Mastering Spanish - 12 kazettával [antikvár]

INTRODUCTION The materials in this book have been developed to present Spanish as a spoken language, and the skills of understanding and speaking are accordingly emphasized. The method of presentation vill likely be new to students acq.ualnted vith more traditional methods of language teaching. In order to understand the materials, one must first understand the method upon which they are built. Method of Teaching The method is known as GUIDED IMITATION. There are two very important aspects of this method. First, learning a relatively small body of material so well that it requires very little effort to produce it. This is OVERLEARNING. The second aspect is learning to manipulate the sounds, sequences, and patterns of the language authentically. The important implication here is the reality of both the model and the imitation. The nodel (teacher, recording, etc.) must provide Spanish as people really speak it in actual conversations, and the student must be helped to an accurate imitation. Proniinciation The first two units are focused primarily on pronunciation problems. Drills on other aspects of the language are deliberately postponed because of the Importance of developing good pronunciation habits from the very beginning of the course. Pronunciation is extremely in^jortant. It is the basis of all real fluency. Aids to Listening If speakers of English were not so highly literate, it might be possible to teach effectively without reference to any written symbolization, but most students are much more comfortable if some kind of representation of what they are imitating is also available for visual reference. There is, of course, a traditional writing system for Spanish which is used in all parts of the Spanish speaking world. It is a very adequate system for its purpose, which might be stated as providing visual cues for persons who already speak the language. For pedagogical purposes, a respelling, or phonetic representation of Spanish is also provided as a means of reminding the student of important features of the pronunciation which the traditional spelling system does not provide, such as significant sound distinctions, word groupings, intonation patterns, etc. The phonetic sym-bolization may at first look unfamiliar and somewhat foreboding, but this very unfamiliarity is a healthy reminder that none of the English sounds (which are so easily associated with the familiar letters of the alphabet) are exact duplications of the Spanish sounds to be mastered. This is also, of course, true in the re-spelling when familiar symbols are used: the appearance of the letter t does not mean the familiar English t-sound is indicated. —