Self-Esteem and Foreign Language Learning edited by RUBIO, FERNANDO

MLJ ReviewsEdited by JUDITH E. LISKIN–GASPARRO

University of Iowa

MLJ Review Policy

The MLJ reviews books, monographs, com-puter software, and materials that (a) present re-sults of research in—and methods of—foreignand second language teaching and learning;(b) are devoted to matters of general interest tomembers of the profession; (c) are intended pri-marily for use as textbooks or instructional aids inclassrooms where foreign and second languages,literatures, and cultures are taught; and (d) con-vey information from other disciplines that relatesdirectly to foreign and second language teachingand learning. Reviews not solicited by the MLJ canneither be accepted nor returned. Books and ma-terials that are not reviewed in the MLJ cannotbe returned to the publisher. Responses shouldbe typed with double spacing and submitted elec-tronically online at our Manuscript Central ad-dress: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/mlj

THEORY AND PRACTICE

COOK, VIVIAN. Second Language Learning andLanguage Teaching . 4th ed. London: HodderArnold, 2008. Pp. xiii, 306. $33.95, paper. ISBN0–340–95876–6.

Cook presents a broad treatment of second lan-guage acquisition (SLA) research and gives ita practical focus: the application of knowledgeabout language acquisition to language teaching.The primary audience is language teachers andteacher trainees. The author claims that the bookpresupposes no prior knowledge of SLA researchand, indeed, the content will be accessible to anovice. For the more experienced, the book goesbeyond foundational knowledge to provide a dis-cussion of current thinking on topics such as thedebate over the contributions of and preferencesfor native and nonnative teachers and the move-ment of English as a lingua franca.

The 13 chapters stand alone and, for the mostpart, can be read or taught in any sequence.Chapter 1 is a logical starting place, addressing

commonly held assumptions about languagelearning that will be relevant to teacher traineesunfamiliar with SLA research. Cook introduces as-sumptions such as whether it is preferable to usethe first language in the classroom, teach gram-mar rules, or expect learners to achieve native-like speech, which whet the appetite for detailedinformation on these topics later in the book. Thechapter also provides the rationale for the needfor teachers to be familiar with SLA research.

Although the sequence of the chapters mayvary according to preference, some are closelyrelated in content and are logically grouped to-gether in the book. Chapters 2 through 5 focuson how individuals learn grammar, vocabulary,pronunciation, and written language. Chapters 6through 8 treat topics related to the learner,specifically strategies, processes for reading andlistening, and individual differences. The finalchapters, 9 through 13, address classroom-relatedissues. These include interaction, differences be-tween native and nonnative speakers, learnergoals, models for teaching, and learner and teach-ing styles, respectively. Dividing the book intosections with appropriate headings would makethe thematic relationships among chapters moreapparent.

The features and organization within the chap-ters engage readers and support an active read-ing approach. Chapters are subdivided intosections, and each section begins with focusingquestions and key words. The questions activateprior knowledge and direct readers to examinetheir beliefs about language learning and teach-ing. Although questions are generally presentedin an open-ended format, readers will enjoy anoccasional minisurvey asking them to agree ordisagree with statements related to the sectiontopic.

In keeping with the engaged learning ap-proach, discussion topics, suggestions for furtherreading, and answers to chapter activities and ex-ercises appear at the end of each chapter. Thediscussion topics focus on the application ofknowledge to teaching. For example, the ques-tions for chapter 3 ask readers to analyze theapproach used to teach new vocabulary in a

302 The Modern Language Journal 93 (2009)

textbook, identify strategies they would encour-age their students to use, and decide how theywould teach specific high-frequency words. Theseactivities provide the opportunity for readers todemonstrate their grasp of chapter concepts.

A key addition to this edition is the inclusion ofa mouse icon directing readers to a text Web site.The goal of this enhancement is to supplementthe text material and perhaps to demonstrate cur-rency with technology-based learning. However,the icons can be distracting to those reading thebook without immediate access to a computer. Al-though the information one would find on theWeb site is sometimes evident, such as links citedwithin the text, it is often unclear why the icon ispresent or what related material one would findupon visiting the site.

The information on the Web site is not exten-sive, nor is its intended use evident. The authorstates that the key words presented in each sec-tion of a chapter are available on the Web site,but one is unsure if the site will list them or pro-vide additional words and glosses. This reviewercould not find them at all. Similarly, the purposeof providing a printable version of informationfrom the book on the Web site is not apparent.Overall, it is a disadvantage that the text doesnot always specify what will be found on the Website.

Cook admits his biases—that the examples heuses are predominantly from English languagelearning (as opposed to other languages) andfrom course books published in England. He alsoobserves that the book treats “only a fraction ofthe SLA research on a given topic” (p. 2). Theselimitations are evident. Most notably, the authorcites the approaches of his own course booksand selected others sometimes compare less fa-vorably. For example, Cook’s treatment of vocab-ulary learning makes no mention of the AcademicWord List and its rapid adoption in course booksor of the limitations of some vocabulary learningstrategies, such as using context clues. Although inthe note to teachers Cook promises summaries atthe end of each chapter, these are not provided,and they would have been helpful to synthesizemain ideas.

In spite of these limitations, the book presentsa solid foundation of SLA research in a practicaland approachable way and could easily serve asa foundational textbook for teacher training pro-grams or as a refresher for teachers in the field.

MAUREEN SNOW ANDRADEUtah Valley University

CHRISTIE, FRANCES, & J. R. MARTIN. (Eds.).Language, Knowledge and Pedagogy: Functional Lin-guistic and Sociological Perspectives. New York: Con-tinuum, 2007. Pp. xiii, 267. $150.00, cloth. ISBN0–8264–8917–6.

A claim to interdisciplinarity and dialogicality asa distinguishing feature of a publication has oflate become so frequent as to amount to littlemore than good professional manners. However,with their expansive exploration of the natureof language, knowledge, and pedagogy from twodistinct disciplines, systemic functional linguistics(SFL) and sociology, co-editors Christie and Mar-tin present a compelling and thought-provokingexample of what dialogue across the disciplinescan contribute to ways of knowing when it getsdrawn into and creatively wrestles with assump-tions, constructs, and consequences of its owndisciplinary home and those of the disciplinary“Other.” A useful conversation starts with a sharedfocus on a particular problem—in this case, edu-cational activity in the broadest sense. How thenature of knowledge is construed and how, inconsequence, its transmission is enacted in edu-cational settings has enormous consequences forsocial goods and the social good. In the presentcase, that construal emerged from professionaldialogue over nearly 40 years among the main ac-tors, Michael Halliday and Ruqaiya Hasan for SFLand Basil Bernstein for sociology. Contemporaryscholars in both fields are now honoring thoseearlier conversations, presenting readers with aconvincing contemporary example of a dynamictransdisciplinarity.

The book is divided into four sections,“Functional Linguistic and Sociological Perspec-tives on Education,” “Theoretical Foundations,”“Knowledge Structure: Horizontal and VerticalDiscourse,” “Fields of Discourse—Disciplines ofDiscourse,” and a concluding coda chapter.

Christie provides the historical context for theextended dialogue between SFL and a sociologi-cal perspective on education and sets the stage forthe book’s central theme, which is Bernstein’s the-ory of horizontal and vertical discourses and its re-finement in a theory that distinguishes horizontaland hierarchical knowledge structures. In chapter2, Karl Maton and Johan Muller detail Bernstein’sunfolding theorizing of knowledge, from concep-tualizing codes to what he termed the pedagogicdevice in its three fields of practice: production,recontextualization, and reproduction. At issue isknowledge in the context of cultural and social

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transformations and their consequences for cur-ricula and ordering social life. In the subsequentcompanion chapter, Martin provides a functionallinguistic perspective, using history and physicalgeography as exemplifying knowledge structuresin the humanities and the sciences. He does soby relating SFL’s central conceptual tools for cap-turing social context, register (in terms of field,tenor, mode), and genre, and their placementalong a commonsense to uncommonsense contin-uum, to Bernstein’s hierarchical and horizontalknowledge structures. What makes this potentiallyabstract discussion persuasive is Martin’s differ-entiated uncovering of the linguistic means thatrealize the vertical discourse of the sciences andthe horizontal discourse of the humanities interms of their preferred participants in syntac-tic arrangements, their nature, and their levelsof technicality. In a culminating grand theoreti-cal and practical gesture he links these discoursesto the control of grammatical metaphor, arguablythe most fecund construct of SFL, as “the socialsemiotic nub of institutionalized learning, educa-tional failure and the distribution of knowledgein our expiring world” (p. 55).

Chapters 4 through 6 expand the notion ofknowledge construction from a sociological per-spective. Muller tackles the two disciplines’ dif-ferent notions of hierarchy. Invoking Bernstein’snotion of grammaticality as a correlate to the con-struct of verticality, he suggests that they togetheroffer valuable criteria for determining the capac-ity of a particular knowledge structure to grow andprogress. The implications for the position of anyfield of inquiry in a knowledge society are pro-found. In chapter 5, Maton complements knowl-edge structure with distinct knower structures toanswer the question of what makes actors, dis-courses, and practices special or legitimate. Usinghis legitimation code, he analyzes the problem-atic position of music in the curriculum of Englishschools. One can see parallels to an equally bur-dened position for language learning in many ed-ucational systems. Concluding the segment, RobMoore reconsiders the much maligned canon as adistinctive activity within a social arena across timeand space, an instance of the sociality of knowl-edge. His argument differentiates between the adhoc and personal natures of preferences and thestructured character of the publicly shared inter-subjectivity of judgments within specialized com-munities that build on the systematic formationof a habitus. The result is an understanding ofknowledge that is neither relativistic nor idealisteven as it affirms that truth does not exist in afree-floating reality.

The section entitled “Fields of Discourse—Disciplines of Discourse” guides readers into di-verse areas of knowledge construction. ClarePainter’s chapter exemplifies how the earlier com-monsense horizontal discourse of a child ac-quiring the native language encounters its ownlimitations and gradually gives way to semioticpractices that increasingly privilege the semioticexperience enabled by language over the mate-rial experience of daily life. Christie and MaryMacken-Horarik consider how learning can bemade more coherent for students—a kind ofverticality—as they deftly uncover the largely in-visible assumptions regarding knowledge struc-tures, privileged learner “gazes,” and, mostimportant, language practices associated with dif-ferent realizations of the field of English. PeterWignell examines the social sciences as positionedbetween the sciences and the humanities byobserving how they privileged, at different his-torical times, more hierarchical or more hori-zontal knowledge structures. In a final extension,Kay O’Halloran takes a systemic functional mul-timodal approach to the previously mentionedBernsteinian notion of grammaticality. She findsfor mathematics and the sciences radically dif-ferent yet intriguingly complementary knowledgestructures on the basis of strong grammaticalinterconnectivity, a connection that encountersnew possibilities through computerization and in-creasingly diverse forms of visualization. The dia-logic coda chapter among the editors and Mullerand Maton lays out research prospects at the in-tersection of SFL and sociology while evaluatingthe present volume’s contributions toward thatenterprise.

The collection of chapters is likely to presentunfamiliar, even challenging reading. In theUnited States, SFL is only now being perceivedas a noteworthy theory of language for research-ing, teaching, and learning languages. Addition-ally, an awakening U.S. sociolinguistics oftenmisinterpreted Bernstein’s early formulationsabout restricted and elaborated codes, and ap-plied linguistics thinking hardly perceived his sub-sequent prodigious inquiry into the relation oflanguage, knowledge, and schooling. Yet, the sub-ject could hardly be more timely in societal termsand for applied linguistics as a field of inquiry.Diligent and open-minded readers can expect tobe richly rewarded as they join the far-reachingtransdisciplinary dialogue toward which the vol-ume beckons them.

