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This category looks at your understanding of key terms and concepts used to describe language, your use of strategies to check and develop your language awareness, and your ability to apply such knowledge practically in order to facilitate language learning.
In this video Anne, a teacher in the Netherlands, explains why she places herself at the Expert stage in the Language knowledge and awareness category of the Cambridge English Teaching Framework.
Below is what teachers can do in this category at each of the four stages of the Cambridge English Teaching Framework and suggestions on how to develop further.
Foundation
Emilie is in her first year of teaching in a private language school in China, after passing her CELTA course.
She is using a number of well-known coursebooks with her students and finds the teacher’s books particularly helpful when planning her lessons. She is learning a lot about English grammar through her teaching and finds timelines useful when introducing learners to new tenses.
Although she is a native speaker of English, she feels a little under confident if learners challenge her about language points as she has never had to analyse English grammar before. She relies heavily on the grammar reference book she first used on her CELTA course. She also uses a teacher’s online forum to help her answer student queries.
She is particularly interested in finding out more about teaching pronunciation, because her Chinese students tend to make similar pronunciation errors and often ask her for advice on how to improve their speaking skills.
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Further reading
Developing
Ricardo has been teaching at a private language school for three years. He enjoys teaching grammar and exam preparation classes and has started to create a file of grammar worksheets to extend the materials in the coursebook he is using with his Cambridge English: Preliminary (PET) and Cambridge English: First (FCE) learners. He also uses these worksheets and other reference materials to guide students when they have questions about specific language points.
He is a member of Cambridge English Teacher, which he finds useful for new lesson ideas and to access other reference materials. He has recently completed an online grammar course Grammar for Teachers: Language Awareness to refresh his knowledge of English grammar. He regularly attends training sessions at his school and would like to teach higher level exam preparation classes in the future.
Proficient
Deniz teaches English for Specific Purposes (ESP) to students of law, engineering and medicine at a university language centre where she also helps co-ordinate teacher training. As well as running workshops and induction sessions for new teachers, she has recently set up a weekly ‘grammar surgery’ for students, drawing on her 15 years’ teaching experience and in-depth knowledge of English to help learners with specific language problems.
She has recently been asked to help select resource books and reference materials for the university teaching library and has encouraged her language centre to take out a Cambridge English Teacher Institutional Membership.
Expert
Lyudmyla is Head of a private secondary school that offers Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) programmes and is hoping to complete a Master’s degree in Bilingual Education next year.
She runs regular language workshops for her CLIL teachers, and has encouraged three subject-specific teachers to take TKT: CLIL. She hopes more of her teachers will agree to take the test in the future.
She has developed an extensive teaching library that includes reference books and materials that teachers can draw on to extend their students’ learning and language knowledge outside the classroom. She has contributed to a recently published CLIL resource book, analysing how language is used in key school subjects.
She is a Cambridge English examiner and keeps her own language knowledge up to date by attending workshops and webinars run by publishers. She is also a regular presenter for an online teaching community.
Download the Cambridge English Teaching Framework – Competency statements (PDF)
Download the Cambridge English Teaching Framework – Framework components (PDF)