Grade 7 English Home Language marks the start of the Senior Phase. Learners engage analytically with a range of text types — prose, poetry, drama, visual and transactional texts. The four skills (listening and speaking, reading and viewing, writing and presenting, language structures and conventions) are developed at a higher level, with emphasis on literary analysis, formal essay writing and accurate grammar.
- Read a prose text (novel or short stories) — literal, inferential, evaluative questions
- Identify narrator, character, setting, plot and theme in prose
- Tense revision and extension: perfect tenses (present, past, future perfect)
- Complex sentences: main and subordinate clauses, conjunctions
- Reported speech: direct to indirect (all tenses)
- Essay writing: introduction, body paragraphs, conclusion structure
- Vocabulary: context clues, word families, connotation vs denotation
- Oral: prepared speech with expression, pace and clarity
- Read and analyse poetry: imagery, tone, mood, theme, structure
- Figures of speech: simile, metaphor, personification, hyperbole, alliteration, assonance, onomatopoeia
- Identify and explain the effect of language choices in poetry
- Active and passive voice — revision and application in own writing
- Degrees of comparison — irregular adjectives and adverbs
- Formal letter writing: layout, register and tone
- Punctuation: revision of all Intermediate Phase marks + colon and semicolon
- Oral: poetry recitation or dramatic reading
- Read a dramatic text or extract: stage directions, dialogue, dramatic devices
- Identify conflict, climax, character motivation and dramatic irony
- Transactional texts: advertisement, brochure, letter, review, diary
- Features and register of transactional texts
- Conditional sentences: zero, first and second conditional
- Modal verbs: revision and extension in own writing
- Word formation: prefixes, suffixes, roots — etymology
- Oral: role play, debate, group discussion
- Analyse visual texts: cartoons, advertisements, photographs — composition, purpose, audience
- Media literacy: bias, perspective, fact vs opinion
- Paragraph writing: compare and contrast, cause and effect, persuasive
- Formal essay: plan, draft, revise and present a polished piece
- Revision of all grammar: parts of speech, tenses, voice, speech
- Comprehension revision: multi-text comparison
- Spelling strategies: mnemonics, patterns, rules
- Oral: formal presentation with visual aid
Read the questions before the text. Knowing what to look for helps you find evidence faster. Underline key terms in each question first.
Mark allocation = mark count. A 4-mark question needs 4 distinct points. Never write one sentence for a multi-mark question.
Quote from the text. Use: 'In line 3 the poet writes...' or 'The text states...' Evidence earns marks.
Know your figures of speech by example. Don't just define — identify the technique, quote it, explain its effect on the reader.
Write essays in three stages. Plan → Draft → Revise. Even 5 minutes of planning produces a stronger, more organised essay.