How your progress will be checked
How rapidly am I likely to progress?
A question which we regularly receive at SGI relates to likely speed of progress. Of course, it is difficult to give a definitive answer to this as progress depends on a number of variables, including the intensity of your language course, the amount of self-study undertaken, the age, motivation and language learning background of the student and the relative difficulty of the language.
However, further to numerous academic studies which have been conducted on this issue, SGI have put together the following framework which illustrates approximately how long it will take to complete a CEFR level. It is essential to understand that these approximate guidelines assume one-to-one tuition. Clearly, if a learner chooses to study in a group, progress will be much slower.
| CEFR level | Approximate study hours required |
|---|---|
| A1 | Approximately 40-60 |
| A2 | Approximately 40-60 |
| B1 | Approximately 60-80 |
| B2 | Approximately 60-80 |
| C1 | Approximately 80-100 |
| C2 | Approximately 80-100 |
So, how do you check my progress?
There are a number of pieces to the jigsaw, however it is important to stress at this point, that no matter what kind of language course you may be taking, whether as part of a company or as a private individual, the essential ingredients are the same.
1) Firstly, the Director of Studies proactively needs to ensure that work expected to be covered during the language course is actually covered by the teachers involved. This is partly based on conversing with teachers but is evidenced by teachers recording work covered within their registers based on the scheme of work laid down at the onset of the course.
2) We ensure that students are making the expected progress through regular testing. This testing takes place in different ways:
- within the classroom through progress tests.
- review of work covered via communicative activities in their classroom.
- by consolidation work outside the classroom (homework!) that would be checked by the teacher.
- tutorials between student and teacher to ensure the student is clear about areas to work on.
What do I get at the end of my language course?
Each student will receive a Certificate of Studies at the end of the language course confirming the language learnt, number of hours, dates of course and level on departure. In addition, if you have taken a course of one-to-one tuition, you will also receive a report written by your tutor, including a summary of work achieved and recommendations for further study.
