This nine-book course consists
of three stages: Elementary, Intermediate, and Advanced. The course
was designed with two main objectives in mind:
-
to prepare students
for the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL®),
the most widely recognized international test that evaluates
non-native speakers' level of competence in English and
-
to facilitate students'
understanding of the spoken English of modern American media,
principally TV, and enable them to use its expressions and speech
patterns. In this way, students develop the ability to communicate
naturally and effectively in current American English.
The
main sources used in the selection of the basic vocabulary of the
course were:
- Paul Nation's adaptation of the
classic high-frequency word list known as the General Service
List (GSL) containing the 2284 most commonly used words in the
English language and
- the Academic Word List (AWL) consisting
of 570 words selected because of the frequency with which they
appear in a broad range of academic texts.
The
following table* illustrates the importance of these words for the
understanding of various types of speech and writing.
| WORDS |
CONVERSATION% |
FICTION% |
NEWSPAPERS% |
ACADEMIC
TEXTS % |
| First 1000 |
84.3 |
82.3 |
75.6 |
73.5 |
| 1001 to 2000 |
6.0 |
5.1 |
4.7 |
4.6 |
| AWL |
1.9 |
1.7 |
3.9 |
8.5 |
|
92.2 |
89.1 |
84.2 |
86.6 |
* This table is an adaptation
of Table 1.7 in I. S. P. Nation, Learning
Vocabulary in Another Language, Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, 2001, p. 17.
In
order to accomplish its second main objective, CCLS also made use
of its own list of 5461 words and expressions when choosing the
vocabulary used in Password: Effective_Communication (PEC). This
list was extracted from CCLS's extensive corpus of approximately
5000 minutes of transcriptions of current American sitcoms. During
the course students will learn over 1350 of the most useful words
and expressions on this list.
Clearly, mastery of the vocabulary presented in Password: Effective_Communication
will guarantee the learner an exceptional level of communicative
competence in both general and academic English.
It should be pointed out that,
at all levels of the course, the vocabulary presented is accompanied
by the grammatical structures essential for communication. All of
the material is presented in a dynamic, engaging way that respects
the cultural aspect of the English language and ensures that the
students' experience is a pleasant and enjoyable one.
Each level of the course consists of a Textbook, a CALL Workbook
and a special Listening Comprehension Practice book, material designed
to develop students' competence in the four basic language skills.
More Oral Practice, a supplementary self-study workbook and CD-ROM,
reinforces the work done in class and helps students get a head
start on their English by facilitating the development of their
oral skills.
BOOK 1
Password: Effective_Communication
- Elementary Stage - Book 1
is designed for teenagers and young adults who have no previous
knowledge of English.
Each lesson in this book contains a number of dynamically presented
real-life situational dialogues. These dialogues familiarize students
with the carefully chosen high-frequency vocabulary on the word
frequency lists already mentioned. This is the vocabulary students
need to know in order to be able to communicate effectively in English.
Both the formal and everyday American speech introduced in the dialogues
serve as the basis for all subsequent classroom work.
This book contains the following sections:
-
Words in Action,
-
Text (Situational
Dialogues),
-
Reading Text,
-
Going Further,
-
The Grammar You
Need,
-
Just for Fun,
-
For Your Information,
-
Using What You've
Learned, and
-
Let's Sing.
At the end of this book there is a list of all
the new words and expressions presented in the situational dialogues.
Password: Effective_Communication - Elementary
Stage - Book 1 contains 477 new words.
