Skills for Life: International Language: Communicating Personal Information (Written)
International language (written): communicating personal information is a 10 hour Skills for Life unit, from Entry 1 to Level 2, offered in French, German, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin and Spanish. Learners read short texts about people and write about themselves, from single words at Entry 1 to written facts, opinions, answers and requests at Level 2. It is one unit that learners combine with others into a Skills for Life, or Skills for Life and Work, Award, Certificate or Diploma. Digital demand is low. No assessment criterion asks for digital work; digital skills sit in suggested emails, CVs, online quizzes and dictionaries, and photographed evidence.
- Awarding body
- WJEC
- Level
- Entry Level 1 to Level 2
- Guided learning hours
- 10
- First taught
- September 2027
- Amount of digital work
- Low
How this unit is assessed
- Entry Level (Entry 1, Entry 2, Entry 3): Two learning outcomes (understand material relating to communicating personal information, write about personal information), with separate assessment criteria at Entry 1, Entry 2 and Entry 3. Evidence goes in a portfolio, internally assessed by the centre and externally quality assured by WJEC. 10 guided learning hours.
- Level 1 and Level 2: Two learning outcomes (understand key facts and information in texts relating to personal information, produce texts about personal information), with separate assessment criteria at Level 1 and Level 2. Evidence goes in a portfolio, internally assessed by the centre and externally quality assured by WJEC. 10 guided learning hours.
Skills that use Storing and sharing
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Capturing written work as digital evidence
Sources of evidence include annotated photographs of matching or sorting activities and photographs or photocopies of mini whiteboards, alongside worksheets, profiles and letters. Evidence must be referenced to the assessment criteria, and any work sampled by WJEC must be provided digitally by the centre, so paper work at any level is often photographed or scanned.
DCF: Storing and sharing, Creating digital content
Getting pupils ready
- Year 7
- Pupils photograph their mini whiteboard answers to a vocabulary quiz on a tablet and save the photo in their class folder.
- Year 8
- Pupils photograph a completed card sort of questions and answers, add labels to the photo and upload it to their online folder.
- Year 9
- Pupils gather their written work for a topic into one folder, scan the paper pieces, name each file by task and add a short note of what each piece shows.
Show the specification wording and the DCF statements
Where it is in the specification: Sources of evidence, page 14; Skills for Life and Work specification, section 4.1, page 19, and section 5.2, page 23
“photographic evidence/photocopy of mini whiteboard”
Progression step 3
I can manage files and folders locally or online, e.g. move files to a folder.
I can upload files from a local drive to online storage.
Progression step 4
I can select and use a variety of appropriate software, tools and techniques to create, modify and combine multimedia components for a range of audiences and purposes, such as:
- text and images, e.g. explore and use effectively image manipulation techniques; explore and use appropriately the many aspects of document layout; use animation, video and audio effects such as echo, tempo, envelope, layering, frame rate, key frames
- presentation, e.g. use design tools; adapt themes and colours to suit the purpose; create master templates.
Good to know
- There is one unit for each language. The title is "available in French, German, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin and Spanish", and for unit codes the pack says "Please refer to the Skills for Life and Work qualifications specification." (Unit overview, page 3), where every code is still listed as TBC (section 3.1, page 13).
- Specialist staff are expected: "assessors should have subject-specific expertise in language teaching and assessment" (Resources required for assessment, page 16). Devices help but are optional: "it would be beneficial to have access to computers, tablets, or mobile devices for digital activities and research" (page 14).
- Evidence can be paper or digital. Sources include "annotated photographic evidence of matching or sorting activity", a "completed profile", a "CV" and a "letter or email" (Sources of evidence, page 14), and a portfolio "is not limited to paper-based materials" (Skills for Life and Work specification, section 4.1, page 18).
- Sampling is remote: "all evidence submitted for sampling must be provided digitally by the centre" (Skills for Life and Work specification, section 5.2, page 23).
- Suggested assessment tasks are optional: "These tasks are not mandatory." (Skills for Life and Work specification, section 4.1, page 18). Every digital tool named in the pack, such as Blooket, Quizlet and Kahoot, appears only in suggested activities.
- AI use must be acknowledged. Properly referenced AI use "can be acceptable", but "Failing to acknowledge use of AI tools when they have been used as a source of information" is malpractice (Skills for Life and Work specification, section 4.6, page 21).
- The pack carries a note that "The UK Government has announced plans to restrict social media use by children under 16" (page 2), which matters for any online contact with a partner school.
- The unit starts from scratch: the units "assume that learners have no previous experience of the language being learnt" (Planning courses, page 7), with Entry Level pitched at CEFR pre-A1 to A1 and Levels 1 and 2 at A2 to B1 (page 8).
Links with other qualifications
The pack names VCSE Travel and Tourism and GCSE Business as qualifications the international language units can complement, and writing about nationality, where people live and work, and future plans fits both. Learners already taking GCSE French, GCSE German or GCSE Spanish are pointed towards a new language rather than the same one. Within the Skills Suite the unit pairs with International language (spoken): communicating personal information, the Social activities units and the Skills for Work Education and employment units, which share vocabulary for school, work and hobbies. Translating sentences into English or Cymraeg draws on GCSE English Language and Literature, GCSE Cymraeg Language and Literature and GCSE Core Cymraeg, and writing a basic CV or covering letter echoes the job applications in the Applying for jobs unit.
Source: WJEC International language (written) - communicating personal information unit delivery and assessment pack, read with the WJEC Entry 1 to Level 2 Skills for Life and Skills for Work specification, approved by Qualifications Wales, teaching from September 2027 (© WJEC CBAC Ltd 2026).