A study skill would consist of
making the decision at the right time to look up a word
rather than, for example, avoiding saying what the student
wanted to say. The study skill starts by saying ‘I’m going to
use this learning opportunity rather than bypass it’. A study
skill would also involve making a decision between using a
monolingual English dictionary and a bilingual dictionary.
There is a considerable debate in the literature (Lew 2011)
concerning whether monolingual or bilingual dictionaries
are better for students, as indeed there is a growing debate
about the use of online dictionaries and apps. However,
making the right choice at the right time becomes part of a
general study approach – a study skill.
Let us say that a student has made the decision to look
up a word in an English monolingual dictionary because
they think they know a word that might just be suitable to
express what they want to say. They find the word and begin
to ponder it. This is where the cognitive and metacognitive
strategies (O’Malley & Chamot 1990) come in. A dictionary
will present the student with a number of senses of the
word which he/she will need to match against their
intended meaning. It will offer the different parts of speech
of the word and provide contextualizing sentences that may
suggest to the student which part of speech would be most
appropriate in the immediate context of the sentence he/
she wishes to formulate, and the student may even take up
the offered sentence and decide to manipulate it into the
text they are creating. They may then go back and check
the spelling of the word, look at the way the dictionary
says the word is pronounced and say it out loud, match
the word with a word in their first language, and perhaps
write two sentences using the new word – one for the text
they are composing and another in a notebook as a way of
remembering the alternative sense. All these are strategies,
and they are strategies which cumulatively and over time
build up into study skills which become a habitual way of
going about the process of language learning.
Let us now consider another example: note-taking when
reading an academic text. A theoretical perspective
underpinning note-taking (or summarizing) is that the
human brain converts language into ideas as soon as
possible (Rumelhart 1980) in order to be as economical
with the memory’s resources as possible. Just think about
it: can you remember the exact (or even approximate)
language that you read in a newspaper this morning or in
a lengthy email? Almost certainly not. But you will certainly
remember some or all of the ideas contained in that
Specialist Essays 11
article or email. This conversion of text into ideas is then
reversed, or at least it should be, when a student carries
out the mechanical activity of writing the actual notes on
paper or using a keyboard. So the process (or study skill,
if you like) is from language (stage one) into idea (stage
two) and then back to language (stage three). This study
skill provides the opportunity for a number of strategies
to be used and thereby for better learning to take place.
However, the crucial parts of that process are stages two
and three. Stage two (the conversion to an idea) should
ensure that the meaning behind the language has actually
been properly understood. If the meaning has not been
properly understood then there is actually little point in
beginning to take down the notes and the student should
deploy a different set of reading comprehension strategies
to ensure that it has been understood. Stage three requires
the student to write the notes, wherever possible, in their
own words.
This enhances learning as follows:
• it ensures deep understanding of the idea because it
has become part of the student’s own system of mental
representations
• it makes it more likely that when coming back to the
notes or summary a direct link can be made to the idea
they have understood
• the student will be more likely to effectively integrate the
idea into a future narrative (e.g. an essay or assignment)
• it will avoid the possibility of plagiarism.
Furthermore, stage three is crucial in offering the
opportunity for a number of other strategies to come
into play: categorizing words in your head (e.g. between
academic, technical and everyday vocabulary); forcing
yourself to come up with an English construction that
perhaps you have never used before; and deciding when
it would be sensible to ‘revisit’ the notes you have written
and perhaps match them with the original text for further
consolidation.
Dictionary use and note-taking are just two areas in which
students can develop study skills and through which they
can develop their independence and self-regulation. But
Study skills and strategies
in Milestones in English
The Milestones in English study skills syllabus
is progressive, and targets particular skills
useful for students at each level. A1 and A2
are focused on skills to improve vocabulary
learning, while the later levels bring in
more general and academic skills that are
transferable to other academic subjects.
The five-level syllabus was developed in
conjunction with Professor Macaro, and
is designed to help students become
independent learners and equip them
with the skills they need to function in
an academic environment.
Milestones in English A2 © Oxford University Press 2016
there are many others that students can engage with at the
broad level of study skills and the more fine-grained level of
‘strategies’. These include:
• interaction skills (in language classes)
• listening strategies (in lectures and in recorded texts)
• presentation skills
• searching for useful sources
developing critical thinking
• referencing skills
• linking assessment with learning.
References
Allen, H. W. (2013) Self-regulatory strategies of foreign language
learners: From the classroom to study abroad and beyond. In C.
Kinginger (Ed.) Social and cultural aspects of cross-border language
learning, 47–73. John Benjamins.
Lew, R. (2011) ‘Studies in dictionary use: Recent developments.’
International Journal of Lexicography 24.1: 1–4.
Macaro, E. (2006) Strategies for language learning and for
language use: revising the theoretical framework. Modern
Language Journal. 90/3. 320–337.
O’Malley, J.M. & Chamot, A.U. (1990). Language Strategies in Second
Language Acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rose, H. & Harbon, L. (2012). Self-regulation of the kanji-learning
task. Foreign Language Annals 46/1, 96–107
Rumelhart, D.E. (1980) Schemata: the building blocks of
cognition. In: R.J. Spiro et al. (eds.) Theoretical Issues in Reading
Comprehension, Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Schunk, D.H., & Zimmerman B.J., eds. (2008). Motivation and self-
regulated learning: Theory, research, and applications. New York:
Erlbaum.
Ernesto Macaro is Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University
of Oxford where he is currently the Director of the Department
of Education. He teaches on the Masters in Applied Linguistics
and on the Modern Languages Teacher Education Program. His
research focuses on second language learning strategies and on
the interaction between teachers and learners in second language
classrooms or in classrooms where English is the Medium of
Instruction. He has published widely on these themes through
books and in international journals. He remains committed to
ensuring his research has practical applications in education.
Specialist Essays 12
The Milestones in English approach – Testing
