English resources

Students are asked to read a short story and to insert the speech marks required to punctuate the direct speech in the story.

Students read acknowledgement text from a journal and answer questions about acknowledgements.

This task assesses students' ability to discriminate between the use of full stops, exclamation marks, and question marks by asking them to read a letter and insert the appropriate punctuation at the end of each sentence.

Students present a 'show and tell' for a small group. The focus includes discussion, handling questions, and bringing the session to a close. Speaking assessment guide C (Peer assessment) is suitable for this task.

Students prepare a 2 to 3 minute speech, to inform, persuade, or entertain. Topics suitable for primary students are provided. Assessment guides B and C are suitable for this task.

Students read an article about a cockatoo to find factual information. Junior Journal 17. Text not provided.

This comprehension task assesses student ability to find the main idea of a transactional text. Students are asked to read a text then complete three short tasks. Junior Journal 30. Text not provided.

Students attempt to persuade the adults in their families that they should be able to have a dog. They construct an argument by writing replies to the adults' statements.

Students give a 'show and tell' speech to a group of 4-5 students. The audience will ask questions at the conclusion of the speech. Scoring guides are provided for teachers.

This task assesses students' understanding of how to communicate with an audience. Students identify the voice expressions and sound effects needed for a play, "Who pushed Humpty Dumpty?" (Text used is reproduced as a pdf under "Using this resource" tab.) SJ-2-2-1998. Text provided.

Students read an article about shoeing a horse and find information from it to complete a retrieval chart.

This task assesses a formal debate. A list of general topics is provided. For topics on school and teenage life, see resources Debating I and Debating II. ARB scoring guides D, E and F are suitable for this task.

Students write an argument about the impact of rugby in New Zealand. The features of a written argument are the focus for this assessment. Links to self-assessment writing supports are given under the "Working with Students" tab.

Students identify and describe a local place they like to visit within a written report.

From visual stimuli and a series of simple statements that describe physical features, students identify which animal is being described.

Students are asked to interpret the changing feelings of the main character in the School Journal story 'Grey Hair', and to provide evidence of these feelings by identifying the words and actions of the character. SJ-1-3-1996. Text not provided.

Students complete a cloze passage about koalas using their vocabulary and knowledge of grammar to create well-formed sentences.

Students write a set of instructions after reading a science article about growing crystals. Students assess their own writing using the supports provided.

This punctuation resource has a focus on colons and semi-colons. Students insert colons into sentences and demonstrate their knowledge of differences between colons and semi-colons.

Students read a story about rabbits and mark where the paragraph breaks should occur. The assessment focus is on organisation.

The assessment focus is punctuation with students inserting commas and speech marks into text.

Students read a play (retold from a traditional Persian folktale) about the interactions at a market place in old Baghdad. They then use evidence from the text and their background knowledge to complete the task. Assessment focus: evaluating. SJ-4-2-2009. Text not provided.

In this NEMP task students interpret an image of a treasure map.

A brief poem about hedgehogs is read to students who then answer retrieval and inferential questions.

This resource assesses grammar knowledge. Students identify prepositions used in twelve sentences.