1. Aligning with the CEFR at the Pre-Basic Level – Innovations and Challenges Galina Gordishevsky, Efrat Harel, Adi Gafni Kibbutzim College of Education
H-INET International Spring Conference 27 February 2018 Tel Aviv University

2. Can-do statements of the CEFR in the syllabus
Name of Domain
Students can understand short and relatively simple texts.
Reading
Students will enrich their everyday and academic vocabulary. 
Vocabulary
Students can write simple phrases and sentences about familiar topics. 
Writing
Students can understand and use familiar everyday expressions and phrases.
Students can introduce themselves and others and can ask and answer questions about personal details such as where they live, people they know and things they have and do.
Speaking
Students can follow straightforward short talks on familiar topics provided these are delivered in clearly articulated standard speech
Listening

3. Have we achieved these purposes?
Can-Dos
Name of Domain
Students can understand short and relatively simple texts.
YES
Reading
Students will enrich their everyday and academic vocabulary. 
Vocabulary
Students can write simple phrases and sentences about familiar topics.  YES
Writing
Students can understand and use familiar everyday expressions and phrases. YES
Students can introduce themselves and others and can ask and answer questions about personal details such as where they live, people they know and things they have and do. ??
Speaking
Students can follow straightforward short talks on familiar topics provided these are delivered in clearly articulated standard speech. YES
Listening

4. Implementation of this framework
Bottom-up as well as top-down strategies
Integrative units
Testing
Contributions and limitations

5. Bottom-up as well as top-down strategies
The starting point: listing the language topics and skills which should be covered in the course, for example sentence structure, parts of speech; ways of learning new words, eye-catching features.
Devoting some class time for direct explanations of, e.g., sentence structure in English and tense identification (in general)  Bottom-up
Exposing students to unfamiliar structures and words in written as well as audio excerpts  Top-down

6. Integrative Units Structured as follows: Text & questions
Vocabulary (text-related)
Language strategy, e.g. parts of speech, sentence structure, references
Short video on the topic
An opinion question
Vocabulary game: Quizlet / Kahoot

7. Integrative units Products Used: Quizlet Quizlet Live Ted-ed
Online Quiz
Padlet
Padlet: prefixes and suffixes

8. Quizlet

12. Quizlet live

15. Ted-ed

16. Padlet

17. Padlet – another example

18. Testing Involves a number of stages A number of strategies are tested
Are all skills tested equally? Not yet…
Advantages and limitations
Students’ feedback

19. Staged testing Online quizzes and assignments throughout the semester
A number of quizzes during class time
Intermediary quiz in the format of the final
Final exam which consists of a few parts and tests a number of skills

20. Online quizzes and assignments
Vocabulary for each text studied: Quizlet, Moodle quizzes
Connectors: completion, identification
Parts of speech and sentence structure
Writing: expressing an opinion on Padlet
Listening: a short YouTube episode/Ted lecture followed by comprehension questions and opinion questions - writing

21. In-class quizzes
Vocabulary – translation, sentence completion, finding synonyms, at a later stage: matching a word to its explanation in English
Connectors – sentence completion
Parts of speech and sentence structure

22. Intermediary quiz (IQ) & final exam (FE)
Each consists of three parts:
Short academic text ( IQ: words
FE: words )
Vocabulary: synonyms from the text
Connectors

23. To sum up: type of testing / domain tested
Can-dos / Type of quiz
Name of Domain
Students can understand short and relatively simple texts.
Intermediary quiz – academic text words,
final exam – academic texts words
Reading
Students will enrich their everyday and academic vocabulary.
Online HW quizzes, in-class quizzes, intermediary quiz and final
Vocabulary
Students can write simple phrases and sentences about familiar topics. 
Online assignments – expressing opinion on Padlet,
in-class quizzes – sentence completion
Writing
Students can understand and use familiar everyday expressions and phrases.
Students can introduce themselves and others and can ask and answer questions about personal details such as where they live, people they know and things they have and do.
Practiced in class, not tested this year, goal for the future
Speaking
Students can follow straightforward short talks on familiar topics provided these are delivered in clearly articulated standard speech
Online TED/You-Tube assignments
Listening

24. Contributions Continuous testing
splits the grade into smaller components
triggers numerous repetitions
predictability -> alleviates stress
tests most of the skills, rather than only RC (vocabulary, reading, writing, listening)

25. Limitations Are all skills tested equally? Not yet…
Speaking is the most challenging skill at the lowest levels
Can A1 level students reach B1/B2 level within three/four semesters?

26. Some feedback from our students
It seems that we were not the only people to enjoy this whole process; the students also seemed to enjoy studying and cooperating.
However, next time, a survey asking the students for detailed feedback should be distributed.

27. From the students’ feedback:
"החומר נבנה בצורה הדרגתית והותאם לכל הרמות. יש תחושה של למידה ושיפור"
"שיעורי הבית והמטלות המקוונות עזרו מאוד להבנת החומר ולתרגול המתמיד.. הבחנים כמעט פעם בשבועיים המעיטו את הפחדים"
"התחלתי לאהוב אנגלית! השיעורים הפכו למעניינים ותורמים לרכישת השפה בייחוד בזכות הפעילויות בשיעור(קהות, שירים)"

28. Thank you