The Milestones in English Testing Package – Imelda Maguire-Karayel
As all teachers know, assessment is central to effective
syllabus design and is an essential part of effective teaching
and learning. It not only allows learners to recognize their
achievements and make progress, but it enables instructors
to shape and adapt their teaching to specific needs. Two of
the main constructs in modern language testing are validity
and practicality. Validity is key, a test has to measure what it
claims to, and practicality is essential as tests should be easy
both for teachers to administer and learners to take.
The Milestones in English course comes complete with its
own testing package. This is included on the iTools USB and
as part of the Oxford Online Skills Program and is published
in both Word and PDF formats. At each of the five levels, the
teacher is provided with a complete set of tests designed
to test learners’ understanding and proficiency: a test for
each unit, four Progress tests and one End-of-course test.
Reflecting the course ideology, the tasks in the tests present
learners with content that is both information-rich, and
international in flavour, while allowing them to practise
newly acquired language in a range of contexts.
Unit tests
The Unit tests measure learners’ understanding of the key
grammar, vocabulary and decoding skills presented in
the unit. Unit tests are intended to last up to 60 minutes
and comprise of ten tasks. Vocabulary is typically tested
through tasks such as multiple-choice questions, matching
sentence endings, gap fill, word formation or first letter tasks.
Grammar is tested through tasks such as multiple-choice
cloze, open cloze, or right/wrong questions and sentence
transformation. The reading and listening decoding skills
covered in the third lesson of each unit are tested across two
tasks so that teachers and learners can see how effectively
they have attained a command of potential blockages to
comprehension. The Language focus covered in the fourth
lesson and the Speaking skill from Lesson 5 are also tested in
an authentic context.
Each Unit test also includes one exam-style task, modelled
on those in Cambridge Main Suite exams or IELTS. As they
give exposure to task format and simulate exam conditions
to some extent, the inclusion of the exam-style tasks is
likely to be very beneficial for learners who go on to take
certificated exams. The exam-type tasks learners will do
in the Unit tests include multiple matching, matching
headings, note-taking, true/false/not given, sentence
transformation, multiple-choice reading comprehension,
gapped text, short answer questions and open cloze. The
accompanying Answer Key to each test allows busy teachers
to mark unit tests quickly and accurately, thereby reducing
demands on teachers’ time.
Learners take Unit tests once they have completed the
corresponding unit, and teachers and learners alike can
evaluate if the learning objectives for that particular unit
Milestones in English A2 © Oxford University Press 2016
have been achieved. Teachers can then, if necessary, spend
more time covering language points which need more
attention.
Progress tests
There are four Progress tests in the Milestones in English
testing package, each one intended to last approximately
60 minutes. Progress tests are designed to test learners’
proficiency. The content of each Progress test relates to
the material covered in the units, but the Progress tests
differ from the Unit tests in that they more closely resemble
established international English Language exams. The
Vocabulary and Grammar of the three units is tested by
task types such as open or multiple-choice cloze. All four
language skills are tested in the Progress tests. The Listening
tasks comprise two question types, such as true/false, gapfill
and multiple choice questions, and can also cover some of
the functional language from the three units. The Reading
tasks also comprise two different task types, such as multiple
matching, true/false/not given or multiple choice. Writing
is tested through an extended task, which requires the
learner to produce a piece of extended written discourse.
Writing tasks are authentic in that they reflect the real-world
communication likely to be undertaken by learners. Genres
include essays, reports, blogs, and emails. The Speaking
tasks also assess learners’ grasp of the units’ language for
discussions and presentations covered in Lesson 5 by asking
them to role-play a discussion using a set of prompts. It
appears at the end of the Progress test on a separate page
and can be done at a later time than the rest of the test,
either in pairs or with the teacher acting as one of the
speakers in the task.
General mark schemes are provided to assist teachers in
marking both the Speaking and Writing tasks. Care has been
taken to ensure that the topic in each of the tested skills
relates to as many units, thereby keeping the face validity
of the Progress test high. For example, the content of the
Listening section will usually relate to a different unit to the
content of the Reading task. The same usually applies in the
case of the Speaking and Writing skills.
End-of-course test
The End-of-course test also focuses on the four skills and
tests target language from the entire course. As vocabulary
and grammar are at the heart of the Milestones in English
syllabus, these language systems are rigorously tested in
the End-of-course test through task types such as gapfill,
open cloze and multiple-choice questions, with the course’s
functional language incorporated across tasks. The main part
of the test covers tasks on Vocabulary, Grammar, Reading
and Listening. There are 100 points available for the main
test. Teachers are also provided with optional Speaking
and Writing tests worth 20 points each, so if students take
all parts of the test, they can achieve a maximum score of
Specialist Essays 13
140. The Writing task can easily be set along with the main Imelda Maguire-Karayel has over 20 years’ experience in ELT.
test, but this will increase the time needed to complete the She is an EFL/EAP teacher and teacher trainer, a materials writer,
test, so teachers may prefer to set that part on a separate and an educational consultant for adapting a BBC language
occasion. The Speaking tasks can be done at a time that education series for television.
She has taught in private language schools, ECIS-accredited
is convenient for the teacher and students. This could be
schools and universities in Hong Kong, Greece, Turkey and the UK.
during normal class hours, by giving the class an extended She has worked for Cambridge English and now works as an
task to do, and then taking pairs of students to a quiet space English language assessment consultant in the production
to do the Speaking test. Or the teacher may wish to set aside of exam materials, exam practice materials, course-based
a different time for the Speaking test. It is advisable to do assessment materials, and course books.
the Speaking test as soon as possible after the main test. She has written course-based assessment and exam practice
As in the Progress tests, all tasks are exam-like in nature and materials for New Headway (OUP), English File (OUP), Touchstone
general mark schemes are provided. (CUP), and Foundation IELTS Masterclass (OUP).
The result is a robust end-to-end testing package, which
we are confident teachers and students using Milestones in
English will find useful and rewarding as they work their way
through the various levels of the course.

