Product Description
This thematic unit allows teachers of Spanish to train students to narrate stories in the past. Two authentic Aztec myths provide a language-rich setting for communication. The activities, stories and assessments are mapped to the National Standards for Foreign Language.

El sol y la luna explains why the Aztec saw a rabbit in the moon. Los novios is an epic tale that explains the origin of a two Mexican volcanos.

This unit contains everything you need: Standards-based lesson plans for each story prepare students for the language-rich myths that explain the natural world by offering a wide variety of pre-reading, reading, and post-reading activities that support the objectives.

In addition to suggestions for formative assessment, the unit includes a scaffold, rubric and guidelines for a final project. Students work in groups to create their own myth set in Aztec times.

The teacher handbook also includes copyable student handouts: story maps, student flashcards, sentence strips, and more.

We have included flashcards so that the students can practice retelling the stories and creating new ones with the characters. The color transparencies provide a rich backdrop for telling the myths, set in Teotihuacá ¡n and Tenochtitlan. We also include transparencies of the volcano and mountain so that you can project it large enough to give the students an idea of their size.

This unit includes animated versions of the myths told by our narrator, Eugenia Porello in lush and comprehensible tones. Each story comes alive on screen to help students interact with the text. Eugenia's students also show different ways to teach essential vocabulary ... Read more

Product Description
135 reproducible lessons on 58 topics, plus some basic grammar exercises for grades 5-9. It includes creative presentations of practical vocabulary; some communicative activities; an introduction to reading; functional expressions; easy and yet challenging beginning grammar exercises. Softbound, 8-1/2" X 11", 184 pages. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Not exactly "basic"
If your students are just learning Spanish, this is not a very good book. The "basic" lessons are given first in English, but graduate to Spanish in just a few pages. This is awfully tough for first-time Spanish learners and not really worth the value. I also wouldn't really call them "lesson plans", as they are just worksheets, not a method of teaching or activity. ... Read more

Product Description
These lesson plans, flash cards, transparencies and videos help Spanish teachers train their students to narrate in the past. Three authentic Aztec and Maya legends provide a language-rich setting for communication. The activities, stories and assessments are mapped to the National Standards for Foreign Language.

Standards-based lesson plans for each story prepare students for the authentic animal stories by offering a wide variety of pre-reading, reading, and post-reading activities that support the standard objectives.

In addition to suggestions for formative assessment, the unit includes a scaffold, rubric and guidelines for a final project. Students work in groups to create an animal tale told in the past. There is also an integrated performance task where students use their skills on a new story.

The teacher handbook also includes student handouts that you can copy for your class as needed: story maps, student flashcards, sentence strips, and more.

We have included flashcards and story props so that the students can practice retelling the stories and creating new ones with the characters. The color transparencies provide a rich backdrop for telling the stories. Each story has a different authentic setting in Mexico. Las orejas del conejo includes cenotes, dramatic sunken lakes. El león y el grillo takes place in the rainforest. Los sapos y la lluvia happens on the plains.

The DVD includes animated versions of the stories told by our Mexican narrator, Cristina Vargas. Each story comes alive on the screen to help students interact with the text. We have also included a sample student-made story. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Disappointing...
It would seem that this book was not written by people that understand TPRS thoroughly, but as an add-on to the main textbook in an effort to appear tuned in with modern teaching methods. The stories are short, with minimal visuals and the supporting questions are overly trivial. ... Read more

Product Description
This is a sample from this extensive book:1. What is Orthography?The science and art of the Letters of a language.2. Of what does Orthography treat?The nature and power of letters, and correct spelling.3. From what is the word Orthography derived?Two Greek words, signifying "To write right."4. What is a Letter?A character used to represent an elementary sound, or combinationof sounds.5. What is an Alphabet of a Language?A complete list of its letters.6. What is the origin of the word Alphabet?It is derived from the first two letters of the Greek Alphabet:Alpha and Beta.7. Where did the Alphabet originate?The English comes from the Greek, which was brought by Cadmus fromPhoenicia, about the year 1490 B.C.8. What was the first Alphabet ever used?The Hebrew.9 How many letters were in the original Alphabet?Sixteen.10. Where did the other letters originate?They have been added since the time of Cadmus, as their use becamenecessary. ... Read more

