How to Learn a Foreign Language


Graham E. Fuller - 1987
    But it’s a lot easier if you know the hidden skills and techniques that experts know -- and use -- to learn any foreign language. In this little handbook, language expert Graham E. Fuller -- whose career has required him to learn more than a dozen languages -- shows how to take the steps that will make it easier for anyone struggling to learn any new language.That’s why How to Learn a Foreign Language is used by schools, universities, and independent language-learners throughout the world. Acclaim for How to Learn a Foreign Language:“Useful and entertaining.” -- The New York Times“It’s astonishing that no one has ever thought of a book like this before -- designed to prepare students for beginning the study of any language. This book is indispensable to anyone learning a first foreign language.” -- Dr. L. Michael Bell Professor of English and Foreign Languages, University of Colorado“This book could save a beginning student hours of confusion, and might provide some confidence that learning a language is normal and possible, even for someone like him or her!...Fuller has codified what many successful language learners have found out for themselves by learning languages...The knowledge that Fuller is writing from such vast experience can only inspire confidence on the part of the reluctant language learner.” -- Carol L. McKay, Modern Language JournalExcerpts from the Book:This book is for those of you who have never studied a foreign language before. And it is for those of you who have already had one painful experience with a foreign language and who hope to do better at it this time...This book isn’t just for people who like languages. It’s for those of you who have to learn a language for one reason or another...

Best Practices in Literacy Instruction


Linda B. Gambrell - 1999
    Offering practical guidance for literacy educators, curriculum development specialists, and other education professionals and policy makers, this volume considers how we can most effectively improve the quality and content of reading and writing instruction. Leading researchers and practitioners address the eight principles of best practice, providing the most current information on how to enhance students' ability to construct meaning from text independently, draw upon texts to build conceptual understanding, effectively communicate ideas orally and in writing, and develop an intrinsic desire to read and write. This timely book blends state-of-the-art theory and research with workable suggestions based on extensive hands-on experience in the field.

The Elements of Style


William Strunk Jr. - 1918
    Throughout, the emphasis is on promoting a plain English style. This little book can help you communicate more effectively by showing you how to enliven your sentences.

Push Has Come to Shove: Getting Our Kids the Education They Deserve--Even If It Means Picking a Fight


Steve Perry - 2011
     In this book, his priority is to help kids who don’t have the advantage of going to his school, Capital Prep.  He wants to save your kid, and the kid next door, and the kid down the street from getting a typical third-rate American education.  If you’re a parent who has worried recently about how depressed your child seems when he dresses for school in the morning…or how little of what happens during the school day seems to sink into her brain… or how much of your child’s homework is busywork, you need this book.   If you’re a teacher who is putting your heart and soul into the job but are surrounded by colleagues who are “phoning it in,” you need this book.  If you’re a committed, forward-thinking principal who wants to get rid of the faculty bad apples, but are continually stymied by Mafia-style teachers-unions, you need this book. *If you’re a citizen who worries about the $1 trillion-plus GDP loss that America suffers every year because our system of education doesn’t measure up, you need this book. In this solution-oriented manifesto, Steve Perry covers the full range of issues holding back today’s students.  He shows parents how to find great teachers (and get rid of the bad ones)…how to make readers out of kids who hate to read…how to make the school curriculum thrilling rather than sleep-inducing…how to conduct an all-important education “home audit”… how to “e-organize” if school boards and administrators aren’t getting the message…how to build a “school of the future,” and much more. The era of third-rate education is over.  Steve Perry isn’t going to let the fools and scoundrels get away with it any longer.  Push has come to shove!

