English resources

This resource provides information on students’ ability to write a string of adjectives in the correct order.

Students prepare a talk on a personal experience, interest, or activity.

Students provide short written answers to questions on the advantages and disadvantages of interviews as source material. They then practise writing effective interview questions.

Students write a set of instructions after reading a poem about cooking. Students self-assess their writing before conferencing with the teacher to set their next learning steps.

Using a page from a dictionary, this resource assesses students' dictionary skills through a series of short answer and selected response questions.

Assessment focus: deciding which description of the main idea of an informational text is most appropriate, and justifying their thinking. The text used is about the adaptation of bird's feet to their environment.

This resource is based on a job application that needs editing. Students identify six different errors and suggest corrections.

Students complete a cloze passage with 28 blanks about a rugby game. A scoring guide with replacement words/synonyms and guidelines for interpretation are included. SJ-1-2-1998. Text provided.

Students identify common spelling errors, taken from the essential word lists, and write the identified errors correctly. Students also identify lines of text without errors.

Students read a visual and written text about native plants and animals to answer retrieval and inferential questions.

Assessment focus: ability to use contextual clues to infer meaning of a word. (There is a link to the text used for this resource in the Using this Resource section.) SJ-2-1-2006. Text provided.

Students complete a cloze passage with 20 blanks on polio to create well-formed sentences.

Students read the humorous narrative 'The Diving Competition' to answer retrieval and inferential questions. SJ-4-2-1996. Text provided.

This resource has an assessment focus on comprehending the language features used in an advertisement.

Students read a short article about Black Holes to answer retrieval and inferential questions.

This resource requires students to match ten ideas about the different parts to books with the correct term.

Students complete a cloze passage with 27 blanks on the release of a killer whale. A scoring guide with replacement words/synonyms and guidelines for interpretation are included.

From a school newspaper interview about a school production, students complete a retrieval chart for a press release. The assessment focus is on identifying key information.

Students identify common spelling errors, taken from the essential word lists, and write the identified errors correctly. Students also identify lines of text without errors.

This task assess the ability to give a short speech that teaches the audience something new. Scoring guides are provided.

Students prepare a talk for a group or the class about a book. The assessment focus is on both content and delivery. ARB scoring guides A and B are suitable for this task.

A contents page from a book on windsurfing is used by students to identify where to go to for specific information.

For this task students read the article, 'Chunky Chalks', and identify the ingredients and equipment used to write a set of 10 instructions for making chunky chalk. Students then identify the verb in each instruction. SJ-2-4-2000. Text not provided.

New Zealand's steepest street is the context for this resource. Comprehension questions require students to find information and make inferences. The text is provided with this resource. SJ-4-3-1996. Text provided.

Students read a newspaper article and answer comprehension and vocabulary questions.