Product Description
"The following papers are published chiefly because they treat in a concrete and personal manner some of the principles which the writer has developed in two previously published books, _The Educative Process_ and _Classroom Management_, and in a forthcoming volume," ... Read more

Product Description
The following papers are published chiefly because they treat in a concrete and personal manner some of the principles which the writer has developed in two previously published books, _The Educative Process_ and _Classroom Management_, and in a forthcoming volume, ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A Necessary Voice of Dissent and Moderation
Once, William Bagley was known as a formidable critic of John Dewey and the excesses of progressive education. Since then, Bagley has been quite unjustly forgotten, even though much of what he foresaw has come to fruition. Lack of discipline has interfered with student ability to learn, over-focus on making lessons relevant to kids lives have created students who will not tolerate learning anything outside of their immediate interest. Under-focus on the tried-and-true method of drilling and fact recall have created students who cannot think critically because they have nothing to think ABOUT. Bagley saw all of this and spoke out about it. Now that much of his warnings have shown true, Bagley's work has become even more valuable.

First, do not get the wrong impression. Bagley was not a critic of all things progressive, and was certainly not a reactionary. He simply advocated that progressivism not be pushed to excess. We don't want to be Draconian OR say no to discipline; rather, we want to use discipline sparingly but effectively. We don't want to relentlessly drill rote facts into students OR say no to drilling fact, but rather, achieve a good balance between factual learning and activity.

The first several essays display Bagley's admiration for the teaching profession. (He was, himself, a teacher and principal.) "Craftmanship in Teaching" and "Optimism in Teaching" offer exaltation of teaching and a plea for teachers never to stop believing in the potential of students. The next few essays, such as "The Test of Efficiency in Supervision," are reminders that, just as in any profession, the scientific process of trial and error must and should be employed to find out what works in the classroom and what doesn't. In an age where Dewey dressed philosophy up and called it science (a trend continuing to this day in education via "Brain Based Ways of Learning") Bagley called out progressives in education for letting their zeal outpace scientific experiment and scrutiny.

The next essays are where we get down to the business of pointing out where progrsesive education often goes wrong. In essays like "Utility in Education," Bagley warns that taking a narrow view of uitiity in education (let's teach only what will help students find jobs) one is ignoring the fact that education is also supposed to teach lessons like the value of doing hard work (regardless of whether it is immediately interesting), and exposing kids to things they might not otherwise be exposed to.

Two other essays take on similar themes - "The Possibility of Training Children to Study" and "The New Attitude Towards Drilling" - warns that the progressive trends in education may make students happier, but often avoid imparting them with good habits like studying and memorizing, skills that, while sometimes boring, are necssary well past high school.

In all of this, Bagley offers a refreshing counterbalance to the education theorists of the day like Dewey and Montessori. Before ED Hirsch and even Mortimer Adler before him, Bagley was trying to warn educators that while progrssive education had many things to offer, we would be best not to extremize it (as we did in the eighties and nineties). I leave the reader with some of my favorite quotes from this book:
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Bagley on the importance of habit building in students: "The only full-fledged law that I know of in the educative process is the law of habit-building... I am often told that this "law" is fallacious. It has differeed from some other so-called laws, however, in this respect: it alwatys works. loc. 574]
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Bagley on motivation: "The best way to promote growth in either pupils or teachers is neither to let them do as they please nor to force them to do as you please, but to get them to please to do what you please to have them do. ]loc. 664]
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BAgley on the dangers of having students learn only what interests them: "The result was a well-established prejudice [in students] against everything that was not superficially attractive and intrinsically interesting." [loc. 484]
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Bagley on drilling: "What is needed, now that we have gotten away from the lock step, now that we are happily emancipated form the meaningless thralldom of drill for its own sake - what is needed now is not less drill, but better drill." [loc. 690]
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Lastly, Bagley on progressive education: "[I]f one wishes to winthe applause of the multitude one may do it easily enough by proclaiming some new and untried plan."

How true. How true.

... Read more