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DATE READING COMPREHENSION WORKSHEET

Confecciones Textiles El Aguila, Chile’s biggest denim clothes manufacturer, was the first Chilean company to export jeans to the United States after the Chile-US Free Trade Agreement (FTA )came into force at the beginning of this year. It’s one of the growing number of local manufacturers that are taking advantage of the zero tariffs now placed on textile imports into the United States. El Aguila made its first monthly shipment of 20.000 pairs of jeans for a large US department store brand on February, 2004. The biggest profit, however, will come from domestic sales of its own brands, Robert Lewis, Ricciardi and Barbados and from franchise to sell two Argentinian brands in Chile. A small fraction is expected to come from exports to Perú, Ecuador, Bolivia and Mexico. Jaime Link K., now president of the firm’s board, founded El Aguila in 1970.The company started off as a small workshop on Avenida Alameda with just 12 sewing machines, producing denim work clothes under the brand name El Aguila, and later Mr. Rodeo and Mr. Hick’s jeans. In 1977, the firm launched its Robert Lewis collection for men and women inspired by the styles in the fashion of the seventies. It was an instant success, bringing to Chile what was fashionable abroad, Robert Lewis was Chile’s top clothing brand until 1985. In 1986, El Aguila built its current 40.000 m2 factory to take advantage of the export boom to the US. From then until 1992 it has been the country’s largest manufacturing exporter. The management of the company at present consists of an executive manager, a board of directors, a president of the board all of them belonging to the Link family and a general manager, a production manager and a business manager from outside of the family. Plant capacity currently stands at 200.000 articles of clothing a month, of which 50% supplies the local market. Of the remaining 100.000, the company currently has exports contracts requiring 35.000 pieces a month. In the longer term, the company is planning more investment to expand installed capacity at the factor, which would require hiring 60 more workers. In relation to the company workers the question is: Are the workers sharing the company profits? Are their salaries and working conditions good enough? The answer is yes, if we consider that US companies comply contracts to the letter and they also expect the same of their counterparts.

CLASS ACTIVITY    

Work in couples Read carefully the text (twice desirable) Underline the cognates of the text in the worksheet Write the terms in English that you know at the baottom of your worksheet

Answer in Spanish the following questions What kind of text is this? Narrative, Instructive, Descriptive, Directive, Expository, or Argumentative. Argument your answer.

Answer the following questions in English: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

What is “El Aguila”? When was “El Aguila” founded? What kind of company is “El Aguila”? Does “El Aguila” supply only the export market? What is the plant capacity at present?

Read the text and find the events in connection with the dates: a. l970 ____________________ b. l977 ____________________ c. l986 ____________________ d. 2004 ____________________ Read the text again and draw a flow chart with the positions in the company.

KINDS OF TEXTS

Narrative texts Narrative texts have to do with real-world events and time. They may be fictional (fairy tales, novels) or nonfictional (newspaper report). They are characterised by a sequencing of events expressed by dynamic verbs and by adverbials such as “and then”, “first”, “second”, “third” Example: First we packed our bags and then we called a taxi. After that we… etc.

Descriptive texts Descriptive texts are concerned with the location of persons and things in space. They will tell us what lies to the right or left, in the background or foreground, or they will provide background information which, perhaps, sets the stage for narration. It is immaterial whether a description is more technical-objective or more impressionisticsubjective.

Descriptive texts State or positional verbs plus adverbial expressions are employed in descriptions. Examples: 1) The operation panel is located on the right-hand side at the rear 2) New Orleans lies on the Mississippi.

Directive texts Directive texts are concerned with concrete future activity. Central to these texts are imperatives (Hand me the paper) or forms which substitute for them, such as polite questions (Would you hand me the paper?) or suggestive remarks (I wonder what the paper says about the weather)

Expository texts Expository texts identify and characterize phenomena. They include text forms such as definitions, explications, summand many types of essay. They may be subjective (essay) or objective (summary, explication, definition) may be analytical (starting from a concept and then characterizing its parts; e.g. definitions) or synthetic (recounting characteristics and ending with an appropriate concept or conclusion; e.g. summaries) They are characterized by state verbs and epistemic modals (Pop music has a strong rhythmic beat; Texts may consist of one or more sentences) or by verbs indicating typical activities or qualities (fruitflies feed on yeast).

Argumentative texts Argumentative texts depart from the assumption that the receiver’s beliefs must be changed. They often start with the negation of a statement which attributes a quality or characteristic activity to something or someone (esp. scholarly texts). They also include advertising texts, which try to persuade their readers that a product is somehow better, at least implicitly, than others.