Wider World

Wider World is the portal to a wider world of English language knowledge and resources specially designed for teenage learners. It provides teenage students with the ability to communicate well in English and to pass exams at a good level. Just as importantly, it boosts their confidence to participate as educated citizens in the global community of the twenty-first century, with all its unique challenges and opportunities.

Wider World is the fruit of a collaboration between two leading companies in the fields of media and education: the BBC and Pearson. The BBC brand is synonymous worldwide with the concepts of trust and quality in their news and entertainment programmes, while Pearson is the world's leading education company for all ages and stages of learners.

Wider World is the direct result of extensive research and analysis of learners' needs and wants, translated into a comprehensive set of authentic, interactive and reliable materials in both print and digital formats. This wide ranging research revealed three key learning objectives that were common to all learners, their teachers and parents:

• Success at school - students can move to the next level of their careers by passing exams.

• Motivation - students can continue their English learning beyond school.

• Confidence - students can acquire the skills which will help them make sense of the ever more pressurised digital world of the twenty-first century. 

We all know that teenagers con present a special challenge for teachers and parents They are transitioning from children to adults, at the same time as they are dealing with the competitive pressures of exams. They are coping with parental expectations as well as the distractions of social media and the digital age. This is a time when they need security and support as well as encouragement and inspiration. Bearing all this in mind, we designed the course to be:

• Authentic: language is resented through relevant and intriguing real-life content, from the humorous situations in the drama videos, through the real people interviewed for the Vox Pop videos to the clips taken from actual BBC programmes to create the BBC Culture videos. Content has been carefully chosen to inspire and challenge teenagers, and the style in which it is presented reflects the way that today's teens access information and entertainment: from the internet, using personal devices such as tablets laptops and mobiles.

• Interactive: moving to a much more personalised and adaptive approach, Wider World does not just provide stotic content but also multiple opportunities to investigate and interact with that content through productive activities and projects. By interacting with the content rather than merely practising the target language, students acquire the language at a deeper cognitive level. English becomes the tool through which they access a wider world of knowledge, skills and experience rather than just another subject on the curriculum.

• Reliable: 'It's all very well to be inspired and have fun, but our students need to pass their exams!' we can hear teachers say, and passing the exam with a good score is the key learning outcome of Wider World. The rigorous syllabus built around the Global Scale of English (see page 11) provides the right language, at the right level, with the right amount of practice and the right sort of assessment along the way to bring students up to the level required to pass their end-of-school exams. Additional support is provided by the Wider World Exam Practice books which provide practice papers for the oppropriate Cambridge and Pearson Test of English high-stakes exams.

Organised on the principle of Assessment for Learning, the in-course testing and assessment package provides over 600 test activities per level, covering both language and skills.