An integrated curriculum

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The Adult ESOL core curriculum has been organised by level across the four skills of speaking, listening, reading and writing. This means that Speaking Entry 1 is followed by Listening Entry 1, Reading Entry 1 and Writing Entry 1.

At the end of each level, an example of an integrated activity has been given, as an indication of how the skills may be combined in one unit of work. Each integrated activity concentrates on a specific component skill from either speaking, listening, reading or writing, but shows how it may be linked to other skill areas.

Speaking and listening
The national standards for adult literacy combine the listening and speaking skills, because these skills are almost always used together in communication between native speakers. However, it is very common for ESOL learners to be able to understand more than they can say. For the purpose of planning language learning and teaching, the Adult ESOL core curriculum has separated listening and speaking and suggested a range of specific teaching activities for developing each skill. In most learning situations, however, teachers will need to integrate the two skills by setting up real communicative activities involving both listening and speaking. Where an integrated approach is considered particularly appropriate, cross-references are given to link speaking and listening in the component skills column.

Reading and writing: text, sentence and word level
The Adult Literacy and Adult ESOL core curricula both use the overarching framework for teaching reading and writing that is used in the National Literacy Strategy for schools. This model recognises the complexity of the reading and writing process and the different levels on which fluent readers and writers operate:

• text level addresses the overall meaning of the text, the ability to read critically and flexibly and write in different styles and forms;
• sentence level deals with grammar, sentence structure and punctuation;
• word level looks at the individual words themselves, their structure, spelling and meaning.

Conveying meaning, whether orally or in writing, involves operating at these three levels simultaneously: for instance, 'Stop!' is simultaneously a text, a sentence and a word.

To develop understanding of the principles underpinning reading and writing, the teacher may unpick different features at text, sentence or word level, but always with the ultimate aim of producing or understanding whole texts.