HEIDI BYRNESGeorgetown University


LIDDICOAT, ANTHONY J. An Introduction toConversation Analysis. New York: Continuum,2007. Pp. 333. $180.00, cloth; $39.95, paper. ISBN0–8264–9114–6, cloth; 0–8264–9115–4, paper.

Instructors in applied linguistics seeking a coretext for advanced undergraduate courses, nonspe-cialists wanting to expand their knowledge base,as well as graduate students in related disciplinesneeding a manageable initiation to the subject willfind a clear, comprehensive option in Liddicoat’sAn Introduction to Conversation Analysis.

The opening chapter defines conversation anal-ysis, provides a succinct historical overview of itsdevelopment, and outlines the key methodologi-cal elements used. Here, as in most subsequentchapters, the author’s direct, unadorned styleallows him to convey much information in a rela-tively short space. This concise, transparent ap-proach will appeal to many readers, especiallythose aiming to assimilate unfamiliar materialquickly.

The three chapters that follow, which deal withtranscribing conversation, turn-taking, and gapsand overlaps in turn-taking, are equally accessibledespite the increase in complexity. A judicious useof subheadings guides the reader through theselengthier sections, and an abundant and variedselection of examples helps to ensure understand-ing. Liddicoat’s patient, step-by-step explanationsassume no prior knowledge about the mechan-ics of conversation analysis, thereby making hisbook a solid choice for an undergraduate cur-riculum. Although one would expect this featureto be a given in any introductory work, detailedknowledge of the subject can cause an author tounintentionally neglect the needs of beginners.

Readers will notice a considerable and abruptincrease in both pace and difficulty when theyreach the middle third of the book. The treatmentof three key topics—adjacency pairs, expandingsequences, and repair—requires close attentionto detail and, in some parts, substantial reread-ing to grasp all of the intricacies involved. In-structors can provide supplementary materials asneeded. The student using this work in a stand-alone capacity, however, may become frustratedwith the telescoped presentation of concepts andterminology surrounding such subtopics as as-sessments, insert expansion, and multiple repairspace.

Although this work results from painstakingresearch and extensive knowledge of the field,much of the theoretical and practical material in

Liddicoat’s text, as well as many of the examples,has been compiled from seminal studies by pio-neers such as Schegloff, Goodwin, Heritage, andJefferson. Although the relative shortfall of origi-nal scholarship may be viewed as a potential defi-ciency, a strong reliance on existing material doesmake sense for an introductory work.

A more serious weakness may lie in the age ofthe works consulted; most date from the 1970s,1980s, and 1990s, with surprisingly few publica-tions from the current decade. The book wouldbenefit from the inclusion of more contempo-rary research. Consider, for example, the chapteron opening conversation. Drawing on researchand citing examples from over 10 years ago, itfocuses almost exclusively on analyzing openingsin telephone conversations. Although Liddicoatconcedes that caller ID, which was unavailableto those earlier scholars, has changed what theanswerer knows before the conversation begins,he neglects to discuss the effects of other signifi-cant technological advances. The widespread useof cell phones, equipped not just with caller IDbut also with caller-specific ring tones and othercommunication enhancements, has dramaticallyaltered conventional openings in telephone calls.Given that many students use cell phones for allof their telephone needs, this chapter may seemantiquated and irrelevant to that group of readers.

Fortunately, An Introduction to ConversationAnalysis ends as strongly as it begins. The finalchapter on storytelling in conversation providesa welcome change from the often tedious fun-damentals presented earlier. Not only does thetopic itself engage the reader’s interest and imag-ination, but the author also provides just the rightamount of detail to encourage further study. All inall, despite a few shortcomings, Liddicoat has pro-duced a work that balances coverage with depthin a remarkably efficient, user-friendly manner.

HERTA RODINAOhio University

LIU, DILIN. Idioms—Description, Comprehension,Acquisition, and Pedagogy. New York: Routledge,2007. Pp. xv, 208. $40.00, cloth. ISBN 0–8058–6346–X.

Idioms is an accessible text written for students andprofessionals in the fields of English as a secondlanguage and applied linguistics. It is a valuablecontribution, as it thoughtfully explores pertinentresearch and encourages students to draw their

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own conclusions based on the theories and dis-cussions. The text is divided into three parts, witha total of 10 chapters. Part 1 deals with the discus-sion of idiom definition, classification, usage pat-terns, and functions. Part 2 investigates the pro-cess involved in understanding idioms and thefactors that affect comprehension by first lan-guage (L1) and second language (L2) learners.Part 3 explores idiom acquisition from both teach-ing and learning perspectives with a focus onlearning strategies for students. Each chapter hasan introduction and a summary, followed by dis-cussion questions that foster both inductive anddeductive reasoning. The key terms from eachchapter are in bold type, which draws the readers’attention to the new terms. The terms are alsofound alphabetically in the appendix in a usefulglossary for quick reference.

Chapter 1 begins with a discussion of the dif-ficulty for scholars to reach consensus on themeaning of the term idiom. Liu presents bothtraditional and cutting-edge research in linguis-tics on the topic and concludes that, despite theirdissimilarities, there are three descriptors com-mon to the theories that provide common groundfor a definition. There is some controversial re-search that makes sweeping claims for L1 and L2learners, and Liu does a good job of critiquing theresearch that does not take into account sensitivityto varying cultures and dialects.

Chapter 2 explores the many dimensions of lan-guage with respect to two complementary princi-ples and how idioms fit into language use. Theinfluences of context, register, and culture areexplored to demonstrate how some idioms thatare motivated in some cultures are not present inothers.

Chapter 3 presents the many hypothesesregarding successful comprehension and process-ing of idioms. Liu finds five major hypotheses re-garding idiom comprehension, and he concludesthat idiom comprehension is a complex processfor linguists. This chapter could have benefitedfrom more research involving the temporal con-straints on idiom comprehension, as with idiomsthat are dated and no longer have a valid or trans-parent meaning in contemporary society, even forthe native speaker.

Chapter 4 deals with the challenges that face L2learners’ ability to comprehend idioms. Researchon convergence with or divergence from idiomsin the native tongue are compared in an effort toderive strategies for L2 learners.

Chapter 5 explores the various linguistic andnonlinguistic factors that contribute to one’s abil-ity to comprehend idioms in both the L1 and L2.

Cognitive ability, age, and language proficiencyare among those that are explored in this well-considered chapter.

Chapter 6 explores the relationship betweenidiom comprehension and language acquisition.The age factor is further developed, and it is con-cluded that the higher one’s proficiency in thelanguage, the greater the comprehension of id-ioms. Although memorization is employed as astrategy for L1 and L2 learners alike, it is notthe most important component of idiom compre-hension or production. In keeping with currenttheories in second language acquisition, compre-hension precedes production with respect to id-ioms.

Chapter 7 deals with advice on how to selectwhich idioms to teach. Various criteria are pre-sented for use by the language instructor, whichalso help to classify idioms.

Chapter 8 presents macro-strategies for teach-ing idioms that the author collected from variousresearch studies. Charts allow for easy referencefor the preservice and seasoned teacher alike.

Chapter 9 provides in-depth micro-strategiesand teaching techniques, including a section onidiom dictionaries, that are varied enough togive practitioners many choices for their studentpopulations.

The final chapter is the briefest and it deals withassessment and error correction. This chapter per-haps could have benefited from the inclusion oftemplates and rubrics for sample assessment anderror correction activities.

Overall, the text is an excellent synthesis of thediverse research regarding idioms in both the L1and the L2. It makes an extraordinary contribu-tion to a field that has such variety in the inter-pretation of what constitutes an “idiom.” The textis an excellent choice for English as a second lan-guage, applied linguistics, and pedagogy courses,and it will make an excellent resource for studentsand instructors.

DENISE CLOONAN CORTEZ ANDERSENNortheastern Illinois University

LYSTER, ROY. Learning and Teaching Languagesthrough Content: A Counterbalanced Approach.Philadelphia: Benjamins, 2007. Pp. 172. $39.95,paper. ISBN 978–90–272–1976–3.

This text addresses the challenges, both theoreti-cal and practical, in teaching languages throughcontent. The author presents a synthesis of em-pirical research that has shaped content-based


instruction in the last 40 years, and he offers anew perspective for integrating language and con-tent in ways that engage learners with languageacross the curriculum. The focus is on researchon how classroom learners process a second lan-guage (L2) through content and how teach-ers and students interact to negotiate languagethrough content. Lyster advocates for a counter-balanced approach that integrates both content-based and form-focused instructional practicesaimed at encouraging educators in “meaning-based classrooms to consider ways of integratingmore focus on language, and those in traditionallanguage classrooms to consider integrating morecontent-based instruction as a means of enrichingclassroom discourse” (p. 2).

Content-based instruction provides both thecognitive basis for language learning and the mo-tivational basis for purposeful communication.This approach allows learners to acquire both sub-ject matter and target language at the same time,thus optimizing exposure to the target language.Lyster posits that L2 instruction in any setting canincrease its effectiveness by (a) integrating con-tent other than only language itself, (b) incorpo-rating ample opportunities for interaction duringclassroom activities, and (c) planning systemati-cally for language development (p. 2).

Although significant research in applied lin-guistics and second language acquisition has in-vestigated how learners can effectively engagewith language in content-driven classrooms andparticipate in problem-based tasks and mean-ingful language interactions, few researchersbefore Lyster have offered a comprehensive syn-thesis of research-based classroom instructionalpractices that interface language and content.Designed as a text for graduate study, Lyster sum-marizes the relevant research in subject matterinstruction and form-focused instruction, point-ing out the limitations of both. Lyster arguesthat content-based instruction limits the commu-nicative abilities of L2 learners, and he proposesa form-focused approach to supplement subjectmatter instruction. Rather than rely exclusivelyon an incidental approach to focus on form ina content-based language classroom, Lyster ad-vocates a combination of reactive and proactiveapproaches to form-focused instruction. A re-active approach would provide corrective feed-back or a more systematic intervention in re-sponse to students’ language production duringteacher–student interactions, whereas a proactiveapproach would involve intentional, preplannedinstruction designed to “enable students to noticeand to use target language features that might

otherwise not be used or even noticed in class-room discourse” (p. 44). According to Lyster,this combination approach would ensure contin-ued language growth in lexical and grammaticaldevelopment.

Chapter 3 focuses on processing languagethrough content via comprehension, awareness,and production mechanisms, whereas chapter 4focuses on how to negotiate language throughcontent by means of interactional strategies thatinvolve teacher scaffolding and feedback. Thethorough research-based citations provided by theauthor, which include brief summaries of the find-ings with an eye toward classroom application,make this book useful and unique. Numerous richexamples are provided that translate the essenceof the research results into strategies for the class-room teacher. Also provided are many examplesof how teachers can provide learning opportuni-ties in a content-based environment that expandboth the quantity and quality of language and thataddress both semantic and syntactic language pro-cessing. Lyster draws on past and present researchin cognitive psychology, second language acqui-sition, and applied linguistics to summarize thestate of knowledge about content-based languagelearning and he analyzes those findings that haveimplications for classroom language teaching andlearning. The work is scholarly, but it is madecomprehensible for a diverse audience throughtransparent language, numerous examples, andfocused research summaries.

