GSE Teacher Toolkit

Whether you're searching in Learning Objectives, Grammar or Vocabulary, use the slider if you want to limit your search to a particular CEFR level or range of GSE values. Drag and drop the start and end points on the slider to set the range.

Choose from learners of Adult Learners of General English or Young Learners aged 6-11. Then slide to select the level.

If you want to look up a specific word, simply type it into the search box without setting any other filters.

Handy searching tips:

• You can use quotation marks to get an exact match, e.g. “ball”. 
• You can also use an asterisk as a wildcard to search for anything starting with that word or or string of letters, e.g. ba*. 
• The database recognises both British and American spellings of words so either form can be entered into the search box.

GSE Vocabulary is organised by topics.

• Click on the Choose Topic button. 
• Browse the list of topics to find the one you are looking for. You can also search for a topic by typing in the search box. 
• You can search for a whole topic area, e.g. Food & Drink or you can narrow down your search to look at specific sub-topics, e.g. ‘Places to eat/cook’ and ‘restaurant experience'. 
• You can select two or more categories at the same level, (e.g. Business, industry & the economy + Clothes, fashion, and beauty [topics] or Borrowing and lending + Investment [subtopics]). 
• When you’ve chosen a topic click OK. You can then apply other filters if needed. When you’re ready, click on Show results.

GSE Vocabulary also contains functional phrases. Click on the Choose Topic button and choose the topics that start with ‘Ways of…’
 

If you want to search for a specific grammar point, e.g. 'future perfect' you can simply type it in the box. You can also use the open-search box as a filter when searching for Grammar. For example, if you want to find all the Grammar points about prepositions, type preposition into the open search.

Handy searching tips:

• You can use quotation marks to get an exact match e.g. "prepositions of place". 
• You can also use an asterisk as a wildcard to search for anything starting or ending with a particular string of letters, e.g. ad*. 
• Use boolean operators like AND to do advanced searches or look for strings containing two words, e.g. preposition AND place.
• The database recognises both British and American spellings of words so either form can be entered into the search box.

GSE Grammar is organised by grammatical category. Click on the Grammatical Category button. Browse the list to find the grammatical category you are looking for. You can also use the other filters to narrow the search results if you wish. When you’re ready, click on Show results.

As well as searching by the main grammatical categories, you can also narrow down your search to look at specific sub-categories. For example, within Modal Verbs, we can look specifically at one or more sub-topics.
 

When you’re searching in Learning Objectives, you’ll first need to select the type of learner you’re teaching. Choose from learners of Academic English, learners of Professional English, General Adult English, or Young Learners aged 6-14.
 

You can use the open-search box as a filter when searching for Learning Objectives. For example, if you want to find all the learning objectives about writing emails, type ‘email’ into the search box.

Handy searching tips:

• You can use quotation marks to get an exact match, e.g “phone”. 
• You can also use an asterisk as a wildcard to search for anything starting or ending with a particular string of letters, e.g. writ*. 
• Use boolean operators like AND to do advanced searches for look for strings containing two words, e.g. email AND letter. 
• The database recognises both British and American spellings of words so either form can be entered into the search box.

As you carry out your search, the criteria you select are added as filters. The filters are shown underneath. Click to hide/reveal them. You can delete the filters from this area too to modify your search.
 

GSE Learning Objectives for Professional Learners have been matched to O*NET job descriptions to identify the language skills needed for specific professions and job roles.

• Select Professional Learners from the ‘Choose Learner’ drop-down. 
• Click on Choose Job Role. 
• Browse the list of job families and jobs to find the one you are looking for. You can also search for a job by typing in the search box. 
• You can search for a whole job family, e.g. ’Management’ or you can narrow down your search to look at specific jobs, e.g. ‘Chief Executive’ and ‘Finance manager’. 
• You can select two or more categories at the same level, (e.g. Management + Legal [job families] or Chief Executive + Finance manager [jobs]). 
• When you’ve chosen a job role click OK. You can then apply other filters if needed. When you’re ready, click on Show results.

GSE Learning Objectives for Professional Learners are organised by Business Skills.

• Select Professional Learners from the ‘Choose Learner’ drop-down.
• Click on the Choose Skills button, then select Business Skills. 
• Browse the list of skills to find the one you are looking for. You can also search by typing in the search box. 
• You can search for a broad skill, e.g. ’Negotiating’ or you can narrow down your search to look at specific sub-skills, e.g. ‘Present a position’ and ‘closing the deal’. 
• You can select two or more categories at the same level, (e.g. 'Negotiating' + 'Presentations' [broad skills] or 'Present a position’ and ‘closing the deal' [sub-skills]). 
• When you’ve chosen a skill click OK. You can then apply other filters if needed. When you’re ready, click on Show results.

GSE Learning Objectives for Professional Learners are organised by Business Skills.

• Select Adult Learners from the ‘Choose Learner’ drop-down.
  Click on the Choose Skills button, then select Communicative Category. 
• Browse the list of categories to find the one you are looking for. You can also search by typing in the search box. 
• You can search for a broad category, e.g. ‘comprehension’ or you can narrow down your search to look at specific sub-skills, e.g. ‘Understanding main points’ or ‘Understanding narrative’. 
• You can select two or more categories at the same level, (e.g. ‘Comprehension’ and ‘Strategies’ [broad skills] or ‘Communication strategies’ and ‘Learning strategies’ [sub-skills]). 
• When you’ve chosen a skill click OK. You can then apply other filters if needed. When you’re ready, click on Show results.

Your results are ordered by GSE value from the highest to the lowest. Click on the column heading to re-order from highest to lowest. You can also click on the column heading for Learning Objectives to order them alphabetically.

In your search results, you can see a resource icon is displayed when there are resources available. Click on the icon to show the list. You can view each resource in a new web page by clicking on the 'display' symbol, or you can download the resource.
 

Once you have found the Learning Objective you want to teach, click on the extra information arrow to the right. There you can also see any related grammar points that learners might need to perform that particular language function. Similarly in the Grammar section, you can see which Learning Objectives are associated with a particular grammar point.
 

You can download your search results for use offline. Click on the 'Download results as PDF' button. Note: that if your search is large, only the first 50 results will be exported.

When the file is ready, click on download. The PDF file contains your search results in the same order they appeared onscreen. You’ll also see a QR code - use this with a QR scanner app and it will bring up the full list of search results on your mobile device.
 

GSE Vocabulary also includes over 80,000 collocations. You can find these in the ‘extra information’ area - click on the drop-down arrow to the right of the results. Collocations are displayed in order of frequency from most frequent to least frequent. The first 5 are shown, click on ‘show more’ to see them all.
 

GSE Vocabulary analyses English according to different word meanings. To see the definition of a particular meaning, you can either hover over the word or you can see it in the ‘extra information area’ - click on drop down arrow to the right of the word.
 

GSE Vocabulary is organised by topics. In your search results, you will see in the Topic column the sub-categories a word belongs to. One word meaning can belong to different topic areas, for example the ‘fork’ that you eat your food with belongs in Food and drink and House, home, and daily life. You can find the full topic list for each word in the extra information area - click on the drop-down arrow to the right, then on ‘show topic tree’.
 

Vocabulary: Why do some words have asterisks or N/A?’
For some GSE Young Learner Vocabulary words, an asterisk appears alongside the GSE value. These words are still being rated - the GSE value shown is provisional.

For some vocabulary words, N/A appears instead of a GSE value. These words are part of a set, for example days of the week, numbers, religions. They are not treated individually

The blue icon is the American pronunciation. The red icon is the British pronunciation. Click on an icon to hear the word pronounced.