When you enroll in a CL-150 Cohort, you receive a new sustainment lesson every week at your ILR level. But what makes those lessons “at level”?

Let’s take a look at the new Mandarin Chinese ILR 3+ lesson stream to see the choices made to ensure lessons are sufficiently challenging for your specific proficiency level.

Choosing A Source

Lesson sources vary greatly by level, from short and factual at ILR 2 to longer persuasive pieces at ILR 3.

For ILR 3+, we look for authentic texts and audio sources that not only aim to persuade, but also exemplify the ILR 4 goal of moving the audience.

For example, the source of a recent Chinese ILR 3+ lesson presents China’s peer-to-peer lending market in a negative light and forces the listener to question its impacts on the Chinese middle class.

These lessons explore the text but also the subtext and implicit meanings. That includes how and why the speaker uses rhetorical devices to strengthen their argument and evoke an emotional response.

Choosing Key Vocabulary

The majority of the key vocabulary featured in ILR 3+ lessons consists of rhetorical devices used in the source, such as:

• idiomatic language
• colloquialisms
• hyperbole
• irony
• cultural and historical allusions
• loaded (emotive) language
• neologisms (newly coined words)
• word play

The vocabulary includes detailed comments to help learners read between the lines and understand specific language choices and their intended effect on the audience. Some low-frequency jargon is also included to help with comprehension of specific topics.

Upon completing the lesson, all of these key words and phrases are added to your Learned Vocab so you can strategically review and keep them fresh long-term.

Choosing Learning Activities

The focus for ILR 3+ lessons is on building vocabulary depth rather than breadth, so the lessons include fewer vocab-focused activities like Pronunciation Practice or Matching. That means you’ll spend more time understanding and internalizing the nuances of advanced and culturally-loaded expressions.

The activity flow varies from lesson to lesson depending on the grammatical focus. Each lesson focuses on one particularly interesting stylistic feature of the authentic source material and includes the most appropriate activities to present and practice that feature.

Ready to sustain proficiency with a new, authentic lesson every week that’s targeted specifically to your proficiency level? There are 37 Cohort lesson streams in 12 languages across ILR 2, 2+, 3, and 3+. Explore what’s available and enroll in your level here.