Lyster makes a compelling case for integratingform-focused and content-based instruction withliteracy-based approaches and language across thecurriculum, all of which push the learners’ at-tention and focus in a way that balances theirawareness of both form and meaning “withoutsacrificing language at the expense of contentnor content at the expense of language” (p. 136).He supports his assertions and approaches withresearch from multiple disciplines. Lyster’s thor-ough synthesis of the research makes this textideal for adoption at the graduate level. Afterreading and reviewing this text, I adopted it fora doctoral seminar. It has stimulated deep discus-sions among the participants and will serve as avaluable resource in their professional library.

Lyster draws upon research from varied dis-ciplines to examine the systematic integrationof content-based and form-focused instructionaloptions that require that learners vary their fo-cus between content, provided through class-room discourse, and target language features,which are often left unattended. While pointingout the challenges and pitfalls of content-based

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teaching, Lyster offers research-based strategies,techniques, and approaches to meet these chal-lenges. He accomplished his goal for writing thistext—that is, to assist content-based programsto better meet the needs of changing popula-tions and assist teachers in adopting instructionalpractices that situate them in a more interactiverelationship with students and knowledge thatnurtures the relationship between language de-velopment and content learning.

ALEIDINE J. MOELLERUniversity of Nebraska–Lincoln

RISAGER, KAREN. Language and Culture Peda-gogy: From a National to a Transnational Paradigm.Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters, 2007. Pp. xi,270. $49.95, paper. ISBN: 978–1–85359–959–0.

Language and Culture Pedagogy is a theoreticalbook derived from an original volume in Dan-ish entitled (in English translation) The NationalDilemma in Language and Culture Pedagogy: AStudy in the Relationship between Language and Cul-ture (Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag, 2003). Italso supplements a previous book titled Languageand Culture: Global Flows and Local Complexity(Multilingual Matters, 2006), both by the sameauthor. The fact that the opening pages have asupportive foreword by Michael Byram, a key re-searcher in cultural studies in the 1990s, starts thebook off on a positive note.

The book is divided into three parts compris-ing nine chapters, which are followed by an ex-haustive 20–page reference section. The first part(ch. 1) is an introduction to the topics of lan-guage, culture, and national and transnationalpedagogy. It presents the aim of the book, whichis “to establish a basis for a change from a na-tional to a transnational paradigm in languageand culture pedagogy” (p. 2). The second part,chapters 2 through 6, presents a scholarly analy-sis of the international history of language andculture pedagogy (the first publication of thiskind), and the third part (ch. 7 through ch. 9)proposes a new framework for a transnational(as opposed to national) language and culturepedagogy to produce multilingual and multicul-tural awareness in a global context. Specifically,chapter 2 illustrates the development of culturepedagogy from the late 1800s in Germany withthe concept of realia to the 1960s in the UnitedStates, which led to the emergence of culturepedagogy as an academic discipline. Chapter 3introduces culture pedagogy in the 1970s with

points of departure in linguistics and in the hu-manities and social sciences. Chapter 4 deals withculture pedagogy in the 1980s with the assump-tion of the inseparability of language and cul-ture. Chapter 5 portrays culture pedagogy in the1990s, which focuses on the idea of interculturallearning. Risager discusses the perspectives of sev-eral scholars of intercultural learning, includingKramsch, Brogger, Byram, and Starkey. Chapter6 analyzes the status of culture pedagogy from theyear 2000 to the present, during which time thenational paradigm for language and culture ped-agogy was being questioned. Chapter 7 describesthe complexity in the relationship between lan-guage and culture from a transnational perspec-tive and defends the concept of languaculture orlanguage plus culture (Agar, 1994) because, asRisager puts it, “linguistic practice carries and cre-ates meaning, no matter where in the world it isused and by whom” (p. 170). Chapter 8 presentsa proposal for a new framework for language andculture pedagogy under a transnational perspec-tive, as opposed to what the author calls “thenational dilemma of modern language studies”(p. 22). Finally, chapter 9 summarizes the fun-damentals of a transnational understanding oflanguage and culture pedagogy in the form offour statements (pp. 236–237): (a) The target-language community is not confined to a nation-ally defined language area but exists in a linguisticnetwork with a potentially global range, mainly asa result of transnational migration and commu-nication; (b) the target language is never isolatedbut always exists in a local interplay with other lan-guages; (c) the target language is associated withan infinite range of socioculturally different per-sonal languacultures; and (d) the target languageis not associated with definite discourses andtopics.

Language Culture and Pedagogy is a significantscholarly contribution to the field of languageand culture pedagogy for two reasons. It presentsthe first historical account of language and cul-ture pedagogy, and it introduces the concepts oftransnationalism and transculturalism as opposi-tions to the traditional national paradigm withinlanguage and culture pedagogy. I strongly recom-mend this book not only to foreign language pro-fessionals (teachers and preservice teachers) butalso to teachers in other disciplines in the human-ities. This volume could be a critical contributionin a foreign language education course because itwould establish a basis for the implementationand understanding of culture pedagogy in thecontemporary classroom. I would like to finish thisreview by quoting one of my favorite statementsin the volume, which summarizes Risager’s idea of


the transnationality of language and culture peda-gogy: “States have borders, but languages do not”(p. 168).

LOURDES SANCHEZ–LOPEZThe University of Alabama at Birmingham

RUBIO, FERNANDO. (Ed.). Self-Esteem and For-eign Language Learning . Newcastle, UK: Cam-bridge Scholars Publishing, 2007. Pp. xi, 205.$69.99, paper. ISBN 1–84718–215–1.

Learner-internal factors affecting foreign lan-guage (FL) acquisition have been exploredextensively in the past few years, in particular be-cause researchers have come to recognize thataptitude for FL learning, when considered as apurely cognitive concept that is resistant to changeover time, combines with other learner-internalfactors. These other factors include motivation,anxiety, willingness to communicate, personality,language learning beliefs, and self-esteem. Theselatter internal, affective factors are highly un-stable. Alterations in them can be triggered bychanges in the person or the learning environ-ment or a vortex of other factors that interplaywith FL learning and life in general. In this editedvolume, the first book dedicated to the topicof self-esteem and FL learning, Fernando Rubiotakes on the issue of self-esteem and FL learning,exploring definitions, concepts, theories, and pastresearch on the topic.

The book has 11 chapters divided into threesections. The first section, entitled “An Overview,”contains two chapters that examine the conceptof self-esteem and FL learning. The first chapter,by Rubio, briefly discusses self-esteem as a conceptwithin social science and then narrows it down todefinitions of self-esteem that are relevant to FLlearning. He then positions the role of self-esteemin education and in the FL classroom. Chapter 2in this section, by Arnold, concentrates on situat-ing self-esteem within the notion of the learner’sconcept of self, which, she writes, in the classroominvolves two aspects, the internal characteristics ofthe person and the relational factors he or she haswith others in the class, the other learners, and theteacher. She then reviews self-esteem as an affec-tive language learning variable and how it shouldbe viewed in the FL classroom.

Part 2 is entitled “Theory and Research.”Its five chapters are a collection of one quasi-experimental study and four works relating thetheory of self-esteem to other affective variables

that contribute to success in FL learning. Chap-ter 3, by de Andres, describes a classroom-basedaction research project that she conducted in1996. Over the course of 10 weeks, first and sec-ond graders learning English in a private schoolin Argentina underwent a program to increasetheir levels of self-esteem for FL learning. Resultspresented include summaries of data from qual-itative questionnaires filled out by parents andstudents, as well as interview data from teachers.The next four chapters in this section review howself-esteem is related to (a) anxiety, motivation,learner autonomy, and information processing(ch. 4 by Avila); (b) personal and social identity(ch. 5 by Casal); (c) anxiety (ch. 6 by Ortega);and (d) self-confidence, willingness to learn, andidentity (ch. 7 by Fonseca and Toscano).

The third section, entitled “Implementationand Classroom Applications,” includes four chap-ters that offer practical tips for increasing stu-dents’ self-esteem for FL classroom learning. Thesuggestion by Wright in chapter 8 is that studentssummarize, discuss, write, reflect on, and tell andretell novel stories to promote personal identityand bonding with the values of the culture repre-sented in the stories. Chapter 9, by Arcos, presentsclassroom management tips to help students’ self-esteem, such as arranging class and group workin ways that promote participation, conductingcircle time, and assigning tasks that encouragestudents to focus on their feelings and loweraffective filters. In this chapter she outlines 12practical tasks that teachers can implement in theclassroom to promote self-esteem, such as havingstudents mime their feelings, create “I’m special”minibooks, create slogans promoting self-esteemfor the classroom walls, or write a classmate’s bi-ography. Chapter 10, by Julian and Dıaz, reviews10 similar activities for fostering self-esteem in theFL classroom, except that these, they state, are de-signed specifically for promoting the self-esteemof teenagers. Finally, chapter 11, by Leon, revealsa novel twist on classroom-based self-esteem re-search and theory. She suggests that the notionof self-esteem in the classroom has reportedly by-passed the study of teachers and their self-esteem.Teachers too, she asserts, need to build and main-tain their self-esteem, which is endangered bydaily teaching realities that are commonly outof their control. She lists tips for promoting self-esteem in the classroom—the teacher’s own and,correspondingly, that of his or her students.

Overall, the book is well written, especiallychapters 1 and 2, which review the definitionsand concepts of self-esteem and how it is locatedwithin the field of second language acquisition.

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The audience for this book is rather easy to iden-tify. As suggested by Elaine Horwitz, who wrote thebook’s eloquent forward, the book will be mostuseful for language teachers who are interestedin learning about the basic theory and under-pinnings of self-esteem and how they, as teach-ers, may be able to foster a classroom languagelearning environment that lowers students’ affec-tive filters. However, the book is lacking in severalaspects; for example, it does not include an index,a summary chapter at the end of the volume, orany solid scholarly research. Chapter 10, in par-ticular, is ungrounded theoretically and containsno references. Second language acquisition re-searchers interested in investigating the isolatedvariable of self-esteem may be convinced by thisbook to redirect themselves. There is more recentand robust empirical research within the areas ofmotivation, anxiety, and willingness to communi-cate, which this book describes as inherently re-lated to self-esteem. Self-esteem may be so volatileand so related to other affective factors that it maybe hard to isolate as a variable in robust empiri-cal research. In theory it is there, and in theorywe can promote it, but in essence, we may neverhave a valid way of measuring it or showing how orwhen it is increased, a methodological issue thatis reflected in this book.

PAULA WINKEMichigan State University

RULHEMANN, CHRISTOPH. Conversation inContext: A Corpus-Driven Approach. New York: Con-tinuum, 2007. Pp. 272. $150.00, cloth. ISBN 0–8264–9713–6.

Conversation in Context is an attempt to expandour understanding of the ways in which vari-ous linguistic, social, and physical factors inter-act to influence English conversation. Rulhemannutilizes the British National Corpus (BNC), a100,000,000–word (tagged) corpus of spoken andwritten English, to test the “adaptedness hypothe-sis” (p. 2)—that is, whether conversational speechis guided by the situational factors that affect howspeakers interact rather than by rules of gram-mar, rhetorical convention, or discursive formu-las. He employs corpus-based techniques (i.e., thesearch for and analysis of digitized transcripts)to determine whether situational constructssuch as shared-context (i.e., between interlocu-tors), co-construction), discourse management(e.g., formulaic phrases that mark important

conversational shifts), real-time processing (e.g.,fluency measures such as pause frequencies), andrelational management (e.g., deictic markers)constrain conversation.