The Milestones in English tests

All the tests and associated audio files for Milestones in
English can be found on the iTools USB. Tests are supplied
as PDFs and as Word documents for those occasions where
teachers may wish to edit some sections of the tests. There
are A and B versions of each test – the B version containing
the same content as the A version but in a different order,
to mitigate potential cheating if learners are sitting close to
each other whilst doing the test.

Name _______________________________________ Name _______________________________________

A2 Unit 1 test A A2 Progress test 1 A (Units 1−3)

1 Z Listen and tick (9) the sentences you hear. 1 Z Listen to the presentation. Circle the correct answer (a, b or c) to complete the sentences.

1 □ a I’m French. 1 Married couples from different countries often meet because of their _____.
a families b jobs c holidays
□ b I’m not French. 2 Annika and Pierre talk to each other in _____ at home.
a Danish b French c German
2 □ a They’re Turkish. 3 Annika and Pierre’s children like to speak _____ the most.
□ b They aren’t Turkish. a English b German c French
4 Many people speak international languages like _____.
a German b Danish c Arabic
3 □ a You’re a student. 5 In multicultural families, children often learn English because their parents _____.
□ b You aren’t a student. a speak it as a second language b live in foreign countries c watch sports like football on TV

2 points for each correct answer 10

4 □ a We’re from London.
□ b We aren’t from London. 2 Z Listen to the presentation again. Are the sentences true (T) or false (F)?

1 Fewer people get married to someone from another country these days. _____
5 □ a He’s married. 2 Annika and Pierre’s children speak English at school. _____
□ b He isn’t married. 3 350 million people speak English as second language. _____
4 People around the world hear English a lot. _____
2 points for each correct answer 10 5 It isn’t easy to tell people what language they should speak. _____

2 Z Listen to a conversation between Jamil and Valerio. Choose the correct answer from the words in italics. 2 points for each correct answer 10

1 Valerio’s from Spain / Italy.

2 Jamil’s parents are from Egypt / the UAE.
3 Valerio’s cousins live in Berlin / Paris.
4 Faruk’s from the UAE / Turkey.
5 Valerio’s friends are from Spain / Italy.

