Más allá de las palabras: Intermediate Spanish (review)

The challenges of teaching intermediate-level courses with students of different levels of proficiency and interests have been widely documented over the last ten years. Generally, third- and fourth-semester courses review grammar from the first year and integrate culturally authentic content with vocabulary and grammatical structures that prepare students for advanced courses or the fulfillment of a language requirement. The second edition of Más allá de las palabras certainly succeeds in addressing these diverse learner characteristics and instructional contexts. The first five chapters are organized thematically ("Nuestra identidad", "Las relaciones de nuestra gente", "Nuestra comunidad bicultural", "La diversidad de nuestras costumbres y creencias", and "Nuestra herencia indígena, africana y española"). Chapters 6 through 10 focus on the countries of the Spanish-speaking world. Each of the ten chapters is divided into four temas. Temas 1, 2, and 3 begin with effective prelistening/reading exercises, followed by a written text or a listening passage ("miniconferencia") presenting authentic and stimulating cultural topics that are appropriate and challenging enough for intermediate-level students. Postlistening/reading activities are well-designed. In fact, a pedagogically important feature that distinguishes Más allá de las palabras from other intermediate-level textbooks is the authors' emphasis on developing students' vocabulary knowledge and use in pre- and postlistening/reading activities. Students also practice functional uses of vocabulary (i.e., telling stories, giving advice, discussing controversial subjects, persuading) in "Vocabulario para conversar". The fourth tema of each chapter begins with a brief reading passage (interviews with authors and celebrities, literary works, and articles). This tema also includes a listening passage ("Ven a conocer") that explores high-interest topics in Spanish-speaking cultures.

Grammatical explanations are concise, yet thorough. Overall, the variety of high quality and thoughtfully designed communicative tasks for practicing the chapter grammar would enable instructors to easily select those activities that would be suitable for their particular learners and intermediate-level programs. Each chapter concludes with a "Más allá de las palabras" section that focuses on the analysis of literary works and the development of students' writing abilities for a variety of genres. "El escritor tiene la palabra" includes original texts from a range of authors (e.g., Isabel Allende, Pablo Neruda, Nicolás Guillén, Augusto Monterroso, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, and Inca Garcilaso de la Vega). Excellent activities that can either be completed individually or in groups not only focus on students' overall comprehension but also on their interpretation of each text. The authors provide a process-oriented approach to writing in "Redacción" and present practical guidelines for composing a variety of text types such as descriptions, narrations, expository and argumentative essays, letters to the editor, and journalistic reports.

In the preface (x) the authors point out that the textbook addresses the five goals of the Standards for Foreign Language Learning. In particular, the Communication, Culture, and Comparisons goals are effectively integrated in the tasks that accompany the well-chosen topics of the reading and listening passages. The content and exercises (classroom/offline and virtual/ online) also enable students to make Connections to other disciplines by discussing topics and concepts in science (e.g., Vieques, Puerto Rico), history (e.g., the indigenous, African, and Spanish traditions in Latin America), and politics (e.g., Cuba, the European Union). Given the integration of themes and exercises that clearly fulfill these goals, instructors will recognize that Más allá de las palabras prepares students to communicate with Spanish-speaking Communities in the United States and around the world.

The activities manual (workbook) provides abundant and outstanding grammar practice, listening, and writing activities that are fully integrated with the textbook's themes. For listening comprehension the workbook includes true/false activities, fill-in-the-blank exercises, and questions about the content of the passages. Other listening exercises consist of brief dictations and pronunciation practice with culturally authentic language (i.e...