The book begins with an overview of the un-derstanding that corpus linguistic research hasprovided about the ways that register, genre, andgrammar work to determine the types of linguis-tic tools speakers use. Rulhemann emphasizesthat this approach to linguistics has presenteddata on grammar and vocabulary that prescrip-tive or traditional structuralist approaches havenot considered. He then describes his data set(BNC) and the computational techniques he em-ploys. Following is a review of the corpus-basedconversational research that has motivated thefive situational constructs through which he viewshis data set (shared context, co-construction, dis-course management, real-time processing, and re-lational management). The next five chapters areorganized in a similar fashion: Rulhemann pro-vides an operationalization and an overview ofthe characteristics of one of these constructs, fol-lowed by a case study, to explore how well theBNC data set supports the construct’s validity asa predictor of conversational behavior. The phe-nomena on which he focuses are ellipsis, the roleof laughter, co-constructed relative sentences, theuse of like in discourse, the function of I says, anddon’t . The book concludes with a considerationof whether the adaptedness hypothesis explainswhat Rulhemann observes, concluding affirma-tively because the five constructs interact togetherto determine how interlocutors converse.

Although Rulhemann is careful to admit thatthe situational constructs he applies to his dataset are a starting point for understanding howconversation occurs, language researchers whounderstand both interactionist and socioculturalapproaches to conversational interaction will ei-ther find Rulhemann’s analysis to be too impre-cise (e.g., interactionists may find the interactionsrelating to discourse management lacking in thatthey do not include many types of interactions thatsuch researchers have documented) or incom-plete (e.g., socioculturalists may be disappointedto know that the construct shared context does notconsider the impact of institutional factors or per-sonal, nonlinguistic goals). Rulhemann’s attemptto account for all of the macro-factors that affecthow conversation occurs is too ambitious a taskfor a single study or even a single book. Further-more, second language researchers may be sur-prised to see that a book-length treatment suchas this one underutilizes most of the statisticaltechniques that we have come to rely on with


regard to hypothesis testing, which is the primarygoal of this book (i.e., to test the adaptednesshypothesis).

Nonetheless, language professionals interestedin an in-depth corpus-based introduction to abroad linguistic question will find the variouscase studies informative. The search techniquesemployed are straightforwardly described, andthe linguistic phenomena on which Rulhemannfocused are not obscure to anyone proficientin English (e.g., like as a discourse marker, co-constructed relative clauses: A: He went to thestore; B: Which made you mad, right?). In thissense and considering Rulhemann’s larger goalof accounting for the macro-factors affecting con-versation, novices to corpus linguistics who readthe book will gain an ample understanding of thisfield’s techniques and analytical potential.

JOSEPH COLLENTINENorthern Arizona University

BILINGUAL EDUCATIONAND BILINGUALISM

GARCIA, OFELIA, & COLIN BAKER. (Eds.).Bilingual Education: An Introductory Reader . Cleve-don, UK: Multilingual Matters, 2007. Pp. x, 301.$84.95, cloth; $34.95, paper. ISBN 978–1–85359–908–8, cloth; 978–1–85359–907–1, paper.

In compiling Bilingual Education: An IntroductoryReader (hereafter, Reader), editors Ofelia Garcıaand Colin Baker sought the contributions of 19other researchers and experts in the field of bilin-gualism and bilingual education to produce acomprehensive volume that addresses importantand timely issues. Collectively, the contributionsoffer a broad study of bilingual education from avariety of perspectives both in the United Statesand in an international context (Canada, theUnited Kingdom, Germany, Belgium, Catalonia,and the Middle East, among other regions). Theseperspectives—ranging from types of bilingual pro-grams, state of the research in bilingual educa-tion, to actual classroom practices and assessmentof bilingual programs—are grouped into fourparts. The five chapters included in part 1, “Vari-eties of Bilingual Education,” review the researchon language education programs and their char-acteristics, including immersion, dual languageinstruction, transitional bilingual education, andefforts to revitalize indigenous languages. Thissection could be useful to language practitioners

who face the challenging task of educating lim-ited English-proficient (LEP) students, as well asso-called minority children, through the valoriza-tion of their community languages. Part 2, “His-tory, Policy, and Politics of Bilingual Education,”comprises four chapters and offers a discussionof the language rights issues and ideologies sur-rounding the debate over bilingual education. Itpresents an historical overview of the significantlanguage policies and events related to the educa-tion of language minority students. Moreover, itexamines the sociopolitical context of bilingualeducation and the relations of power that ex-ist between subordinate communities and major-ity/dominant institutions. Professionals involvedin language policies and law will find this sectionuseful. The five chapters included in part 3, “Lan-guages and Literacy in Bilingual Education,” fo-cus on pedagogical issues related to immersion aswell as English education. Moreover, they addressa range of issues concerning the promotion of lit-eracy and bilingual literacy with linguistic minor-ity children in the school system. Part 4, “Issues inTeaching, Learning, and Assessment in BilingualEducation,” comprises five chapters that assess thesuccess of bilingual education by looking at class-room practices and the perspectives of teachersinvolved in the education of LEP students. Thissection also discusses the issue of accountabilitywith regard to LEP student achievement. Bothparts 3 and 4 seem relevant to school administra-tors because they make decisions with regard tothe continuation of minority language programsand are concerned with matters of accountabil-ity and assessment. Furthermore, the interactiveorganization of all 19 chapters, all of which endwith a “Questions and Activities” section, suggeststhat the editors intend their book to be used byboth students and developing teachers. Those sec-tions are helpful, as they broaden readers’ under-standing of the issues addressed in the chaptersby stimulating their critical thinking about theseissues and encouraging them to engage in theirown research.

Reader represents, in the editors’ words, “a bal-anced, comprehensive, and challenging set of ar-ticles” (p. viii). It includes contributions by someof the most authoritative scholars in the field (JimCummins and James Crawford, among others).Additionally, in this volume readers will find ref-erence to timely topics, such as the No Child LeftBehind Act, immersion programs, language em-powerment, research on second language acqui-sition, the English-Only Movement, California’sproposition 227, and others. The “Further Read-ing” section included at the end of each chapter

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is also helpful, as it refers the interested reader toother important works on the topic. All of thesecharacteristics make this book an important re-source for bilingual education professionals aswell as developing teachers. This volume can beused in tandem with Baker’s widely used book,Foundations of Bilingual Education and Bilingual-ism, now in its fourth edition. Reader appears tobe a good substitute for a volume also edited byGarcıa and Baker, Policy and Practice in BilingualEducation (1995), as several of the contributors tothe earlier volume are represented; among themare Tove Skutnabb-Kangas, Nancy Hornberger,Jim Cummins, and Maria Torres-Guzman. I planto add Reader to my list of required readings thenext time I teach my graduate seminar in bilin-gualism.

However, I was surprised not to find in Reader aselection by Stephen Krashen, given his strong ad-vocacy role with regard to bilingual education, orby Sandra Del Valle, who has written extensivelyon the educational rights of language minoritychildren. These are major omissions in a contem-porary volume devoted to bilingual education.

All of the chapters included in Reader werepublished earlier; thus, Reader is not new per se.Although the majority of the articles were pub-lished after 2000, Garcıa and Baker included achapter, “Bilingual Classroom Studies and Com-munity Analysis: Some Recent Trends,” which wasfirst published in 1992 and already reproducedin their 1995 aforementioned volume. A reason-able reader is left to wonder whether other validclassroom studies have been produced in the last15 years. In fact, the author of this chapter, LuisC. Moll, co-authored a book in 2005, Funds ofKnowledge: Theorizing Practices in Households andClassrooms, in which he discusses at greater lengthsome of the same ideas. I wonder if a selectionfrom his more recent work might have been abetter choice. Furthermore, I would have liked tosee both a glossary of important terms and con-cepts used throughout the text, as well as an indexof key terms and concepts. These two additionswould benefit the bilingual instructors and stu-dents who are the targeted readership.

These shortcomings aside, Reader is an infor-mative and useful volume devoted to the re-search on and practice of bilingual education, abook that researchers and practitioners alike willwant to add to their personal library and consultoften.

FLORE ZEPHIRThe University of Missouri–Columbia

WIGGLESWORTH, GILLIAN, & NG BEE CHIN.2007. Bilingualism: An Advanced Resource Book.New York: Routledge. Pp. xiv, 358. $135.00, cloth;$36.95, paper. ISBN: 978–0–41534–386–2, cloth;978–0–41534–387–9, paper.

This book, the ninth addition to the RoutledgeApplied Linguistics Advanced Resource Bookseries—a collection that now includes volumeson language and gender, translation, second lan-guage acquisition, and intercultural communica-tion, to cite a few topics—continues the precedentset by the other titles in the series in offering apractical, engaging, and accessible introductionto its subject.

Like the other volumes in the series, this book isdivided into three distinct sections: (a) “Introduc-tion,” which presents the principal concepts andissues related to bilingualism; (b) “Extension,”which presents and comments on excerpts of in-fluential scholarly articles; and (c) “Exploration,”which presents a series of thought-provoking prac-tical tasks. The seven chapters of the book—“Describing Bilingualism,” “Measuring Bilingual-ism,” “Bilingual Acquisition,” “Bilingualism andCognitive Ability,” “Language Attrition in Bilin-guals,” “Education and Literacy in Bilingual Set-tings,” and “Attitudes and Bilingualism”—are pre-sented once in each of the three sections discussedearlier. This structure permits a great deal of flex-ibility: The student or instructor may choose tofollow the order of the material as presented ormay proceed directly from the “Introduction” tothe “Extension” and/or the “Expansion” sectionsfor any or all chapters and thus pursue varyingdegrees of depth of treatment, depending on theneeds of the learner or the syllabus.

True to its objectives, the work is effective inengaging the reader in intellectual dialogue andthoughtful reflection. Each chapter in the “In-troduction” section, for example, begins with aseries of questions (e.g., “What is bilingualism?”“Does learning two languages affect the rate atwhich language is acquired?” “Can attrition bereversed?”) designed to help the reader antici-pate the material and to reflect. The engagementof the reader continues via frequent “Tasks” sec-tions interspersed throughout the “Introduction”section, consisting of a series of thoughtful ques-tions to help the reader summarize and synthe-size previously discussed material and anticipatethe next step in the discussion. The “Expansion”section, with its extracts of important articles on


bilingualism, continues this theme, offering fre-quent “Tasks” sections with questions based on thearticles, descriptions of bilingual contexts, and thereader’s own experiences.

A second objective of this series is the practicalapplication of the material. Although this focus ispalpable in the “Tasks” sections of the “Introduc-tion” and “Expansion” sections, it is in the tasks ofthe “Exploration” section, which move beyond re-flection questions and proceed to active researchvia projects ranging from short research reports tothe creation of actual data collection instruments,that the potential value of this book for studentsand instructors becomes clear. Similarly, the dis-cussion of the principles of ethical data collection,informed consent procedures, and an outline ofthe structure of a data report, all found in thepreface to the “Exploration” section, are welcomeand useful additions to the text.

Although the book provides a good overview ofthe essential concepts of bilingualism, the treat-ment of some topics (e.g., ethnolinguistic vital-ity, language shift, language planning, diglossia)seems to lack sufficient depth. Moreover, sometopics, particularly those related to the societalaspects of bilingualism (e.g., social network the-ory, Bourdieu’s concept of the linguistic market-place), do not seem to figure in the text at all.Indeed, the book would benefit not just from agreater discussion of the role of societal factorsbut also from the inclusion of a separate chapterdevoted to this topic. The lack of such a chapterresults at times in an awkward placement of sometopics, such as the inclusion of diglossia in thechapter on attitudes.