2 points for each correct answer 10

3 Choose the correct answer from the words in italics.

1 My name’s Abdullah and I’m Saudi / Saudi Arabia.

2 I’m Phan. I’m from Hanoi and I speak Vietnam / Vietnamese.
3 This coffee is Nigeria / Nigerian.
4 My name’s Urkun and I’m from Turkey / Turkish.
5 My favourite type of food is Mexico / Mexican.
6 I’m Wen. I’m from Hangzhou in China / Chinese.
7 My car is France / French.
8 My chemistry teacher is from Pakistan / Pakistani.
9 These are my classmates, Agata and Mihal. They’re Poland / Polish.
10 I’m Lilian. I’m from Athens and I speak Greece / Greek.

1 point for each correct answer 10

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Milestones in English A2 © Oxford University Press 2016 Specialist Essays 14

The Milestones in English approach – Teaching
academic English
EAP and lower levels – Lindsay Warwick
The idea of teaching and learning academic English at
a low level can be daunting for teachers and students
alike. In practice it can be very rewarding as learners see
fast progress in their skills and apply them to their other
academic studies. However, there are challenges along the
way and teachers often have to adapt their approach to
offer students at this level the kind of support and guidance
needed to be successful in an academic environment.
Conveying meaning
Conveying meaning of new language in English when
learners have a limited vocabulary and a low level of
understanding is a common issue. At a higher level, a
teacher can usually explain vocabulary by giving a definition
but at lower levels this is often ineffective. A teacher
has to adopt a wider variety of methods for conveying
meaning, including the use of visuals (photos or drawings,
for example), clines, synonyms, antonyms and giving clear
situational contexts. A few minutes planning how to convey
the meaning of words that may arise in a lesson will result in
better and faster understanding in class.
Learners of academic English need to develop
independence so it can be beneficial to encourage learners
to look up new words in a reliable dictionary and not
rely on a translator that may offer inaccurate translations.
Teachers can ask students to use both the definition and
example sentences to help them understand meaning.
Not only do they learn new vocabulary this way, they also
develop valuable study skills that will help them outside the
classroom.
Limiting L1
Many teachers in a monolingual environment feel
frustrated when their students insist on speaking in L1 and
an academic English environment is no different. Some
students may feel silly when speaking English to a friend
or peer. Often completing the task, e.g. giving an opinion
on a topic, becomes more important than the mode and
students change to L1 so they can achieve their goal more
quickly and easily.
With lower level students, their lack of language reduces
their ability to communicate significantly and L1 becomes a
more attractive option. It is therefore important for teachers
to manage speaking activities to make speaking solely in
English more likely. One way to do this is by giving learners
speaking frames or prompts. These can come from example
sentences in the book, suggestions in the teacher’s notes or
from the teacher. An example of a frame/prompt is I (don’t)
agree with … because ….
At a low level, learners are often unable to discuss their
studies using only English so prompts on the board here are
valuable. Examples for pair/group discussion include What
Milestones in English A2 © Oxford University Press 2016
answer do you have for number X? Why is X the answer? Can
you help me with question X?
Preparation time is another important way to reduce the
amount of L1 used in speaking tasks. By giving students
time to think about what they want to say and asking their
teacher for help with any vocabulary they might need, they
are far more ready to perform the task only in English, and
less likely to resort to L1.
Having something to say
Academic English often requires learners to offer ideas and
opinions on topics they have no knowledge of or have
never thought about before. It is therefore important for the
teacher to scaffold activities in a way that allows students
time to develop these ideas and opinions.
One option is to give students words or phrases that provide
ideas. Imagine students have been asked to think about the
advantages and disadvantages of travelling by car. You can
provide some vocabulary on the board to prompt them, e.g.
traffic, queue, ticket cost, etc.
Another option is topic prompts (as opposed to language
prompts) that provide broad topic areas which guide
students to particular areas of thinking without giving them
the actual ideas. You can ask them to think about the people
in the car, the cost, the environment, other drivers, etc. You
could also assign a role to each student, e.g. A is a car owner,
B is an environmentalist etc., so they have to think about the
topic from that person’s point of view.
A final option is to reduce the cognitive load to allow
learners to develop their thinking skills at a pace appropriate
to them. By putting learners into small groups and allocating
a different area of the discussion to each group, students
can feel less overwhelmed, e.g. half the group think of
advantages and the other half think of disadvantages.
Making learning visible
Learning a language takes time as it involves a skill rather
than acquiring knowledge. The reality is that for many
students at university, English is not their main priority.
