We all love stories.
In Contextos, students view, analyze, and converse about compelling stories and themes that organically emerge from the cortometrajes that serve as the foundation for every chapter. Highly contextualized grammar and language practice is presented in support of students' pursuit to discuss and think critically about the stories told and the people who tell them. By focusing on the stories' visual narrative and authentic cultural contexts as a means to language practice and acquisition, students become engaged and active participants in their language-learning process.
With highly interesting topics, consistent recycling of structures, and manageable groupings of thematic vocabulary, Contextos unlocks each learner's potential and sets students up for success and engagement in the Intermediate Spanish course.
Contextos is designed for 2-semester Intermediate Spanish courses.
About the Author: Michael Sawyer holds a Ph.D. in Spanish from Texas Tech University. He is a Professor of Spanish at the University of Central Missouri, where he has acted as Chairperson of the Department of Government, International Studies, and Languages, and as Coordinator of the Modern Languages Program. He founded and continues to direct the Missouri Foreign Language Consortium, a partnership of the language programs at five Missouri state universities. He currently acts as the Assessment Coordinator for the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at UCM. His research interests include second language pedagogy and Postcolonial literary theory. In addition to lower-division Spanish, he primarily teaches courses in Spanish composition and grammar, and Latin American civilization and literature.
Julie Stephens de Jonge holds a PhD in Spanish from the University of Kansas. She has taught all levels of Spanish language, literature, and civilization courses in undergraduate programs at public universities and at a small liberal arts college. Currently, she is a professor of Spanish at the University of Central Missouri, where she teaches film-based courses in Spanish and English, and is the coordinator of a yearly foreign language film festival for students in middle and high school. She is committed to the scholarship of teaching and learning and is particularly interested in second language acquisition, the pedagogy of critical thinking, and the development of reasoning about ethics through film and literature.