In general, this book offers a unique approachto introducing bilingualism, one focused on en-gaging the reader and encouraging further explo-ration of the topics treated. It would be a suitableprimary or secondary text for a university-levelcourse at the advanced undergraduate or grad-uate level. Although an instructor may wish tosupplement some of the material, the interactiveapproach of this text will hold great appeal forreader and instructor alike.

JOSEPH EDWARD PRICETexas Tech University

CHINESE

HE, QIAN, YENNA WU, & YING PETERSEN.Me and China. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2008. Pp.

xii, 317. $83.44, paper. ISBN 0–07–338578–6. CDsfree to adopters. ISBN 0–07–333252–6.

This book is intended as a first-year textbook forChinese heritage language (CHL) students at thecollege level. With an interesting storyline andauthentic texts, the book is culturally rich andlinguistically appropriate. It has come into beingat the right time. In today’s world of globaliza-tion and economical competition, non-Englishheritage language (HL) proficiency is in greatdemand. In response, HL teaching materials areabundant in some of the major languages such asSpanish; however, they are still scarce in Chinese.With few examples to follow, the authors, however,manage to create a carefully conceived and well-targeted textbook that is evidence of their under-standing of the characteristics of CHL learning.

As stated in the preface, this textbook is for stu-dents who have substantial listening and speak-ing skills to conduct everyday conversations butwhose reading and writing abilities are still at thebeginning level (p. vii). This statement reflects theskewed character of CHL development, in whichlearners have early exposure to their first lan-guage (L1), receive primary literacy instruction inEnglish at school, and use rudimentary Chineseat home. These students bring an imbalanced setof linguistic skills to the Chinese language class-room.

Me and China consists of four major compo-nents: An introduction and Units 1–3. The intro-duction gives an account of the Romanization,the spelling rules, and the basics of Chinese char-acters. Units 1–3 include 16 lessons with topicsfocused on China, Chinese culture, and Chinesepeople. Unit 1 has five lessons that are focusedon CHL students or their unique identity, fam-ily, and school life, with text titles such as ,

, , , and . Unit 2 con-tains 5 lessons focused on Chinese history, China’spopulation, geographical areas, ethnic groups,Chinese script, and family names, with text titlessuch as , , , ,and . Unit 3 presents six lessons fo-cused on Chinese culture, ways of addressingeach other, preference to modesty, and changesin values and concepts, with text titles such as

, “ " , , , ,, and .

Pedagogically, the book demonstrates a num-ber of strengths. First, it starts at a higher leveland moves at a faster pace than textbooks fortrue beginners, with higher level discourse and

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more advanced vocabulary and sentence struc-ture. Second, the vocabulary words are carefullychosen, and sentence patterns are modified. Eachlesson includes a text, a vocabulary list, strokes andstroke order, grammar notes, a reading passage,and a variety of exercises. The book’s organiza-tion facilitates teaching and learning. Third, themajority of the texts in this book are narratives,with conversations appropriately embedded. Thispractice observes recent CHL research, which hasfound that current textbooks largely neglect writ-ten discourse and has suggested that both writtenand oral discourse be appropriately represented.Fourth, the book has accompanying CDs that willhelp students to study in and out of the class-room. Finally, its reputation as a difficult languagehas intimidated potential learners of Chinese andhas hampered the development of resources andmaterials. Apparently with this drawback in sight,the authors present a range of contexts and ac-tivities, which are supported by discussion topicsand questions to help teachers engage students inimproving their interpersonal, interpretive, andpresentational skills.

As the first of its kind, it would be impracti-cal to expect the book to be perfect. From theperspective of a CHL researcher and teachingpractitioner, I point out some areas that needimprovement. First, the complexity of characters,sentence patterns, and texts advance between thelessons at a faster pace than most CHL beginnerscan handle. I asked a number of my intermedi-ate CHL students to underline, lesson by lesson,new characters or phrases they did not know. Bylesson 5, these students reported 15% of the char-acters as new, and by lesson 10, they reported that25% or more of the phrases or expressions hadknown characters but unknown meanings. By les-son 15, they could hardly continue, saying thatthe book was “too difficult for intermediate stu-dents” without realizing that it was intended forbeginners. Next, although one of the four pur-poses of this book is “to visit China” (p. vii), itoffers little specific information to help Americanstudents anticipate and move quickly past the cul-tural shocks they would encounter when living inChina, such as how to manage public transporta-tion, how to find items in a store, how to bargain,how to ask for directions, and how to order foodin a restaurant. The next generation of textbooksfor CHL learners should take into account notonly students’ prior linguistic knowledge but alsotheir challenges in real life.

YUN XIAOBryant University

KUO, JANE C. M. Open for Business: Lessons inChinese Commerce for the New Millennium Vol. 2.2nd ed. Boston: Cheng & Tsui, 2008. Pp. v, 412.$52.95, paper. ISBN 978–0–88727–626–2. AudioCDs, $45.95. ISBN 978–0–88727–410–7. Answerkey, free to download. Conversations DVD andtranscript Vols. 1 and 2, $41.95. ISBN 978–0–88727–500–5.

Open for Business is a two-volume textbook writtenfor advanced-level college students to help themunderstand China’s economic development afterthe Open-Door Policy was enacted. The series isdesigned for a two-semester sequence. Macroeco-nomic reforms are covered in the first volume,and microeconomic reforms are covered in thesecond volume. Each book consists of seven chap-ters, and each chapter contains between two andfive lessons, which are focused on the theme ofthe chapter. Each lesson consists of five distinctparts: a main text, background information, a vo-cabulary list, a linguistic section with explanationsof expressions and patterns, and a section on syn-onyms. Kuo provides students with English trans-lations of the main text, background information,and sample sentences in the linguistic sections.Each lesson also contains a variety of linguisticexercises, as well as relevant discussion questions.This review covers the second edition of volume 2(vol. 1, 2nd ed. was published in 2004).

In chapter 1, entitled “Open Door Policy,” theauthor introduces the beginning of private en-terprises and special economic zones in China.In chapter 2, “Development of Finance,” the au-thor explains the Chinese banking systems andthe pioneering of the Chinese stock exchange inShanghai and Shenzhen. The next three chapters(3 through 5) present issues related to market-ing, management, and foreign trade. In chapter6, “Pillar Industries,” students learn about the ma-jor sunrise industries in China, including the in-formation, automotive, real estate, insurance, andmedical industries. Chapter 7 concludes the book,with topics about environmental protection, Inter-net businesses, and the protection of intellectualproperty.

Throughout the book, the author presentsstudents with a comprehensive overview of theChinese business world from 1978 to the begin-ning of the 21st century. The thoughtful selectionand sequence of the themes reflects the author’sextensive experience in teaching business Chi-nese courses, as well as her in-depth knowledgeof the subject. Students who have no prior com-petence with business Chinese can utilize this


textbook to master a substantial amount of busi-ness terminology and gain knowledge of businessdevelopment in China during the last two decadesof the 20th century. Each main reading text in thetextbook is brief and student-friendly. It containsa one-page (400–450 characters) main text, fol-lowed by an English translation. The audio CDsoffer students clear pronunciation of the lessontexts and sample sentences. This learning toolcan enhance learners’ reading as well as listeningskills. The book is also teacher friendly becauseof its vocabulary list, accurate and complete En-glish translations, sample sentences, lesson exer-cises with answer keys, and complementary audioCDs. Students and teachers alike will enjoy thephotos of China taken by the author, as well as ap-preciate the readable font size. Open for Businessbenefits students by giving them a broad under-standing of the Chinese business world throughan intensive reading of the texts. The textbookbenefits teachers who teach such courses by givingthem the luxury of a plethora of suitable materi-als. In terms of convenience, the weight and sizeof the textbook are not overwhelming, making iteasy for students and teachers to carry it with themevery day. The moderate price of the textbook isan added bonus.

This textbook is not without its flaws. A majorpedagogical shortcoming of Open for Business isthe imbalance between the focus on business con-tent and the focus on linguistic accuracy. For ex-ample, chapter 1, lesson 1 includes only a pageand a half of business content, but it devotesnine pages to the usage of new words and syn-onyms. In the corresponding exercises, there arefour sections of linguistic exercises and only onesection related to business content. The designof the lesson may exclude students from gainingcommunicative competence as well as deny themopportunities for critical thinking. Although thethorough linguistic analysis and practice of syn-onyms has its merits, without preparing studentsto conduct business in China, to efficiently analyzebusiness information, or to improve communica-tive skills, much will be missed. The repertoireof each lesson could be expanded by adding asection that combines business content and lan-guage use, compelling students to practice ap-plying what they have learned to real businesstasks. Such an additional section could consistof activities in which students explain features ofnew commercial products, translate English busi-ness charts and figures into Chinese, describe acompany’s competitiveness using company Website information, report business opportunities inChina’s secondary cities, or tell interesting storiesof successful Chinese and American CEOs.

Users of this textbook should be aware of its twoconstraints. First, although it is designed to buildprofessional knowledge and reading proficiency,the majority of students taking a business Chinesecourse are not taking the course merely to learnbusiness facts and business terminologies. If thelinguistic exercises are not expanded to includecreative business tasks, the learning experiencesof the textbook will most likely train business textdecoders. In other words, instructors need to de-sign creative task-based activities to complementthe linguistic exercises to enhance learners’ de-velopment in the four language skills.

Second, the business information presented inthe book deals mainly with business developmentin China before the new millennium. Teachers us-ing the book must constantly update students onwhat has happened to China after China enteredthe World Trade Organization in 2001. Even whileexperiencing the unprecedented global financialcrisis and current economic downturn, our stu-dents are exposed to media reports about globaleconomic issues and China’s relative financial sta-bility. Studying business Chinese in the currentenvironment can take students to the next level—comparing and contrasting U.S. and Chinesebusiness practices and enhancing United States–China business collaboration. When the teachersets the framework more broadly, in relation toglobal business policies and events, the businessChinese learning experience will be more excit-ing, memorable, and effective than practicing vo-cabulary and analyzing synonyms.

All Chinese texts in the book are presented inboth simplified and traditional characters to ex-pose students to both writing systems. I think itis sufficient to be able to write in one writing sys-tem. First, our students will type on computerswhen they write reports; second, computer tech-nology can change simplified characters to tra-ditional characters (or vice versa) with a singlemouse click. Therefore, I suggest that the tradi-tional version of exercises be eliminated in thenext edition to conserve paper and to lower thecost of the book. Regarding the supplementaryConversations DVD, even though the tool offersstudents a second opportunity to reflect on a giventopic, the DVD contains no multimedia materialsexcept two native speakers facing each other talk-ing about the text. Through PowerPoint presenta-tions, teachers could link their classes to currentbusiness news reports in seconds, and relying onthe unattractive DVD is thus countereffective.

Overall, the textbook is well written andthoughtfully designed. I will recommend the bookto teachers who teach Business Chinese coursesat the collegiate level. The author has put all

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necessary information in the book; it is up to theteachers to use the materials creatively and intel-ligently.

MIEN-HWA CHIANGUniversity of Pennsylvania

NING, CYNTHIA. Exploring in Chinese: A DVD–Based Course in Intermediate Chinese . New Haven,CT: Yale University Press, 2008. Pp. 322 (vol. 1)and pp. 283 (vol. 2). $40.00 per volume, paper.ISBN 0–300–11569–5, vol. 1; 0–300–11583–3, vol.2.