The Uses of Literacy


Richard Hoggart - 1957
    First published in 1957, it mapped out a new methodology in cultural studies based around interdisciplinarity and a concern with how texts-in this case, mass publications-are stitched into the patterns of lived experience. Mixing personal memoir with social history and cultural critique, The Uses of Literacy anticipates recent interest in modes of cultural analysis that refuse to hide the author behind the mask of objective social scientific technique. In its method and in its rich accumulation of the detail of working-class life, this volume remains useful and absorbing.Hoggart's analysis achieves much of its power through a careful delineation of the complexities of working-class attitudes and its sensitivity to the physical and environmental facts of working-class life. The people he portrays are neither the sentimentalized victims of a culture of deference nor neo-fascist hooligans. Hoggart sees beyond habits to what habits stand for and sees through statements to what the statements really mean. He thus detects the differing pressures of emotion behind idiomatic phrases and ritualistic observances.Through close observation and an emotional empathy deriving, in part, from his own working-class background, Hoggart defines a fairly homogeneous and representative group of working-class people. Against this background may be seen how the various appeals of mass publications and other artifacts of popular culture connect with traditional and commonly accepted attitudes, how they are altering those attitudes, and how they are meeting resistance. Hoggart argues that the appeals made by mass publicists-more insistent, effective, and pervasive than in the past-are moving toward the creation of an undifferentiated mass culture and that the remnants of an authentic urban culture are being destroyed.In his introduction to this new edition, Andrew Goodwin, professor of broadcast communications arts at San Francisco State University, defines Hoggart's place among contending schools of English cultural criticism and points out the prescience of his analysis for developments in England over the past thirty years. He notes as well the fruitful links to be made between Hoggart's method and findings and aspects of popular culture in the United States.

Understanding and Using English Grammar: Workbook


Betty Schrampfer Azar - 1992
    Some of the new features are: Innovative warm-up exercises that precede the grammar charts and introduce points to be taught Structure-based listening exercises ranging from casual speech to academic content Academic readings that highlight the targeted grammar structures Greatly expanded speaking practice with extensive pair, group and class work Corpus-informed syllabus that reflects the discourse patterns of spoken and written English Audio CDs and listening script in the back of the Student Book The program components include the Student Book (Full Edition and Volume A and Volume B), Workbook (Full Edition and Volume A and Volume B), Chartbook, Teacher's Guide, and Test Bank. Click on "Course-Specific Resources" on the left for more details.For an online workbook, see Understanding and Using English Grammar Interactive.

The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man


Marshall McLuhan - 1962
    It gave us the concept of the global village; that phrase has now been translated, along with the rest of the book, into twelve languages, from Japanese to Serbo-Croat. It helped establish Marshall McLuhan as the original 'media guru.' More than 200,000 copies are in print. The reissue of this landmark book reflects the continuing importance of McLuhan's work for contemporary readers.

How You Say It: Why You Talk the Way You Do—and What It Says About You


Katherine D. Kinzler - 2020
    Race, class, and gender shape our social identities, and thus who we perceive as “like us” or “not like us”. But one overlooked factor can be even more powerful: the way we speak. As the pioneering psychologist Katherine Kinzler reveals in How You Say It, the way we talk is central to our social identity because our speech largely reflects the voices we heard as children. We can change how we speak to some extent, whether by “code-switching” between dialects or learning a new language; over time, your speech even changes to reflect your evolving social identity and aspirations. But for the most part, we are forever marked by our native tongue—and are hardwired to prejudge others by theirs, often with serious consequences. Your accent alone can determine the economic opportunity or discrimination you encounter in life, making speech one of the most urgent social-justice issues of our day. Our linguistic differences present challenges, Kinzler shows, but they also can be a force for good. Humans can benefit from being exposed to multiple languages —a paradox that should inspire us to master this ancient source of tribalism, and rethink the role that speech plays in our society.

What the F: What Swearing Reveals About Our Language, Our Brains, and Ourselves


Benjamin K. Bergen - 2016
    And yet, we sit idly by as words are banned from television and censored in books. We insist that people excise profanity from their vocabularies and we punish children for yelling the very same dirty words that we’ll mutter in relief seconds after they fall asleep. Swearing, it seems, is an intimate part of us that we have decided to selectively deny.That’s a damn shame. Swearing is useful. It can be funny, cathartic, or emotionally arousing. As linguist and cognitive scientist Benjamin K. Bergen shows us, it also opens a new window onto how our brains process language and why languages vary around the world and over time.In this groundbreaking yet ebullient romp through the linguistic muck, Bergen answers intriguing questions: How can patients left otherwise speechless after a stroke still shout Goddamn! when they get upset? When did a cock grow to be more than merely a rooster? Why is crap vulgar when poo is just childish? Do slurs make you treat people differently? Why is the first word that Samoan children say not mommy but eat shit? And why do we extend a middle finger to flip someone the bird?Smart as hell and funny as fuck, What the F is mandatory reading for anyone who wants to know how and why we swear.