They know they need it but when assignment deadlines
are looming for other subjects, time needed to learn new
grammar or vocabulary disappears.
By making learning as visible as possible to students, it
motivates them to want to spend time learning English. This
can start at the beginning of the lesson by sharing lesson goals
with the class and emphasizing why those goals are useful for
them in their context. Students will be more motivated if they
can see a direct link between the skill they are learning in their
English lesson and another area of their studies.
Making learning visible also includes time for reflection on
lesson goals at the end of a class so students can see that
Specialist Essays 15
they are now able to do something they were not able to
before. Seeing this progress can help to maintain motivation.
Helping learners remember new words
Vocabulary is crucial for both understanding and production.
In an EAP environment, students need to have both a large
general English and EAP vocabulary but learning these
words takes time and learners need to see them several
times before they make their way into their long-term
memories.
Keeping a vocabulary box in the classroom is a good way to
keep a record of new words that have arisen and provides
simple, engaging warmers or fillers in a lesson. Ask students
to note down words they learnt at the end of the lesson and
add them to the vocabulary box – one word on one small
piece of paper. Pull out a handful of words in each lesson
and ask students to review them. This can be a simple paired
activity where one student gives a definition and the other
guesses. Or it could be a group competition where one
student in each group has to draw the word for the others
to guess as quickly as possible. Academic English may be a
serious subject but activities like this can be fun and when
done regularly, learners really appreciate the positive effect
on their vocabulary.
Time for study skills
At higher levels, language learners have often developed
some strategies for learning a second language. They may not
be the most effective but they do help the learner manage
lessons and homework. At lower levels, learners are less likely
to have developed these skills and it is therefore important
for a teacher to allocate time to these in class. One key area
is note-taking. By building in time to stop and allow students
time to copy down what is on the board, students can begin
to write effective notes. Trying to do this while the teacher is
speaking is extremely difficult for learners at this level.
Guiding students towards extra materials can also be helpful.
While some students find their way easily to the Grammar
reference material, others need to be shown regularly before
they are able to find their own way there. Providing, or even
better, eliciting useful page numbers for additional practice
and review helps to develop more autonomy.
Different levels
All learners have different strengths and weaknesses, needs
and wants, but at a lower level these can be more noticeable
than at higher levels. All teachers have experienced the
frustration of students who feel they are unable to learn due
to the slower speed and abilities of other students in the
class. Similarly, there are the students who feel frustrated
or demotivated by a perceived lack of ability. A teacher
therefore needs to challenge and support in equal measure,
to ensure that all learners are learning.
Adapting coursebook material to challenge and support
students need not take a lot of planning or preparation. A
teacher can have an additional activity ready for fast-finishers
to ensure they are not doing nothing for part of the lesson.
Activities include underlining useful words/phrases in an
audioscript they have just listened to, turning sentences in
a grammar exercise negative or into questions, or writing a
one-line summary of an article.
Gapfill activities can be made more difficult by asking
stronger students to cover up the box with the words in
it and complete the gaps without it. Teachers can provide
answers to an exercise mixed up for weaker students.
They can write two possible answers to choose from and
language prompts to help them with Speaking and Writing
tasks.
Alternatively, teachers can ask all students to complete a
minimum or provide a time limit, e.g. Answer at least six of
these questions, more if you can./Write as much as you can in
15 minutes.
Lindsay Warwick is a teacher, teacher trainer and materials
writer. Over the last 20 years she has taught in Japan, Italy and
continues to teach in the UK. She is a CELTA trainer and regularly
leads teacher development courses on methodology, language
development and culture in the UK and abroad. As a materials
writer she has written coursebooks on EAP and exam preparation.
She a is co-author of the Milestones in English A2 and B1+
Student’s Books.

Academic support in
Milestones in English
Milestones in English provides teachers with the help
they need to overcome the challenges of teaching
lower level learners. Where possible the book
scaffolds speaking tasks, provides prompts and
examples for tasks and helps to convey meaning
of new language. Vocabulary is recycled regularly
throughout the book. The Teacher’s Notes also
suggest ways to convey meaning, extend learning,
differentiate tasks and build students’ study skills.
There are lead-in suggestions that engage learners,
motivate them and recycle vocabulary.

Milestones in English A2 © Oxford University Press 2016 Specialist Essays 16