Exploring in Chinese (hereafter EIC), which fol-lows Cynthia Ning’s elementary course Commu-nicating in Chinese , is a DVD-based intermediateChinese program. It consists of two volumes, withthe first volume having 20 lessons and the secondhaving 17 lessons. The videos, which were made inBeijing in 1999, cover a variety of topics: makingfriends, making an appointment, ordering food ina restaurant, and shopping (vol. 1), and dealingwith personal needs (e.g., haircut, doctor visit),getting to know people and their lives, and get-ting to know the community (vol. 2). Each topicmentioned serves as a unit that spans three to sixlessons.

Each lesson consists of six sections: (a) pre-viewing activity; (b) first viewing; (c) second view-ing; (d) third viewing; (e) postviewing activities(speaking, reading and writing); and (f) a tran-script of the video segment. Within a specific sec-tion, viewing the segment more than once is en-couraged for the purpose of completing the tasks.The previewing activity generally involves askingstudents to predict the content of the video. Thethree viewings have different foci. The first view-ing focuses on the main ideas of the segment,the second focuses on supporting details, and thethird focuses on useful lexical items and struc-tures. The postviewing activities consist of threesubsections: speaking, reading, and writing. Thespeaking activity typically involves students’ talk-ing about their lives with respect to a topic closelyrelated to that of the video segment. The read-ing activity utilizes notes and letters and, in mostcases, asks students to figure out the meaningsof all of the new words. The writing activity typi-cally involves students’ personal responses to thecontent of the reading subsection. The transcriptof the video segment is given in four differentways: traditional characters, simplified characters,pinyin, and English.

EIC distinguishes itself from most other text-books by employing a new approach to the learn-ing of Chinese. Its communication orientationis seen in its reliance on unrehearsed and un-scripted video segments and by the speaking andwriting exercises involved in the postviewing ac-tivities. The authentic videos visually and vividlypresent to students aspects of contemporary Chi-nese culture and aspects of Chinese people’s cur-rent lives, thus making the curriculum culturallyengaging.

Another feature of EIC is its gradual cultivationof students’ ability to read both traditional andsimplified Chinese characters. Although EIC , likemany other textbooks, provides both traditionaland simplified characters for glosses, it goes abig step farther in asking students to consciouslyand constantly pay attention to the differencesbetween these two versions of Chinese writing sys-tem. In almost all cases, only one version is givenfor a note or letter that appears in the postviewingreading subsection. Although more notes and let-ters are written in traditional characters, the stresson the ability to read both the traditional and sim-plified versions is clear. Exercise 10 (vol. 1, p. 140)even asks students to match the two versions.

EIC also distinguishes itself from most othertextbooks by consistently giving a four-way tran-script of each video segment. By having tradi-tional characters, simplified characters, pinyin,and English translations all in one place, the tran-script is user-friendly and serves students’ needswell.

There are several areas in which EIC needssome improvement. First, the approach adoptedby EIC involves more work on students’ partthan is the case with traditional Chinese text-books because students need to figure out manythings inductively, similar to how children learntheir native language. For example, there areno glosses for new expressions that occur in thevideo segments. For another example, studentsare expected to figure out the meanings of thenew words in the notes and letters and then tocheck their answers against the glosses, whichare given later. However, the point is that adultcollege students do not have the linguistic envi-ronment or the amount of input that childrenhave. As a result, they should not be expectedto figure out most, if not all, of the new expres-sions by themselves, although instructors havethe responsibility of cultivating students’ abilityto learn independently. I suggest that glosses beincluded for the videos and that only a selectedand limited number of new words be used to nur-ture students’ ability to guess meaning throughcontext.


Second, and related to the general approachadopted by EIC , no separate section on the us-age of important expressions and structures isprovided for the video segments or for the notesand letters in the postviewing reading activity. Al-though the third viewing section focuses on usefulnew lexical items and structures, it falls short ofbeing a detailed explanation of how to use theimportant expressions and structures that appearin the video segment.

Third, there is a lack of focus on learning impor-tant Chinese grammatical structures (e.g., the ba-construction and the bei-construction) and a lackof systematicity in terms of vocabulary expansion.The units and lessons are arranged according tosituations and topics, and the videos are engaging.However, there is no systematic presentation andpractice of important Chinese structures, and noris there much systematic introduction of new anduseful expressions by following general principleslike their occurrence frequencies.

Fourth, although unrehearsed and unscriptedvideos offer authentic and lively interactions,they also have the shortcoming of includ-ing ungrammatical sentences from time totime. Although the author tried her best toalert students to such errors in the exercises,some still escaped her attention. For exam-ple, on p. 21 of vol. 1, ZHENG Cheng says,“ ” but the grammaticalform should be “ .”

Finally, two quick points and some typos: (a)The video segments for lessons 9, 10, 11, and 14cannot be played by some media players (e.g.,Real Player, VLC Player); (b) the words are in-audible or unclear in a few places of the videosof lessons 5 and 13; (c) there are some typos, par-ticularly with the use of simplified characters. Forexample, the character indicating the durative as-pect should be , not (e.g., pp. 82, 87, 111, 121,and 301 of vol. 1 and pp.107, 211, 272, and 282 ofvol. 2). For another example, the simplified ver-sion uses , not (e.g., pp. 16 and 31 of vol. 1).

Despite the above concerns, EIC is no doubt avaluable addition to the textbooks of intermedi-ate Chinese. Students will benefit greatly from itsmultimedia communication–oriented approach.The authentic videos allow them to vividly see thecultural and situational contexts in which Chineseis used, and they will engage students’ interest inusing the Chinese language.

CHAO LICollege of Staten Island, CUNY

PATON, STEWART. A Dictionary of Chinese Char-acters: Accessed by Phonetics. New York: Routledge,2008. Pp. xiii, 255. $44.95, paper. ISBN 978–0–415–46047–7.

Almost all Chinese dictionaries aim to lexical-ize Chinese characters either according to theirstrokes and radicals, which are character elementsin the conventionalized forms of the original pic-tographic characters, or according to the pronun-ciation of each character in pinyin, which is astandardized phonetic notation system using 26Latin letters to transcribe the sound of each char-acter. A Dictionary of Chinese Characters: Accessed byPhonetics (hereafter DCC) is different; it arrangesfrequently used characters together according tothe phonetic element they have in common tohelp users to establish and fix the link betweenthe shape and the sound of the character in theirminds. It is perhaps the first dictionary of thiskind published for English-speaking users, eventhough it also arranges its entry characters alpha-betically according to pinyin and has a stroke andradical index that assists users in locating char-acters in the dictionary. Although Chinese char-acters originated from sketches or drawings andthe most basic single-element characters are pic-tographic in nature, the majority of the charac-ters frequently used in modern times are picto-phonetic in nature; that is, they are compoundcharacters that contain a pictographic elementand a phonetic element. In the face of the scarcityof dictionaries that direct users’ attention to thephonetic elements of high-frequency characters,DCC is a welcome attempt.

However, it is no easy task to arrange frequentlyused characters by the phonetic element theyshare because there are at least three problems ofpresentation. First, a phonetic element may notexist as a separate character and, even if it does,it is often not frequently used. Second, a pho-netic element may exist as a separate character,but often a character that contains this phoneticelement is also used, sometimes even more fre-quently. Third, a good number of frequently usedcompound characters have no phonetic element.DCC tries to solve the first problem by listing thistype of compound character as entries and pro-viding the phonetic elements under the entries.However, not all phonetic elements of this kindare provided. For example, entry 248 is the char-acter gua, and its phonetic element gui is pro-vided underneath. However, for entry 514 nuan,its phonetic element yuan is not provided. It

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would be more useful and consistent for the dic-tionary to provide all phonetic elements regard-less of their frequency of use as characters. Itis less helpful and can be confusing to providesome phonetic elements and leave out others.DCC tackles the second problem by listing boththe compound characters and their phonetic el-ements as entries. It is helpful for users to haveboth a compound character and its phonetic el-ement listed as entries when a phonetic elementdoes not represent the actual pronunciation ofthe compound character that contains the pho-netic element (e.g., to list both bei and pı asdifferent entries), but it is unnecessary and canbe confusing to list both a compound characterand its phonetic element that represents the pro-nunciation of the compound character quite wellas different entries (e.g., an and an are listed astwo separate entries on p. 5) because this arrange-ment defeats the purpose of grouping togethercharacters that share the same phonetic element.Would it not be neat to save an entry by placing acompound character under the phonetic elementthat represents its sound well and is also a char-acter in frequent use? Would it not be easier forusers to comprehend and memorize charactersin the group that they belong? The third problemmay be the thorniest. If DCC is intended to bea dictionary that arranges characters accordingto their phonetic elements, then it should omitcharacters that do not contain any phonetic el-ement. However, DCC includes many charactersthat contain no phonetic elements, giving usersthe misleading impression that all entries in DCCare phonetic. For example, entry 487 mu (p. 86)has 10 characters (i.e., , , , , , , , , , )containing listed under it, but all of them have

as a semantic element and none has as a pho-netic element. The only character that has as aphonetic element is mu, but it is not listed, prob-ably because it does not reach the threshold levelof use frequency set by DCC . In addition to ad-dressing the first two aforementioned problems,DCC needs an overhaul to exclude characters thatdo not contain any phonetic elements when plan-ning a revised edition.

JOHN JING–HUA YINUniversity of Vermont

FRENCH

BLANCHET, PHILIPPE, DANIELE MOORE, &SAFIA ASSELAH RAHAL. (Eds.). Perspectives pourune didactique des langues contextualisee . Paris:

Archives contemporaines Editions/AUF, 2008.Pp. 210. $45.75, paper; $22.95 (preferential ratefor developing nations), paper. ISBN 978–2–91461–078–0.

This collection of chapters, which offers variousperspectives on the contexts of language peda-gogy, represents an important contribution to thefield of francophone language teaching, learning,and teacher preparation as it is carried out in theFrench diaspora. In this work, the situations thatare contextualized are those in which languagelearning and teaching are carried out throughoutthe francophone world, such that the reader is leftwith a nuanced understanding of how individuallearners and teachers, sociocultural norms, andspecific geographic locations play an importantrole in pedagogical practices.

This volume is divided into four main sec-tions preceded by an introductory chapter andfollowed by a concluding chapter. The introduc-tion situates the work within the historical con-text of both language pedagogy and of trends insociological research, particularly as it pertains topedagogy, given that the majority of the contribu-tions are written from a sociocultural perspective.The first section, Contextes migratoires, comprisestwo chapters, both of which offer case studies oflearners who have emigrated to Canada. Theyare of particular interest in that they give voiceto the primary stakeholders in language teach-ing and learning policies, notably to the students:African immigrants in chapter 1 and French as asecond language (FSL) learners in chapter 2. Inchapter 1, we are reminded that the diverse andplurilingual contexts from which students maycome must lead to individualized, differentiatedsecond language instruction. In chapter 2, we arereminded by the learners themselves that living ina plurilingual world is a complicated adventure.

The second section, Contextes francophones, ismade up of four chapters, each of which ad-dresses learning and teaching contexts in franco-phone regions and countries outside of France:Louisiana, Burkina Faso, Tunisia, and Algeria.Each chapter offers a useful overview of the lan-guage learning and teaching situation in its re-spective area for a better understanding of thecontexts, both geographical and sociological, inwhich second language teaching occurs.

