English-Spanish Dialogues for Advanced Spanish and ESL

Book excerpt: Spanish-English Dialogues is a collection of over 60 conversations ranging from fundamental topics (e.g., phone calls, introductions, and tools) to academic (e.g., Renaissance, Copernicus, and Newton). Revolving around a middle-class family, these conversations are presented in an easily accessible bilingual format ideal for classroom use, allowing the student to attain authentic tone, rhythm, inflection and volume in context. Throughout is a series of cartoons meant not only to enhance the vocabulary, but also to bring life to the dialogues. Choosing the dialogues most practical and interesting, the student can be exposed to an ample variety of useful vocabulary—lasting over a year at the rate of one dialogue per week. The introduction presents a variety of standard and innovative methods for presenting the material. Our goal is to breathe life into language learning.