Languages Textbooks

Yo puedo: segundos pasos

Contributors: Silvaggio-Adams and Vallejo-Alegre

Publisher: Milne Open Textbooks

Perhaps you remembered what the title of your book means from your previous experiences with Spanish. That is a great start! As you begin the equivalent of a second semester Spanish course with these materials, some of you might think about how long it has been since you studied Spanish while others may come to the class with some background knowledge. We want you to know this book has been designed with many types of learners in mind. Our goals were to address the need for students to achieve the ability to communicate in written and spoken form. We sought to address a common statement by students that may have previous experiences, be they from secondary school or another college that say, “I have studied Spanish for years and don’t know how to speak or write it.” We also sought to present a reasonable alternative to the expensive textbooks and online packages that don’t seem to be practical or relevant. We sought to enhance second language learning by creating our own materials that take a new approach, the flipped classroom model, to learning a second language based upon the skills that we deem most useful and that will enable our students to confidently express themselves in Spanish–tú puedes con Yo puedo 2.

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Yo puedo: para empezar

Contributors: Silvaggio-Adams and Vallejo-Alegre

Publisher: Milne Open Textbooks

You have learned two words in a second language just by reading the title of the book. Think about that for a moment and reflect upon your prior foreign language experiences. Often, students enter language classes with previously acquired skills, be they from secondary school or another college. Many say, “I have studied Spanish for years and don’t know how to speak or write it,” while others are a bit anxious about taking a second language for the first time, but all are overwhelmed by the expensive textbooks and online packages that don’t seem to be practical or relevant. We sought to change these common complaints by creating materials that take a new approach to learning a second language based upon the skills that we deem most useful and that will enable our students to confidently express themselves in Spanish.The text is designed for beginning Spanish language students. The pedagogical approach incorporates the flipped classroom methodology.

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Basic Hindi I

Contributor: Ranjan

Publisher: Michigan State University

Basic Hindi I is an online, interactive, and tech-enhanced textbook that promotes speaking, listening, reading, writing, and cultural skills. Each Chapter in this book has clear stated learning outcomes, a review of previous chapters, reading/listening sections, study abroad section, relevant grammatical items, and cultural notes. The pedagogical approach in the book is mixed and informed by the socio-cultural approaches and the generative approaches of the Second Language Acquisition theory. The mixed theoretical backgrounds match diverse learning and teaching philosophies and styles. Following the learning outcomes guided by American Council of Teaching Foreign Language (ACTFL), this textbook aims for the novice learners to attain intermediate low to mid-level proficiency level. The textbook incorporates pictures, audio-visual materials, and activities developed on the H5P platform to keep learners engaged.

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¡Que viva la música!: Repaso de conversación en español

Contributor: Corrales-Martin

Publisher: North Broad Press

¡Qué viva la música! Repaso de conversación en español, or Long Live Music! Spanish Conversational Review is an open textbook intended for conversational review, typically a fourth-semester Spanish class. The textbook is organized around nine different songs that provide students opportunities to practice, aurally and orally, as well as in writing, the main communicative goals and key grammatical structures learned in previous classes. It can also be used in similar high school classes.

(2 reviews)

Explorations 1: Grammar for the Experienced Beginner

Contributors: Caisee, Rueda, and Emens-Hesslink

Publisher: Open Oregon Educational Resources

Welcome to Explorations 1: Grammar for the Experienced Beginner. This English grammar textbook was designed for a class of Clackamas Community College (CCC) ESOL students who need only a review of the BE verb and are ready to learn the simple present and present progressive tenses. This textbook has four chapters. Each chapter covers a grammatical point/component/element. Chapter 1 is a review of the BE verb. The BE is special and has its own rules (different from other verbs). Chapter 2 is the Present Progressive tense. This is the tense we use when we are talking about things happening now or near now. Chapter 3 is the Simple Present Tense. We use the Simple Present Tense to talk about facts, routines, and habitual activities. Chapter 4 is a comparison of chapter 3 and 4.

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Her Şey Bir Merhaba ile Başlar

Contributor: Okur

Publisher: COERLL

Her Şey Bir Merhaba ile Başlar was developed for intermediate level Turkish language courses at the University of Texas at Austin. Intermediate learners and their instructors may use it for different purposes: self-study, classroom instruction, tutoring, or as a pastime. The lessons in Her Şey Bir Merhaba ile Başlar integrate reading, listening and viewing comprehension, writing and speaking practice, grammar, vocabulary, and cultural activities. Dozens of audio and video clips of Turkish speakers describing their lives, their culture, and their country support and enhance these activities. The Her Şey Bir Merhaba ile Başlar textbook, accompanying public Canvas course, and Youtube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOHyPBVzLiIwUFgXfxxkcvA) comprise a media-rich open educational resource (OER) developed by Dr. Jeannette Okur at the University of Texas at Austin and published by the Center for Open Educational Resources and Language Learning under the U.S. Department of Education Title VI Grant #P229A180003, with additional support from the UT Liberal Arts Instructional Technology Services and the UT Center for Middle Eastern Studies.

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Decoding the 1920s: A Reader for Advanced Learners of Russian

Contributor: Friedberg

Publisher: Portland State University Library

The materials presented in this book were developed for an advanced-level content-based Russian language course at Portland State University entitled “Russian Literature of the Twentieth Century: The 1920s.” Literature of this period is a major part of the Russian canon, but is notoriously difficult for learners of Russian to read in the original, due both to its stylistic complexity and the relative obscurity of its historical, political, and cultural references. And yet, this decade is crucial for understanding Russia – not only in the Soviet period, but also today. This was the period, when Mikhail Zoshchenko, Isaak Babel, Mikhail Bulgakov, and Andrei Platonov meticulously documented the birth of the “New Soviet Man,” his “newspeak” and Soviet bureaucratese; when Alexandra Kollontai, a Marxist revolutionary and a diplomat, wrote essays and fiction on the “New Soviet Woman”; when numerous satirical works were created; when Babel experimented with a literary representation of dialects (e.g.,Odessa Russian or Jewish Russian). These varieties of language have not disappeared. Bureaucrats still use some form of bureaucratese. Numerous contemporary TV shows imitate the dialects that Babel described. Moreover, Bulgakov’s “Heart of a Dog” gave rise, due largely to its film adaptation, to catch-phrases that still appear throughout contemporary Russian media, satirical contexts, and everyday conversation. Thus, the Russian literature of the 1920s does not belong exclusively to the past, but has relevance and interpretive power for the present, and language learners who wish to pursue a career in humanities, media analysis, analytical translation, journalism, or international relations must understand this period and the linguistic patterns it established.

(1 review)

Spanish I: Beginning Spanish Language and Culture

Contributor: Dean

Publisher: Humboldt State University Press

This peer-reviewed textbook is designed for the true beginner with U.S. college students in mind. It contains themed chapters, which are divided into 8 sections. Each section has its own set of learning objectives, and is further separated into three types of assignments, Para estudiar en casa (with detailed explanations), Para practicar en casa (homework exercises), and Para practicar en clase (paired and group classwork activities). The explanations and primary input are written to be easily comprehensible. The individual exercises are geared towards acquisition of form and function, and the communicative classwork exercises promote interpersonal exchanges between students. The digital copy includes some embedded audio files, and we are developing a website to house many more resources.

(14 reviews)