The third section, Contextes europeens, is like-wise composed of four chapters, two of whichare devoted to specific geographic locations,Romania and Portugal, whereas the remainingtwo address the transnational issues of languageteacher preparation and the application of the


Common European Framework of Reference forLanguages.

The final section, Contextes numeriques, is repre-sented by only one chapter, which deals with on-line pedagogical training for practicing teachers.This final section could perhaps have been inte-grated as a chapter within the preceding sectionbecause the host institution is located in Europe(Grenoble, France), although the participants inthe course were French as a foreign language(FLE) teachers working outside of France. Nev-ertheless, the study described in this section is animportant contribution to research on the effectsof online teacher preparation and continuingeducation.

Taken as a whole, this volume highlights thediversity of contexts in which language learningand teaching take place throughout the franco-phone world. We are reminded that children donot arrive in schools, nor do teachers arrive inclassrooms, as blank slates. Instead, we find thatin many parts of the francophone world, childrenarrive in FLE classrooms with a plurilingual back-ground (as described in ch. 4 on Burkina Fasoand in ch. 6 on Algeria). We also find throughoutthis volume a rich discussion of the notion of con-text and what it means to contextualize languagepedagogy.

This volume furthers the goals of the Agenceuniversitaire de la Francophonie, an organizationwhose mission includes gathering and makingavailable resources published in French, promot-ing plurilingualism in international research, andpromoting francophone research and collabora-tion. However, the consequence of these laudablegoals is that this work is easily accessible only tothe francophone world. It is hoped that this workwill spark additional cross-linguistic collaboration,thus furthering the sharing of knowledge aboutprofessional teaching practices and about the con-texts in which those practices occur.

SARAH JOURDAINStony Brook University

WILLIAMS, ANN, CARMEN GRACE, & CHRIS-TIAN ROCHE. Bien vu, bien dit: Intermedi-ate French. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2008. Pp.xviii, 438. $93.50, paper. ISBN 0–0728–9759–7.Le Chemin du retour Instructional Version (DVD).ISBN 0–0732–5915–2.Bien vu, bien dit Workbook/Laboratory Manual . NewYork: McGraw-Hill, 2008. Pp. 292, paper. ISBN

0–0732–5913–6. Audio Program on CD. ISBN 0–0732–6121–1.

Bien vu, bien dit is in many ways a standard inter-mediate French textbook, with the requisite first-year grammar review, written and oral exercises,selected literary passages, and cultural content.However, what distinguishes Bien vu, bien dit fromtypical intermediate French texts is its organiza-tion around a full-length feature film, Le Cheminde retour . Originally conceived and produced forthe introductory French textbook Debuts (Siskin,Williams, & Field, 2007), Le Chemin de retour fo-cuses on a young journalist’s search to discoverthe circumstances surrounding her grandfather’sdisappearance in Nazi-occupied France duringWorld War II. As she seeks to unravel the mystery,she comes into contact with individuals from dif-ferent parts of the French-speaking world on herjob and through her travels, which take her fromParis to rural France and, eventually, to NorthAfrica. Students view the film in small segments asthey progress through the textbook, and much ofthe thematic, grammatical, and cultural contentof each chapter is drawn from these segments andis carefully integrated into the exercises and activ-ities, providing ample opportunities for creativewritten and oral practice.

The book is divided into 12 chapters, each fol-lowing a similar presentation: (a) introduction ofthematic vocabulary; (b) viewing of a segment ofthe film (Allons au cinema), including previewingand postviewing activities; (c) two grammar sec-tions (Structures pour communiquer) interspersedwith a short culture section focusing on oral ex-pression (Culture en images); (d) a Culture orLitterature section alternating across the 12 chap-ters; and (e) an optional reviewing of the film(Retour au cinema).

As stated in the preface, the goal of Le Chemin deretour is to capture and maintain student interestwhile emphasizing diverse aspects of the Frenchlanguage and francophone culture and, indeed,the focus on culture is one of the strengths ofBien vu, bien dit. In addition, the film is effec-tive in contrasting the differences between urbanFrance and rural France, and it is rich in scenesof the rituals and routines of everyday life, includ-ing eating, shopping, meeting people, socializing,and so forth. The cultural and literary sections ineach chapter, which at times feel somewhat out ofplace given the book’s central focus on the storyof Le Chemin de retour , present additional faces ofFrancophonie , including Louisiana, a francophone

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culture that often receives little attention in text-books.

Another aspect of French culture not typicallypresented in textbooks—the history of occupiedFrance in World War II and the Resistance—receives considerable attention in the book in theAllons au cinema, Culture , and even Litterature sec-tions in numerous chapters. Although this back-ground is necessary to understand the plot of thefilm, the focus on World War II allows little spacefor other historical content and sometimes feelsexcessive. Still, the presentation of the events ofthe war is varied and well designed, drawing onhistorical, literary, and cultural sources, even in-cluding excerpts from a diary of a young girl liv-ing under the occupation. In addition, the bookalso introduces a number of contemporary issuesthat may offer more interest to students, such asimmigration and racism in France, presented viacultural readings in a sensitive, well-consideredmanner.

Despite the emphasis on culture, the textbookstill seems dominated by structural content, withlengthy, detailed grammar sections. This treat-ment of grammar, albeit thorough and generallywell presented, nevertheless results in long chap-ters, which may make the textbook difficult touse in a one-semester course, unless the gram-matical content is treated outside of class. Thisformat is a viable option, thanks to the accom-panying workbook (available in QuiaTM version)and companion Web site. The grammar sectionis accompanied by an extensive set of interestingand creative communicative activities that, like theother activities in the book, draw extensively onthe film, providing more than enough materialfor classroom activities.

One of the more interesting and welcome as-pects of the text is its inclusion of stylistic variationand register, such as tutoiement . Similarly, informa-tion about spoken French is provided consistentlythroughout the book in short sections (Comme ledisent les Francais) at the end of the Allons aucinema sections, drawing on the dialogue of thefilm and contributing to the appeal to studentinterest.

With three-semester treatments of introductoryFrench textbooks becoming increasingly com-mon in university language departments, Bien vu,bien dit may not lend itself well to a one-semesterintermediate course, although such a treatmentmay be feasible with careful planning. Similarly,instructors may find it difficult to maintain stu-dent interest in the film over two semesters.

Despite these concerns, Bien vu, bien ditrepresents a thorough and uniquely conceived

approach to intermediate French. The integra-tion of the film into the grammatical, cultural,and linguistic treatment of the text itself is quiteskillful and well designed, and, as such, may wellappeal to the interests and needs of students atthe intermediate level.

JOSEPH EDWARD PRICETexas Tech University

HERITAGE LANGUAGES

KONDO–BROWN, KIMI, & JAMES DEANBROWN. (Eds.). Teaching Chinese, Japanese, andKorean Heritage Language Students: CurriculumNeeds, Materials, and Assessment . New York: Rout-ledge, 2008. Pp. vii, 346. $80.00, cloth; $35.00,paper. ISBN 978–0–8058–5877–8, cloth; 0–8058–5878–4, paper.

Heritage language (HL) speakers comprise asubstantial proportion of learners of East Asianlanguages in North America. As HL learners gen-erally possess certain levels of prior knowledgein the target language as well as unique learn-ing needs that distinguish them from traditionalforeign language learners, many teachers of Chi-nese, Japanese, and Korean encounter challengesin accommodating HL learners’ various languagebackgrounds and needs. This book, edited by twoleading scholars in HL acquisition, addresses suchchallenges in the East Asian language setting andprovides both theoretical and practical guidelinesand suggestions that can enhance heritage lan-guage curriculum and instruction.

The editors group the 12 contributions intofour parts: (a) “Overview”; (b) “Language NeedsAnalysis”; (c) “Attitude, Motivation, Identity, andInstructional Preference”; and (d) “CurriculumDesign, Materials Development, and AssessmentProcedures.” In the introductory chapter, Kondo-Brown and Brown point out that HL curriculumdevelopment is differentiated from other types oflanguage curriculum in that it targets a specificlearner group, and thus the development of anHL curriculum is similar to that of language forspecific purposes curricula (p. 7). Accordingly,several chapters of this volume deal with needsanalyses of target learner groups as an impor-tant component of HL curriculum design andimplementation. Chapter 2, written by the edi-tors, provides an excellent summary of previousstudies on East Asian HL needs analysis. In chap-ter 3, Kataoka, Koshiyama, and Shibata examine


Japanese HL students’ language and curricularneeds based on the data obtained from elemen-tary and junior high students attending hoshuukoo(Japanese language supplementary schools). Theauthors draw readers’ attention to their find-ing that, from the fourth-grade level, hoshuukoostudents’ Japanese abilities fall increasingly be-hind their English abilities and thus suggest thathoshuukoo curricula approach Japanese as a sec-ond language rather than as a national or a nativelanguage. In chapter 4, Hasegawa also deals withyoung Japanese HL learners, but in terms of mea-suring and defining their Japanese language pro-ficiency. Although Hasegawa does not illustrateconcrete ways or areas to measure in assessingchild HL proficiency, she provides a review of theavailable Japanese proficiency measurement in-struments along with some helpful tips and cau-tions in evaluating child HL learner proficiency.

Chapters 5 and 6 provide experimental datacomparing college HL learners with their non-heritage peers. After observing second languageacquisition patterns for Korean relative clauses,Kim hypothesizes that HL learners tend to dependon content and semantic knowledge in processingKorean sentences, but they lack the ability to no-tice linguistic features. Her finding sheds light onthe role of rule-based instruction in restructuringHL learners’ interlanguage for enhanced accu-racy. In the following chapter, Kondo-Brown andFukuda address the problem that most U.S. col-lege language programs offer separate tracks forHL and non-HL learners at the beginning and in-termediate levels but rarely at the advanced level,based on the incorrect assumption that thereis not much difference between the two groupsat the advanced level. However, their empiricaldata indicate that advanced Japanese HL learnersconsiderably outperformed their non-HL coun-terparts, which calls for the need and possibilityof establishing separate tracks at higher levels aswell.

Part 3 provides voices of HL learners gath-ered from survey and interview data. Lee andKim attempt to identify university Korean HLlearners’ attitudes and motivation in HL learn-ing with the goal of suggesting appropriate di-rections for HL curriculum development. Theyfound that HL learners’ motivation was stronglytied to their desire to maintain cultural and ethnicidentities rather than to achieve academic success.Consequently, Lee and Kim recommend that HLmaterials be content or theme based rather thanlanguage driven to suit HL learners’ interests andmotivation. From the questionnaires distributedto both heritage and non-HL learners, Yu found

that HL learners wanted to improve their writ-ing skills foremost, whereas non-HL learners setimproving their listening skills as a priority. Yufurther proposes a compromise curriculum to ac-commodate differing learner needs in classroomsthat include both heritage and non-HL learners.Although Yu does not provide a detailed accountof a model compromise curriculum or its assess-ment, he gives a general idea of how to applydifferent instructional strategies to each group:a macro-approach for HL learners and a micro-approach for non-HL learners. Weger-Guntharp’scontribution in chapter 9 is intriguing, as she fo-cuses on the affective needs of HL learners whohave had limited exposure to their HL. The low-proficiency HL learners of Chinese with varyingdegrees of ability in her study all self-identifiedthat the development of their ethnic identity wasa key motivation to learn Chinese.

