Zambia Grade 6/Form 1 Curriculum - English

The Zambia Grade 6 English curriculum emphasizes developing listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills, as well as appreciating literature, culture, and life skills. The curriculum aims to equip learners with the necessary communication skills for further education and the world of work. It promotes learner-centered and continuous assessment methods.

Listening and Speaking

This component focuses on developing effective communication skills in various social contexts. Learners are expected to:

• Describe processes and activities: Using descriptive language (adjectives) to describe events like a sports day or a music festival. Also, describing simple processes like making an oral rehydration solution.
• Identify main points in conversations: Understanding and summarizing key information from dialogues.
• Express condolences: Using appropriate language to offer sympathy and support.
• Decline invitations politely: Giving appropriate excuses when declining invitations.
• Identify characters in stories: Recognizing major and minor characters and their roles in narratives.
• Dramatize legends and folklores: Using role-play, voice projection, and articulation to bring traditional stories to life.
• Compose songs and poems: Creating original works focusing on cross-cutting issues like HIV/AIDS, corruption, and gender-based violence.
• Describe locations: Using descriptive language and directional terms to explain the location of places.
• Debate cross-cutting issues: Engaging in formal debates, using appropriate protocols, voice projection, and logical reasoning.

Reading

This component aims to improve reading comprehension and fluency. Learners are expected to:

• Intensive Reading: Reading silently and completing follow-up activities, focusing on comprehension of different text types on cross-cutting issues.
• Using Reference Books: Effectively using reference materials like indexes, tables of contents, glossaries, and dictionaries.
• Skimming and Scanning: Quickly locating specific information in passages.
• Reading Aloud: Reading with appropriate pace, expression, and correct pronunciation.
• Extracting Information from Print Resources: Interpreting information presented in maps, graphs, charts, and tables.
• Extensive Reading: Reading a variety of materials, including those from other subject areas, to broaden knowledge and vocabulary.

Writing

This component focuses on developing various writing skills for different purposes. Learners are expected to:

• Descriptive Writing: Writing short compositions on given topics, using descriptive language and appropriate structure.
• Punctuation: Using various punctuation marks correctly, including speech marks, exclamation marks, colons, and semicolons.
• Guided Report Writing: Writing short reports on given situations, using appropriate tense and structure.
• Narrative Writing: Writing imaginative compositions using the future perfect tense.
• Story Composition: Creating stories based on pictures, using figurative language and correct sequencing of events.
• Diary Keeping: Maintaining a diary, using abbreviations and acronyms.
• Filling in Forms: Completing various forms, such as application forms and claim forms.
• Writing Notices: Creating different types of notices using persuasive and catchy language.
• Letter Writing: Writing semi-formal letters using the correct format and conventions.
• Summarizing: Summarizing given stories, focusing on content and functional words.
• Dictation: Writing from dictation with correct spelling, punctuation, and grammar.

Structure

This component focuses on the grammatical elements of the English language. Learners are expected to:

• Tenses: Changing verb tenses from one form to another (e.g., past tense to future tense).
• Nouns: Changing irregular nouns from singular to plural. Creating nouns from verbs.
• Verbs: Identifying and using interrogative forms of verbs.
• Adjectives: Using adjectives to compare objects (comparative and superlative forms).
• Adverbs: Using adverbs of manner and place to qualify verbs.
• Homographs: Recognizing and using words spelled the same but with different meanings.
• Synonyms and Antonyms: Writing synonyms and antonyms of words.
• Conjunctions: Connecting sentences using conjunctions.
• Active and Passive Voice: Using both active and passive voice in sentences.