IB Language ab initio (SL) grade descriptors

Receptive skills: students respond clearly and effectively to all basic and most complex information and ideas.

Interactive skills: students respond accurately, communicate effectively and demonstrate comprehension; pronunciation and intonation always facilitate the understanding of the message; students sustain participation and make good independent contributions. The message is always clear.

Productive skills: students develop ideas well using an effective, logical structure; they successfully use a range of simple and some complex cohesive devices; they use both basic and complex grammatical structures accurately. However, they may make occasional errors in complex structures; they use varied and effective vocabulary and appropriate register; they demonstrate clear evidence of intercultural understanding where required.

Receptive skills: students respond clearly to all basic and most complex information and ideas.

Interactive skills: students respond mostly accurately, communicate almost always effectively and demonstrate comprehension; pronunciation and intonation almost always facilitate the understanding of the message; students almost always sustain participation and make independent contributions. The message is usually clear.

Productive skills: students develop ideas well using a logical structure; they successfully use a range of basic and some complex cohesive devices; they use both basic and complex grammatical structures accurately. However, they may make several errors in complex structures; they use varied vocabulary and appropriate register; they almost always demonstrate clear evidence of intercultural understanding where required.

Receptive skills: students generally respond clearly to basic and some complex information and ideas.

Interactive skills: students respond accurately and generally demonstrate comprehension; pronunciation and intonation often facilitate the understanding of the message; students generally sustain participation and make some independent contributions. The message is often clear.

Productive skills: students develop some ideas using a logical structure; they often use a range of basic and some complex cohesive devices; they use basic grammatical structures accurately. However, complex structures are rarely accurate; they use a range of basic vocabulary and appropriate register; they often demonstrate evidence of intercultural understanding where required.

Receptive skills: students respond clearly to most basic information and ideas.

Interactive skills: students respond accurately and demonstrate comprehension in simple exchanges; pronunciation and intonation usually facilitate the understanding of the message; students sustain participation in simple exchanges. The message is usually clear.

Productive skills: students develop basic ideas using a logical structure; they use a range of simple cohesive devices successfully; they use most basic grammatical structures accurately; they use basic vocabulary and appropriate register successfully; they usually demonstrate evidence of intercultural understanding where required.

Receptive skills: students sometimes respond clearly to basic information.

Interactive skills: students sometimes respond accurately and sometimes demonstrate comprehension in simple exchanges; pronunciation and intonation sometimes facilitate the understanding of the message; students sometimes sustain participation in simple exchanges. The message is sometimes clear.

Productive skills: students sometimes develop basic ideas; they sometimes use simple cohesive devices successfully; they sometimes use basic grammatical structures accurately; they sometimes use basic vocabulary and appropriate register successfully; they sometimes demonstrate evidence of intercultural understanding where required.

Receptive skills: students rarely respond clearly to basic information.

Interactive skills: students rarely respond accurately or demonstrate comprehension; pronunciation and intonation rarely facilitate the understanding of the message; students rarely sustain participation in simple exchanges. The message is rarely clear.

Productive skills: students rarely develop basic ideas; they rarely use simple cohesive devices; they rarely use basic grammatical structures accurately; they rarely use basic vocabulary or appropriate register successfully; they rarely demonstrate evidence of intercultural understanding where required.

Receptive skills: students very rarely respond clearly to basic information.

Interactive skills: students very rarely respond accurately or demonstrate comprehension; pronunciation and intonation very rarely facilitate the understanding of the message; students very rarely sustain participation in simple exchanges. The message is very rarely clear.

Productive skills: students very rarely develop ideas; they very rarely use simple cohesive devices; they very rarely use basic grammatical structures accurately; they very rarely use basic vocabulary or appropriate register successfully; they very rarely demonstrate evidence of intercultural understanding where required.