PREFACE

As the descriptive title Voyages in Communication suggests, this English

learning material for Grade 8 students like you was specially designed to cater to
your needs and at the same time prepare you intellectually and technologically
for the rigorous demands of secondary education in the 21st century as you
venture out into the real world of work later in life. It is basically anchored on the
general principles, goals and objectives of the K-12 Basic Education Program for
Secondary Level and centers on the development of every Grade 8 student as a
functionally literate individual.

In this learning material are reading selections and learning experiences

which will help you acquire a certain level of understanding which has prepared
you to go beyond your limits by delving deeply into cross-cultural experience; an
entirely different adventure into the outside world of international realities.
Furthermore, this learning material will help you increase your awareness not
only of yourself as a growing and evolving individual, but also of the people in
your country and of the world beyond the boundaries of your country, broaden
your intellectual horizon and spiritual outlook, enhance personal experience of
the world at large, and improve your communicative competence.

Voyages in Communication aims at introducing you to the diverse cultures,

temperaments, psyches, perspectives and lifestyles of the people inhabiting the
Afro-Asian countries. By critically knowing the similarities and differences
between other countries’ cultural background and ours, you will be able to gain
better understanding of our Afro-Asian brothers and sisters. It will help us
understand more fully their aspirations and struggles in life prompting us to
promote their welfare thus, paving the way to building a new world order with
them based on the principle of “unity in diversity,” cultural diversity, universal
brotherhood, friendly ties and peace.
 This learning material is divided into four quarters, namely:

Quarter I. Searching for Knowledge

Quarter II. Embracing My Heritage
Quarter III. Overcoming Challenges
Quarter IV. Changing Perspectives

There are ten components in most of the lessons in this learning material:
Listening Comprehension, Speaking (Oral Language and Fluency), Vocabulary
Development, Reading Comprehension, Viewing Comprehension, Literature,
Writing and Composition, Grammar Awareness and Structure, Study Strategies,
and Attitude.

The Listening Comprehension component contains selections which you

will listen to purposely to develop your attentive listening skill and gives you an
equal chance to discuss relevant topics and issues with your classmates after you
tune in to a particular listening text. The Speaking component (Oral Language and
Fluency) focuses on exercises which will help you develop your communicative
competence. This component is meant to make you linguistically competent, one
who knows when, where, and how to use language appropriately. The Vocabulary
Development component contains exercises that will develop your word attack
skill, heighten your interest in vocabulary building, and enrich your stockpile of
vocabulary. The Reading Comprehension component provides informational texts
which give you the opportunity to upgrade your knowledge to develop skills in
higher intellectual and critical operations, more complex comprehension, and
creative expressions of thoughts and ideas. The Viewing Comprehension
component provides exercises which allow you to view a video clip or a full-length
movie and gives you the chance to develop your critical and analytical thinking
skills. The Literature component contains varied Afro-Asian literary text types
which develop your finer sensitivity to other people’s needs – local and
international – and sharpness of imagination through interpretation of literary
icons or images. The Writing and Composition component focuses on exercises
which give you the opportunity to communicate effectively across cultures.
Communicating with one another establishes real discourse and helps you to
convey what is real and necessary. This is the real essence of writing as a
communicative task. The Grammar Awareness Structure component emphasizes
accuracy or correctness by providing a brief discussion of the Key Points being
studied and a number of exercises to allow for practical application of the
language skill. The Study Strategies component contains exercises which prompt
you to make researches or get vital information from the World Wide Web. The
last component, Attitude, focuses on exercises which develop your affective
domain or the emotional side of your behavior. This emotional dimension is the
means through which you become aware of your environment, respond to it with
feeling, and act as though your feelings make a difference.

Each of the lessons in this learning material has a unified format made up of
the following icons:

This icon contains a set of specific instructions given in order to guide you
on how you will go through each part of the lesson in a smooth sailing manner. It
also contains goals of a particular activity. Thus, it behooves you to go over the
things under this icon for you to be able to accomplish your tasks successfully.

An open book icon tells and directs you to browse over, skim through, scan,
or read closely a particular selection for a specific purpose. The reading selections
may be a short story, a legend, a myth, a poem, a choral interpretation, a
journalistic prose such as an editorial, a blog entry, an advertisement, etc. The
authors have tried to include a wide variety of literary and informational reading
texts to give you maximum exposure to different text types and also to make the
learning material more intellectually demanding, meaningfully engaging and
interesting.
 A question mark icon consists of standard questions for gaining insights,
understanding the text, comprehension and valuing. Some of the questions are
thought-provoking that would prompt you to express your inner thoughts and
ideas effectively while others are questions that would lead you to answer the
essential questions.

This icon consists of essential “Key Points” highlighting functional grammar.

Improving your communicative competence is a must and it can be reinforced by
studying syntax which refers to the structure of a sentence and the rules that
govern the correctness of a sentence; and grammar which looks at whether a
sentence conforms to Standard English. Aside from grammar lessons, this icon
consists of salient points on various topics presented at the end of every learning
episode.

This icon contains the culminating task, product or performance, which a

Grade 8 student needs to accomplish at the end of every lesson. The icon itself
symbolizes the performance-based assessment or testing or an assessment that
corresponds directly to what is taught in the classroom. Most performance-based
assessments are production tasks, which require you to produce something. Each
production task has a set of standards or criteria (rubrics) which shall be used as
bases in scoring.
 This learning material is accompanied by Teaching Guide that will enable
the language teachers to go beyond the suggested activities (non-prescriptive) in
the learning material.

Lastly, the authors as well as the editor will be truly grateful to receive and
entertain feedback on the learning material. Through this learning material, the
authors aim to provide Grade 8 students with competencies necessary to meet
the demands of the 21st century.

The Authors