Easy Peasy Chinese: Mandarin Chinese for Beginners


Elinor Greenwood - 2007
    Give yourself a Chinese name, see how to haggle in the shops and test yourself to see if you know the key characters.

After Babel: Aspects of Language and Translation


George Steiner - 1975
    In the original edition, Steiner provided readers with the first systematic investigation since the eighteenth century of the phenomenologyand processes of translation both inside and between languages. Taking issue with the principal emphasis of modern linguistics, he finds the root of the Babel problem in our deep instinct for privacy and territory, noting that every people has in its language a unique body of shared secrecy. Withthis provocative thesis he analyzes every aspect of translation from fundamental conditions of interpretation to the most intricate of linguistic constructions. For the long-awaited second edition, Steiner entirely revised the text, added new and expanded notes, and wrote a new preface setting the work in the present context of hermeneutics, poetics, and translation studies. This new edition brings the bibliography up to the present with substantiallyupdated references, including much Russian and Eastern European material. Like the towering figures of Derrida, Lacan, and Foucault, Steiner's work is central to current literary thought. After Babel, Third Edition is essential reading for anyone hoping to understand the debates raging in theacademy today.

When Breath Becomes Air: by Paul Kalanithi and Abraham Verghese | Summary & Highlights with BONUS Critics Corner


Summary Reads - 2016
    Paul Kalanithi. As he nears the end of his 7-year residency he gets the report no one wants, cancer. Now his forty-year plan is scrapped. The hopes and dreams he and Lucy, his wife, have held to are dramatically altered. In this book you will find the story of a man that seeks out truth and meaning in a very detailed way. From his undergraduate literary pursuits to his combined goal of neuroscience and surgery Dr. Kalanithi desires to connect meaning to every aspect of human life. As cancer becomes his story the reader will see the emotional decisions made about starting a family and continuing his beloved career. Dr. Kalanithi begins to see how his care for his patients would be altered as he experiences the treatments himself. Through every emotion Paul and Lucy share the love for each other and life. Inside this SUMMARY READS Summary & Highlights of When Breath Becomes Air: Summary of Each Chapter Highlights (Best Quotes) BONUS: Critics Corner BONUS: Free Report about The Tidiest and Messiest Places on Earth - http: //sixfigureteen.com/messy.

The Bilingual Family: A Handbook for Parents


Edith Harding-Esch - 1986
    This second edition contains updated references and new entries to the alphabetical reference guide.

The Story of Writing


Andrew Robinson - 1995
    They may wonder how, when and where did writing evolve? Do alphabets function better than hieroglyphs? And are we today, in the computer age, moving towards a universal language of signs and symbols?

Living Language Spanish


Living Language - 1988
       At the core of Complete Spanish is the Living Language Method™, based on linguistic science, proven techniques, and over 65 years of experience. Our method teaches you the whole language, so you can express yourself, not just recite memorized words or scripts.   Millions have learned with Living Language®. Now it’s your turn.     • 3 Books: 46 lessons, additional review exercises, culture notes, an extensive glossary, and a grammar summary—plus a bonus notebook    • 9 Audio CDs: Vocabulary, dialogues, audio exercises, and more—listen while using the books or use for review on the go    • Free Online Learning: Flashcards, games, and interactive quizzes for each lesson at www.livinglanguage.com/languagelab  To learn more visit livinglanguage.com.    The Living Language Method™  Build a Foundation Start speaking Spanish immediately using essential words and phrases.  Progress with Confidence Build on each lesson as you advance to full sentences, then actual conversations.  Retain what You’ve Learned Special recall exercises move your new language from short-term to long-term memory.  Achieve Your Goals Don’t just mimic or memorize. Develop practical language skills to speak in any situation.