Year 8 – Check list
Year 8 students should be able to:
Speaking:
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Ask for specific information
Express preferences about films and music and make suggestions
Express opinion
Speak about likes and dislikes – give reason and try to persuade others
Make predictions about the future of the world’s environment.
Give Advice.
Talk about free time activities
Give an account of a personal experience with the support of notes
Talk about holiday plans and arrangements
Report group discussions about topical issues (e.g. social networking, the environment,
etc.)
Express and respond to feelings such as surprise, anxiety, happiness, sadness and
interest
Make comparisons and draw contrasts about films and books
Use discourse markers of similarity and contrast, such as moreover, however, besides, on
the contrary, whereas, and while.
Discuss hobbies, giving reasons for choices
Express and support an opinion
Writing:
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Write an informal e-mail
Write a biography of famous people in the entertainment world
Write an article for a school magazine about an important school event
Write a narrative
Create an atmosphere through the use of adjectives
Descriptive text about travelling
Write a description of a person’s appearance and personality
Write a text for a picture composition
Write a formal email
Write an informal letter of invitation to a party, showing awareness of target audience
and tone
Be able to correct mechanical errors such as punctuation and spelling in one’s work
Write a dialogue that revolves around a complaint
Write a description of a building
Write a letter of application to join a sports club
Listening:
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Listen for gist
Listen to an interview
Listen to sports commentaries and identify main idea
Infer meaning from textual cues
Identify specific details
Identify a correct sequence of events or steps
Follow narratives or spoken discourse to distinguish between fact and opinion
Distinguish between formal and informal dialogues
Identify key words and phrases in speech dealing with issues related to the environment
Identify tone and purpose by distinguishing between different types of intonation
Identify supporting ideas that illustrate the topic sentence
Listen for detail in recordings from various media sources
Identify the speaker’s attitude towards a subject
Reading:
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Read to identify key/main ideas in non-fiction texts.
Identify specific information about jobs, lives of personalities.
Identify topic sentences in paragraphs and supporting ideas.
Identify the sequence of events.
Infer meaning from textual cues.
Identify silent words.
Identify layout and linguistic features intended to persuade.
Deduce hints from a story to enable prediction.
Compare and contrast information in texts on the same topic
Identify the target audience in advertisements
Understand unfamiliar words from hints in the text and using logic
Interpret information derived from graphs, bar charts and maps
Distinguish between fact and opinion
Identify metaphors in everyday English
Distinguish between literal and metaphorical meanings of words and fixed expressions
Distinguish between formal and informal letters
Grammar:
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Use the present simple and present continuous in the everyday context
Use the past simple and the past perfect – identify difference
Use the relative pronouns who, which, that, whose
Use the comparative and superlative forms of adjectives
Use the present perfect and past simple
Use of the future simple tense – will + infinitive
Use modal verbs of obligations – should/ shouldn’t, ought to
Use structure ‘you had better/ you’d better’
Use expressions involving make and do
Use the first conditional (e.g. If you pass your exams, I will buy you a present.)
11. Use reported speech (e.g. Martha said that she was going to the cinema.)
12. Know how to use a number of common phrasal verbs
13. Use punctuation marks: inverted commas, semi-colon, colon, dash and hyphen,
exclamation mark
14. Use the second conditional (e.g. If you did this thing for me, I would be really grateful.)
Vocabulary Knowledge:
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Ways of communicating
Giving directions / information about the whereabouts of places
Theme and subject
Vocabulary related to the world of entertainment and music
Vocabulary related to family and relationships
Vocabulary related to sports, food and keeping fit
Vocabulary related to natural phenomenons, climate change and weather.
Vocabulary related to travel
Vocabulary related to the environment
Vocabulary related to holidays
Vocabulary related to feelings
Vocabulary related to culture, art, literature
Literature:
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Be able to distinguish between theme and subject in poetry
Understand and describe the use of flashback in fiction
Empathise with characters in fiction
Understand and write about Character development in fiction
List main actions or events - discuss plot
Identify / describe the sonnet form
Identify figures of speech such as: Simile, metaphor, personification, alliteration,
onomatopoeia, etc.
Understand and explain comparisons in poems
Describe characters in drama
Compare and contrast characters in drama
Know about monologues in drama
Respond to a play by participating in its performance
Know the difference between formal and free verse
Know about the iambic pentameter
Analyse a prose passage