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C1 English: ESL lesson plans for advanced adults

Level C1, advanced 5 units, 15 lessons One-to-one or groups

C1 English on edio.ai is, for now, one course of ready-made C1 ESL lesson plans for adults: English for IT C1, 15 lessons in American English for people who build software and work in English every day. Learners write RFCs, security advisories and meeting follow-ups, explain tech to non-tech colleagues and negotiate scope, with the grammar of advanced English at work: hedging, cleft sentences, inversion, nominalization and conditionals without if. Every lesson is interactive, and its practice exercises check themselves.

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English for IT C1 · Across the Company

5 units, 15 lessons

15 lessons at C1 for people who build software, in American English, with definitions instead of translations. The people of Kestrel Cloud, a fictional payments startup, write updates, reviews, RFCs and postmortems, explain tech to non-tech colleagues and negotiate scope. Real cases include the CrowdStrike outage and the xz backdoor.

Grammar
The future perfect and be due to, hedging, cleft sentences, conditionals without if, phrasal verbs, modal perfects, passive reporting structures, nominalization, participle clauses, inversion and formal register.
Topics
Async updates, code review, releases, incidents, security advisories, system design, RFCs, docs, metrics, meetings, retros, interviews and AI rules, in five units of three lessons.
Every lesson
Word cards, a work document such as a chat thread or an RFC, a listening, grammar practice with a scheme, a chat and a speaking game, then homework with a text to write and a recording.
Teach this course

  1. Unit 1 Talking to the team

    async updates, code review and plain explanations: the future perfect, hedging, cleft sentences

    1. Lesson 1Async Stand-ups: Status Updates People Can Act OnFuture forms for status updates
    2. Lesson 2Code Review Without the DramaHedging in code review
    3. Lesson 3Explaining Tech to Non-Tech PeopleIt-clefts and wh-clefts

  2. Unit 2 Shipping and incidents

    estimates, releases and outages: conditionals without if, phrasal verbs, modal perfects

    1. Lesson 4Estimates, Deadlines and Saying No (Politely)Conditionals without if and mixed conditionals
    2. Lesson 5Release Day: Rolling Out and Rolling BackPhrasal verbs and their noun forms
    3. Lesson 6Incident! Learning from the CrowdStrike OutageModal perfects and narrative tenses

  3. Unit 3 Security and design

    advisories, trade-offs and RFCs: passive reporting structures, concession and contrast, nominalization

    1. Lesson 7Security Advisory: The xz BackdoorPassive reporting structures
    2. Lesson 8System Design: Every Choice Has a CostConcession, contrast and modified comparatives
    3. Lesson 9Writing an RFC That Gets ApprovedNominalization and formal register

  4. Unit 4 Docs, metrics and meetings

    READMEs, dashboards and follow-ups: participle clauses, describing trends, reporting verbs

    1. Lesson 10Docs People Actually ReadReduced relative clauses and participle clauses
    2. Lesson 11Metrics, Dashboards and SLOsPrepositions with numbers, trends and approximation
    3. Lesson 12Meeting Notes and Follow-upsReporting verbs and their patterns

  5. Unit 5 Retros, interviews and AI

    looking back and ahead: wish and would rather, inversion, formal obligation and permission

    1. Lesson 13The Retro: What Went Wrong This QuarterWish, would rather and it's high time
    2. Lesson 14The Interview: Selling Your AchievementsInversion for emphasis
    3. Lesson 15AI at Work: Writing the Team's RulesObligation and permission in formal rules

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Ready-made interactive lessons for every level, from beginner to advanced.

Questions about C1 English

What is C1 level English?
The advanced level of the CEFR, the fifth of its six levels. A C1 learner understands long, demanding texts and what they imply, speaks fluently without obviously searching for words, and uses English flexibly at work, in study and socially. They write clear, well-organized texts on complex subjects. On edio.ai, English for IT C1 teaches the level through the writing and talk of a software team.
What's the difference between C1 and C2?
C1 is advanced; C2 is mastery. A C1 learner handles complex texts and discussions with ease but may still miss fine shades of meaning or idiom. A C2 learner understands almost everything they hear or read, summarizes from several sources and expresses themselves with precision even in complex situations. Most courses for work, such as English for IT C1, stop at C1.
What grammar is taught at C1 level?
Grammar for emphasis, distance and formal style. C1 learners use inversion after negative adverbials (Never have we shipped faster), cleft sentences, conditionals without if, passive reporting structures (is said to have), nominalization, hedging, participle clauses and modal perfects. English for IT C1 teaches one of them in each lesson, met in a work document.
What can you do in English at C1 level?
Argue, persuade and write formally with control. At C1, learners present complex ideas clearly, adjust their tone to the reader, soften criticism, and structure long texts such as reports and proposals. By the end of English for IT C1, they write an RFC and a security advisory, run a retro, sell their achievements in an interview and agree rules for AI tools.
Are there C1 ESL lesson plans for adults?
Yes: 15 C1 lessons in English for IT C1. Each is a whole lesson for adults who work in tech, set at a fictional payments startup, with real cases such as the CrowdStrike outage and the xz backdoor. Each lesson page has exercises from the lesson you can try without an account, and a free 7-day trial opens the whole course.
What's in a C1 lesson on edio.ai?
Word cards, a work document, a listening, grammar and speaking. Every English for IT C1 lesson has ten word cards with English definitions, a document such as a chat thread or an RFC, a listening, a grammar chapter with a scheme and drills, a chat and a speaking game. The homework includes a text to write and a recording for the teacher to review.
What speaking topics do the C1 lessons cover?
The hard conversations of working life. English for IT C1 has learners discuss estimates and saying no, what went wrong in an outage, trade-offs in a system design, what a good README needs, how a team should use AI tools and how to talk about their own achievements, each in a speaking game with prompts about their own work.
How do you teach English to C1 learners?
Work on precision, register and the texts they really write. C1 learners are already fluent, so progress comes from choosing the exact word, shifting between formal and informal, and controlling long texts. English for IT C1 starts each lesson from a real document of the job, so every new form is one the learner will use the next working day.
Is there C1 grammar practice?
Yes: English Grammar Practice · C1, 16 drill lessons. Each takes one advanced grammar point, such as inversion, cleft sentences, the subjunctive, nominalization or hedging, and gives about 45 exercises that check themselves, with no new words. They sit on the English grammar page, and four of them have a page of their own.
Can you teach a C1 course one-to-one or online?
Yes, live or as homework. In a live lesson each learner works in their own account while the teacher leads, and the speaking games suit a pair as well as a group. C1 learners with busy schedules can do the practice between lessons, and the teacher reviews their writing and recordings.

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