Grade 8English Language

What your child actually learns this year

Every strand and every topic in the Grade 8 English Language curriculum, exactly as the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development sets it out. Written so you can read it in one sitting, without a teaching qualification.

1Listening and SpeakingFifteen topics on the half of English that leaves no written record: telephone manners, disagreeing politely, pronunciation, and presenting in front of people.15 topics·93 questions

  • Polite Language: Telephone Etiquette

    3 skills

  • Oral Presentations: Songs

    4 skills

  • Listening Comprehension

    4 skills

  • Listening Comprehension: Selective Listening

    4 skills

  • Pronunciation

    4 skills

  • Conversational Skills: Disagreeing Politely

    4 skills

  • Listening for Detail

    3 skills

  • Listening and Responding: Oral Narratives – Myths

    5 skills

  • Pronunciation – Sounds and Stress

    4 skills

  • Oral Presentations

    4 skills

  • Conversational Skills: Interviews

    3 skills

  • Listening to Respond: Attitude

    3 skills

  • Extensive Listening: Poems

    3 skills

  • Pronunciation and Intonation

    4 skills

  • Oral Reports: Events

    3 skills
2ReadingThirty topics, the largest strand in the subject. Class readers, short stories, poetry and reading for information, each one read a different way.30 topics·195 questions

  • Extensive Reading: Independent Reading

    3 skills

  • Intensive Reading: Short Stories (Class Reader) – Sequencing Events

    4 skills

  • Intensive Reading: Simple Poems

    4 skills

  • Intensive Reading: Short Story (Class Reader) – Setting (Time and Place)

    3 skills

  • Intensive Reading

    3 skills

  • Intensive Reading: Poetry

    3 skills

  • Intensive Reading – Reading Strategies

    3 skills

  • Intensive Reading: Short Story (Class Reader) – Characters

    3 skills

  • Study Skills: Reference Materials

    3 skills

  • Intensive Reading: Short Story (Class Reader) – Style (Dialogue and Repetition)

    3 skills

  • Reading Fluency: Poem

    4 skills

  • Intensive Reading: Short Story (Class Reader) – Main Idea

    4 skills

  • Intensive Reading: Visuals

    4 skills

  • Intensive Reading: Short Story (Class Reader) – Relationship between Characters

    3 skills

  • Intensive Reading: Poem

    5 skills

  • Intensive Reading: Poetry – Inanimate Characters

    3 skills

  • Extensive Reading: Grade Appropriate Fiction Materials – Characters

    3 skills

  • Intensive Reading: Similes and Metaphors

    4 skills

  • Study Skills: Note Making

    3 skills

  • Intensive Reading: Short Story (Class Reader) – Relating Events to Real Life

    4 skills

  • Extensive Reading: Non-fiction

    3 skills

  • Intensive Reading: Lessons Learnt (Class Reader)

    3 skills

  • Intensive Reading: Comprehension Strategies – Mental Images and Context Clues

    3 skills

  • Short Story: Characters (Class Reader)

    3 skills

  • Intensive Reading: Comprehension Strategies – Key Points and Summary

    4 skills

  • Short Story: Style (Class Reader)

    3 skills

  • Study Skills – Summary and Note Making

    4 skills

  • Extensive Reading: Short Story (Class Reader) – Relating Ideas to Real Life

    3 skills

  • Reading Fluency

    4 skills

  • Poems

    3 skills
3Grammar in UseFifteen topics on the machinery of the language: word classes, tense and agreement, taught in use rather than as rules to recite.15 topics·120 questions

  • Word Classes: Compound Nouns

    3 skills

  • Word Classes: Collective Nouns

    3 skills

  • Word Classes: Primary Auxiliaries

    3 skills

  • Verbs and Tense

    4 skills

  • Word Classes: Adjectives

    3 skills

  • Word Classes: Adverbs

    3 skills

  • Word Classes: Pronouns

    3 skills

  • Word Classes: Simple Prepositions

    3 skills

  • Word Classes: Conjunctions – because, that, when, if, unless and since

    3 skills

  • Word Classes: Demonstratives and Quantifiers

    3 skills

  • Word Classes: Adverbs – Formed from Adjectives

    4 skills

  • Phrasal Verbs

    3 skills

  • Word Classes: Compound Sentences

    3 skills

  • Sentences: Active and Passive Voice

    4 skills

  • Types of Sentences: Interrogative Sentences

    3 skills
4WritingFifteen topics running from legible handwriting and punctuation through paragraphing to functional writing such as an apology letter.15 topics·92 questions

  • Writing Legibly and Neatly

    3 skills

  • Mechanics of Writing: Punctuation

    3 skills

  • Paragraphing: Sequencing of Ideas

    3 skills

  • Paragraphing: Connectors of Sequence

    3 skills

  • Functional Writing: Apology Letters

    3 skills

  • Mechanics of Writing – Commonly Misspelt Words

    5 skills

  • Composition Writing

    3 skills

  • Assessment of Writing

    3 skills

  • Creative Writing: Narrative Compositions

    4 skills

  • Functional Writing: Thank You and Congratulatory Notes

    4 skills

  • Mechanics of Writing: Prefixes and Suffixes

    3 skills

  • The Writing Process

    3 skills

  • Creative Narrative Composition: Idioms

    3 skills

  • Creative Writing: Descriptive Writing

    3 skills

  • Functional Writing: Personal Journals

    3 skills

Why you can take this page at face value

Straight from the KICD design

The strands and topics on this page are the Grade 8 English Language curriculum as the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development sets it out. We have not chosen them, reordered them or left any out.

Nothing here is a sample

Every topic below is covered in our question bank, not a selection of the easy ones. The numbers beside each strand are the real counts.

Marked by a machine, written by a person

Each question carries its full working and a note on why every wrong answer is wrong, so a child who misses one is told what they were thinking, not just that they were wrong.

See what your child can already do

Twenty questions, free, across any of these topics, with the complete weekly report that tells you which are solid and which are slipping. No card, nothing renews by itself.

Start free — 20 questions 🚀

500 Grade 8 English Language questions in the bank, covering every topic on this page.