Kategoria BISAC: Language Arts & Disciplines >> Study & Teaching

Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz--a witty, intellectually formidable, and prolific author--stands as an icon of women's early writing and of colonial New Spain. Living in the capital city of seventeenth-century Mexico, she was located in the center of her world, but, as a self-taught, illegitimate, Creole woman and as a nun subject to the authority of male religious leaders, she was also socially marginal within that world. Like other early modern women she took up the pen to challenge gendered norms of the time. In style and content her works, which draw on baroque stylistics, classical...

Manuel Puig's 1976 Kiss of the Spider Woman, translated into English in 1979 and adapted as an Academy Award-winning film, expanded the idiom of the novel (mixing cinema, fiction, romance, and song) and challenged the third-person narration that was dominant in Latin American Boom fiction. Students are drawn to the conversational style of the novel and the melodramatic seductions of the tale, but they need guidance to appreciate the novel's richness as a work of literature. This volume of the MLA's Approaches to Teaching series suggests ways instructors can help students grasp the...

"Lasting Change in Foreign Language Education" presents a historical account of foreign language in general education. The author examines the struggle of this subject discipline to align with the changing mission of secondary education as it emerged as the predominant institution enrolling students in the study of second languages. This 100-year history suggests trends persistent across major periods of reform to explain current problems in the expansion of learning opportunities in foreign language. Included is a complete database of education statistics on foreign language education and...

The Art of Teaching Spanish explores in-depth the findings of research in second language acquisition (SLA) and other language-related fields and translates those findings into practical pedagogical tools for current--and future--Spanish-language instructors. This volume addresses how theoretical frameworks affect the application of research findings to the teaching of Spanish, how logistical factors affect the way research findings can be applied to teach Spanish, and how findings from Spanish SLA research would be applicable to Spanish second language teaching and represented in...

This reader's theatre compilation of contemporary, humorous plays that deal with the problems middle-school students face is similar to the author's previous Teacher Ideas Press title, "Just Deal With It " The plays in "All Year Long " are themed to fit special times of year such as the beginning of school, holidays, and spring vacation and address problems experienced by this age group--peer pressure, fear of failure, jealousy, and more. Each reproducible play offers at least eight roles (boys and girls). Each includes a plot summary, prop list, and costume and presentation ideas, as well...

Written for children reading at first and second grade levels, this readers theatre book uses Mother Goose rhymes as its basis, making it especially valuable to teachers and librarians working on building fluency skills in their beginning readers. The book offers plays based on well-known rhymes, complete with presentation and instructional follow up suggestions. The author also offers staging diagrams that enable teachers to use each script with entire classrooms of students, and he includes lists of further teaching resources for each play as well. Reading levels are based on accepted...

This book, focusing on active, engaging material, will fill a void in the literature that currently exists for these students, their teachers, and literacy coaches. Readers theatre for boys and particularly middle school boys is a publishing gap that needs to be filled. Selections have been chosen to tempt middle school boys interest (the blood and gore in Masque of the Red Death for example). Literacy remains a major topic of concern in all academic circles, especially the inadequate performance of reading and writing by boys. These scripts will entertain as they build reading fluency....

Using the approach based on a Harvard study that found when the whole body is involved, the number of brain cells brought to the learning activity doubles, the author offers over one hundred kinesthetic activities. These are organized by content area and include number of players, objective and procedures, and nonfiction reading suggestions. Many activities are in game and/or dramatic presentation format. Students are asked to solve real life problems, create circle stories, create original excuses using science vocabulary, assume the role of eyewitness to historical events, and much, much...

This book discusses the existing sociolinguistic order in Africa, how it is sustained, how it might be changed to the advantage of those who are dominated by it and, most importantly, how it affects the development potential of the Continent. It raises issues about African languages that the average person is not always aware of. For example, why must the African child learn how to read and write in a foreign language? Why must all African doctors be trained in languages that their patient population do not understand? Why must African leaders address their people in languages they know...