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INTRODUCTION

DESCRIPTION OF THE COURSE
Travelers has been specially written for teenagers in the eighth year of primary school. The English program for the level and the concepts and guidelines of the Chilean educational reform have been considered throughout its preparation. The course aims to: • develop reading and listening comprehension skills, providing students with techniques thatwill allow them to understand oral and written texts not only in English, but also in other subjects and in their everyday life. • allow students to communicate orally and in writing at very elementary levels. • improve learning skills. • help students realize English is an important tool for getting and exchanging information, knowledge and culture. • educate in a broader sense by providinginformation about Chile, South America, the English-speaking countries and the world at large, encouraging students to think, analyze and question. Travelers consists of a Student’s Book, a Teacher’s Book and a CD. It also has other advantages, such as: • To present language in a significative context. • To allow students to internalize language patterns that they may use later on. • To help developcritical thinking. • To provide visual elements to improve students’ reading comprehension skills. The Student’s Book contains 4 units based on the the English program for the level and the concepts and guidelines of the Chilean educational reform. Unit 1: Unit 2: Unit 3: Unit 4: Cultural Elements Self - Care People and places All over the world

Unit Structure
• Each unit begins with a two-pagespread showing a diagram of the objectives of the unit, attractive illustrations to set the theme and motivate students, and a few short activities meant to introduce the topic, activate previous knowledge and raise students’ interest. • The tasks in each unit are indicated with the following headings: Reading, Listening, Language Focus, Reflections, Test your knowledge and Self-Evaluation. • Thetasks to develop reading and listening skills help students learn strategies to improve their understanding of written and spoken messages. The methodology adopts a three-fase approach with before, while and after reading / listening tasks. The Before reading / listening activities provide a setting, motivation and linguistic preparation and activate previous knowledge; the While reading /listening activities focus students’ attention on specific tasks that guide their reading / listening, providing different points of view for the same text, and the After reading / listening activities connect the text with their own reality, give practice on a specific grammar structure, clarify points that may be useful later on and / or enlarge vocabulary areas. • The Language Focus section includessome grammar and vocabulary points that the students need to carry out the tasks. It is designed to help students revise or discover a particular

Student’s Book
The course is topic-based and contains a conducting line: Conducting Line The text has a conducting line represented by children of the same age and level of the intendend readers. They are present in different situations according tothe topics of the unit. These children include English native speakers related with Chile, and also Chilean children. They interact throughout the book among them and also with other people. Special emphasis has been put on presenting girls and boys participating in similar ways and occassions. At the end of each unit there is an illustrated cartoon whose main characters are the same of the book,but presented in totally different situations. However, each episode is connected to the general content of the unit. This kind of resource has been included mainly because children of all ages enjoy this material and also because the visual aspects effectively help the comprehension process.

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INTRODUCTION

grammar structure or any interesting item of vocabulary related to the text. The...