Preface
TextBooks for young and adult students for Level A1 of the CEFR in a single volume.
It begins with an Unit 0 (an introduction or a revision of the previous levels), which is followed by 12 themes in which all the content for the level is distributed.
Moreover, each one of the themes has 2 units (each course has 25 Units) with several topics (where a topic is a page of the web site where we teach one Learning Object). Each unit will always have content and it is up to the author to write 1, 2 or more topics inside of each unit. Remember that in A1 and A2 level one unit is the amount of content a student must learn in one week, and in B1, B2, C1 and C2 one unit is the amount of content one student must learn in two weeks.
This means that the professor can make the A1 level in one period (the 12 themes of the A1), or make it in two periods (A1.1 themes 1-6 and A1.2 themes 7-12), in three periods (A1.1 themes 1-4; A1.2 themes 5-8 and A1.3 themes 9-12), in four (A1.1.1 themes 1-3; A1.1.2 4-6; A1.1.3 7-9 and A1.1.4 10-12), or as he/she wants.
Dimensions
Each one of the topics is in turn divided into its different dimensions (sections), which have different colours to make it easier to recognise them. These sections are: Introduction (or meaning), Form (or structure), Examples, Use (or pragmatical), Conclusions (or synthesis) and Related (or complements) in addition to the related exercises:
Introduction:
The introduction is used to let the students understand what the topic will be about, and it is made with simple words and in a summarized way.
It is about the content creation for the education of secondary languages, therefore students, in the case that this grammar rule is existing in their native languages, they know how to use it. In the introduction, we want to make students understand just what they are going to learn, so that they can relate it to their L1.
Form:
The form explains particular rules of words formations, grammatical structures and the way in which they appear in a sequence with other language elements. It should be explained in the easiest possible way, using tables or other formulas.
Example:
The examples must be adapted to the Topic’s requirements, but it could be said that, ideally, at levels A, the examples are based on the Form, and at levels B, the examples are based on the Form for each Use.
Use:
The Use section put the grammatical element in the context. We use “when/why” in order to explain situations in which we have to use the specific rule, in a detailed way.
Summary:
The Summary section offers a more “human” explanation of the content previously presented. This section’s purpose is to create a summary of the content for students who wish to have a quick review of the information and for those who need more examples and explanations on that topic for better understanding. Another purpose is to help teachers who want to have a worksheet with all the key information in one place.
In addition, we take advantage of this section to make comparisons between similar content from different topics.
Related:
The Related section offers a recapitulation of cross-sectional content where we offer access to all the content necessary to understand the current topic.
Exercises:
The Exercises section offers a collection of quizzes related to the content of the topic. You can also find more Topic-related self-correcting exercises on the exercise website.