Basic Spanish

Drawn from the successful Basic Spanish Grammar, 6/e, and accompanying career manuals, TheBasic Spanish Series offer a flexible, concise prologue to Spanish grammar and communication. The series has been enhanced and updated to better address the needs of today's students, pre-professionals, and professionals who need a working knowledge of Spanish. The core text, Basic Spanish, provides the essential grammatical structures needed for communicating in Spanish. The six worktexts, Basic Spanish for Getting Along, Basic Spanish for Business and Finance, Basic Spanish for Medical Personnel, Basic Spanish for Law Enforcement, Basic Spanish for Social Services, and Basic Spanish for Teachers, are communication worktexts that encourage students to use and practice the grammar learned in Basic Spanish. The worktexts present realistic situations a student will encounter in everyday life when needing to communicate in Spanish as well as a variety of authentic workplace situations likely to be encountered by professionals, with attention to specialized vocabulary of each profession, dialogue completions, role-plays, and realia-based activities. The Basic Spanish Series offers flexibility for an array of academic, professional, and adult education settings. Basic Spanish can be used independently or with any combination of the six worktexts. Basic Spanish combined with Basic Spanish for Getting Along is ideal for an Introductory Conversation course, while combining the text with any of the career-specific worktexts serves students, pre-professionals, or professionals who need a working knowledge of the language in a short period of time. A comprehensive supplements package enhances the program and offers students and professionals helpful tools for developing their language skills outside of the classroom. Early introduction of essential communicative concepts enables students to begin speaking immediately. Chapter-opening spread orients and organizes students by previewing the chapter's Objectives, Structures, and Communication; highlighting a different Spanish-speaking country, with a profile in English and a map; and providing a legend of icons that indicate additional resources available with the program. Clear, concise grammar presentation lists the grammar topic in English and Spanish, followed by explanations in English, language models in Spanish with translations and charts, and Vamos a practicar exercises for reinforcement of the material. Practical vocabulary presentation contains lists of chapter vocabulary clearly divided into the following categories: Cognates, Verbs, Adjectives, and Other Words and Expressions--all containing translations with the exception of cognates. CuÁnto sabe usted ahora? self-tests offer assessment opportunities after every five lessons. Answers on the ClassPrep CD give instructors the option to cover the answers in class or provide students the answers so they can monitor their own progress. Para escuchar y entender section reinforces listening through two types of audio exercises PrÁctica (grammar exercises) and QuÉ dicen? (listening comprehension). End-of-lesson activity provides practice of the active vocabulary introduced in each lesson, in the Palabras y mÁs palabras (words and more words), followed by En estas situaciones, a pair/group activity that encourages students to apply structures and vocabulary learned in the lesson. Communicative activities encourage practice of the grammar points through role-plays and group situations.Francisco Mena-Ayllon is the author of 'Basic Spanish', published 2006 under ISBN 9780618505692 and ISBN 0618505695.