Michael has a question about books. I defer to the greater wisdom of the group:
Hey Ben,
This is Mike Elsen-Rooney writing (I sent in my bio last week). As I’ve read the blog and searched through a couple other blogs, I’ve come across a bunch of book titles that people have recommended as kind of the basic books they would suggest reading as a beginner. I’m hoping to tackle some of those this summer, but I’m trying to narrow down the list of what books I should start with, and I was hoping I could get your take on it. I teach Spanish 2,3, and 4/Native Speakers, and next year I will likely be teaching AP instead of 4, so I’m looking for a range of materials. Here’s what I was thinking so far:
– The two Matava script books (mostly for Spanish 2, but could probably use with Spanish 3 as well).
– TPRS in a Year! and/or PQA in a Wink! Would you recommend reading both? It seems like there are a lot of PQA resources on the website, so I was curious what else or what is different in the book.
– Possibly the Spanish III/IV resources on Bryce Hedstrom’s website (they seem like extended examples of how to teach the more complex tenses via CI).
– A selection of novels (maybe starting with Esperanza, Pirates of the Caribbean, Nuevo Houdini, and I have an upper level one about the gang ms-13).
Do you think those books would be a good place to start? Do you have any recommendations for other good introductory books? Thanks so much, and I look forward to hearing from you.
Mike Elsen-Rooney