The last part of this volume is a collection oflocal experiences of designing and implement-ing HL curricula. Douglas provides a curricularmodel for young HL learners in grades K–8 basedon instructional theories and approaches for childlearners. Her five steps of curriculum design arepresented using concrete examples (e.g., specificlevels, subject areas, materials) and sample assess-ments that are in accord with the state’s contentand language arts standards. In chapter 11, Wuintroduces her experience of establishing a cur-riculum for Chinese HL learners in a universitysetting. Among her suggestions are interactive on-line reading and writing exercises, activities andassignments that can connect learners with theirethnic communities, and a multifaceted approachto assessment. The chapter on online chat for HLlearners of Chinese by Zhang and Davis exploresvarious ways to blend online learning and face-to-face instruction for HL learners. Their action-oriented case study reports on positive effects ofsynchronous chats in developing Chinese literacyskills, as well as in generating meaningful socialinteraction among learners.

As the editors note (pp. 4–6), despite the factthat there are numerous community-based EastAsian HL schools in the United States and thatmany college East Asian language programs in-volve HL learners, little is known about East AsianHL students’ learning needs and effective EastAsian HL curricula. This book makes an impor-tant contribution to this underresearched fieldfrom both theoretical and practical perspectives.Although the book focuses on HL learners of EastAsian languages, pedagogical implications andinstructional strategies discussed in the volumecan be applied to other language programs that

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deal with HL learners or heterogeneous learnergroups.

As the volume covers a wide range of issues inHL instruction, there is inevitably a lack of coher-ence among chapters. Nonetheless, this book pro-vides teachers and researchers of HLs with usefulresources on current issues and future directionsin East Asian HL instruction.

DANIELLE OOYOUNG PYUNThe Ohio State University

ITALIAN

ITALIANO, FRANCESCA, & IRENE MAR-CHEGIANI. Percorsi: L’Italia attraverso la linguae la cultura. Upper Saddle River, NJ: PearsonPrentice Hall, 2008. Pp. 608. $124.00, cloth. ISBN0–13–193790–1.ITALIANO, FRANCESCA, IRENE MAR-CHEGIANI, CECILIA BOGGIO, & CINZIANOBLE. Percorsi: L’Italia attraverso la lingua e lacultura. Student Activities Manual . Upper SaddleRiver, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2008. Pp. 262.$66.67, paper. ISBN 0–13–154653–8.

The first-year Italian textbook Percorsi: L’Italia at-traverso la lingua e la cultura includes a Capi-tolo preliminare and 16 chapters. Chapters areorganized thematically and are structured aroundthree main sections: (a) Percorsi, which introducesthe chapter theme in three installments with vo-cabulary, exercises, culture, and grammar; (b) An-diamo avanti! , which further develops the chaptertheme through reading, writing, and viewing ac-tivities; and (c) Attraverso, which explores the ge-ography, history, and culture of Italy region byregion.

The presentation of vocabulary and the intro-duction to grammatical structures are effectivelyintegrated in the threefold Percorsi section thatopens each chapter. Chapter 2 is about students’life in Italy, and its three Percorsi lead learnersthrough a classroom, a university campus, anddaily school activities, respectively. Percorsi 1 and2 introduce new words with the visual aid of draw-ings, thus minimizing (if not eliminating) theneed for English and word-to-word translation.However, on the same page, a list of words is pro-vided. The vocabulary list is usefully categorizedaccording to the words’ communicative functions.Therefore, the classroom has objects (Gli oggettiin classe), people (Le persone), and questions (Ledomande), whereas the university campus displays

adjectives as words used to describe (Per descrivere)and to express quantity (La quantita) and prepo-sitional phrases and expressions used to define alocation (Il posto). Percorso 3 shows a definite pro-gression in complexity in the presentation of thematerial. The drawings show students perform-ing daily school activities and are accompaniedby a caption or a minidialogue that introducesthe verbs (labeled as Le attivita in the vocabularylist) in their conjugated forms in real-life languagesamples. Theme vocabulary is presented through-out the book with updated and appealing photos,artwork, and realia. The whole textbook displaysa wealth of carefully selected images. The visualappeal of Percorsi is tremendous and makes thetext and the material in it student friendly.

The grammatical structures included in Percorso1 of chapter 2 are the gender of nouns, the indef-inite articles, and the verb avere . This clever selec-tion is functional to a communicative approachand promotes the development of students’ com-municative competence because the grammaticalforms presented in each Percorso are the toolsneeded to practice the new vocabulary while per-forming the targeted communicative functions.The progression in complexity that informs thepresentation of the theme for the chapter is alsodetected in the activities that are integral to eachPercorso. Scambi, one of the components of eachPercorso, suggests interactive activities that requirethat students produce meaningful language, prac-ticing the vocabulary and grammatical formspresented in each section. However, the Scambicomponent in the last Percorso presents the stu-dents with the opportunity to combine all of thenew vocabulary and grammar learned from thebeginning of the chapter. The activities suggestedin this wrap-up section include a description ofthe daily routine of a college student by lookingat her agenda. The language production requiredby such an activity involves the use of the theme vo-cabulary, as well as most of the grammatical struc-tures acquired throughout the chapter.

The cyclical scope and sequence of the text-book, as the authors state in the preface, allowsstudents to develop language competence gradu-ally through the recycling of vocabulary and struc-tures. A noteworthy example is offered by thepresentations of prepositions and of direct ob-ject pronouns. Prepositions and their contractedforms (preposizioni articolate), along with all of therelative exceptions, are traditionally introduced inthe first semester of Italian and are often problem-atic to teach, learn, and use effectively in commu-nication. Percorsi informally introduces the prepo-sitions a and di, along with their contracted forms,


in chapter 2, when students learn how to ask forand provide directions. Prepositions are, however,formally presented in the sixth chapter. The an-ticipation in chapter 2 provides students with thetools they need to perform the specific commu-nicative function of identifying a location by us-ing prepositional phrases that require a and di(vicino a, a destra di, etc.), but it also helps to fa-miliarize them with the use of prepositions andthe patterns of contraction. Likewise, in chapter5, students explore the concept of direct objectsand direct object pronouns and practice commu-nication with a limited but most useful selectionof pronouns, third-person singular and plural (lo,la, li, le). Before a full presentation of all directobject pronouns is offered in chapter 9, studentshave the chance to review and expand their knowl-edge by practicing the agreement of direct objectpronouns and past participles in chapter 6. Suchrecycling and sequencing is crucial for the suc-cessful acquisition of language competence.

A noteworthy feature of the textbook is theadditional components that complement and en-hance the Percorso sections. Cosı si dice is a colorfulbox that provides grammar or linguistic structuresthat prove helpful for the communicative task athand, as well as answers to common curiositiesabout language and culture. The topics rangefrom stating phone numbers and area codes insingle or multiple digits to the difference betweene tardi and essere in ritardo. Lo sai che? explores thechapter theme with additional cultural informa-tion, ranging from customary handshakes and/orkisses in social exchanges in chapter 1 to healthassistance in chapter 15. These colorful culturalboxes are appropriate for the proficiency level ofthe students in the depth of information given andin the use of the language. The use of Italian inchapters 1 through 4 encourages an independentfruition of the information, whereas the use ofthe target language beginning in the fifth chapterpromotes the students’ reading skills. Occhio allalingua! elicits inductive reasoning with questionsthat lead students to examine the language mod-els they have been exposed to, thus identifyingnew grammatical structures. This well-conceivedactivity fosters critical thinking and the devel-opment of independent learning skills in adultlearners.

The most innovative feature of Percorsi is defi-nitely the focus on the development of the fourmajor language skills. The four components ofthe Andiamo avanti! section use a process-basedapproach to speaking, reading, writing, and lis-tening while exploring the theme of the chap-ter. Interactive activities such as role-playing and

group work in Ricapitoliamo encourage the pro-duction of language in real-life situations. Leg-giamo, Scriviamo, and Guardiamo offer outstand-ing strategies, along with pretask and posttaskactivities that gradually guide students throughthe steps of listening and reading comprehen-sion, visual literacy, and written communication.This remarkable attention to the development ofthe four language skills is reflected in the listen-ing comprehension activities (traditionally foundonly in the laboratory manual) in the Percorso sec-tions and, most important, in the Workbook, whichcombines within the same chapter the more tradi-tional written exercises with listening and viewingactivities.

By focusing on language comprehension andproduction, by connecting form and content ina theme-based cultural framework, by increasingthe understanding of Italian culture and promot-ing a comparison between cultures, and by fos-tering critical thinking and independent learningskills, Percorsi: L’Italia attraverso la lingua e la cul-tura successfully accomplishes the goal of promot-ing the acquisition of Italian language and culturethrough the integration of the “5 Cs” principlesof the National Standards for Foreign LanguageLearning.

MARGHERITA PAMPINELLA–CROPPERTowson University

PORTUGUESE

DAVIES, MARK, & ANA MARIA RAPOSOPRETO–BAY. A Frequency Dictionary of Portuguese:Core Vocabulary for Learners. New York: Rout-ledge, 2008. Pp. x, 336. $125.00, cloth; $33.95, pa-per. ISBN 0–415–41996–4, cloth; 0–415–41997–2,paper.

A Frequency Dictionary of Portuguese is part of theRoutledge Frequency Dictionaries series. The in-troduction (pp. 1–9) explains how the words werecompiled (from a 20-million-word corpus); howthe data were annotated, organized, and catego-rized; and how frequency was calculated. The fre-quency index (pp. 10–242) is the main index inthis dictionary. It contains 5,000 words listed ac-cording to their frequency rank. The entries alsoprovide the part of speech, the English equiva-lent, a sample sentence, the range count, the rawfrequency total and, in some cases, an indicationof register variation. The dictionary also containsan alphabetical index (pp. 243–294) and a part of

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speech index (pp. 295–336). These two indexesbring together the word, its frequency rank, andthe English equivalent (and, in the case of thealphabetical index, the part of speech).

In the series preface, the editors highlight thefact that information on frequency brings learn-ers “closer to real language” (p. vi). Indeed, thisdictionary can be a valuable tool for students aswell as for teachers of Portuguese, and even fortextbook authors. As noted in the introduction,textbooks almost never present information onwhich words are more likely to appear in actuallanguage (p. 1). A frequency dictionary fills thatgap and gives those learning or working with thelanguage the means to sort through vocabulary.The information on register, also not found intextbooks or in bilingual dictionaries, may proveinvaluable for learners who wade through wordsintroduced in class, in written texts, or by othermeans.

In addition to the three indexes mentioned ear-lier, the Frequency Dictionary of Portuguese containsthematic vocabulary lists that are found through-out the frequency index. There are 31 such lists,covering not only semantic domains (such as “An-imals” and “Transportation”) but also grammartopics that may be problematic for learners (suchas “Preterit/Imperfect” and “Subjunctive Trig-gers”). Other thematic lists provide differencesacross registers, newer words in the language, andword length. These lists are a handy feature, pro-viding easy access to a number of relevant wordclusters.

Among the thematic lists, learners and teach-ers of Portuguese may find that one is particu-larly useful: “Differences between Brazilian andEuropean Portuguese.” This list contains wordsthat are often used on one side of the Atlanticbut not on the other. This distinction is impor-tant, given the marked lexical differences betweenthe two dialects. However, I was quite surprised tofind azeitona ‘olive’ listed as European Portuguese(EP) only (given that it is the word for “olive” inBrazil as well and, as such, is commonly used incontexts related to cooking and eating). Naturally,one word does not a bad list make, and the listshowing differences between these two dialects isvery helpful.

Although the lexical differences between thetwo dialects can be marked, other differencesare noteworthy as well. The authors explain thatwords that may be systematically spelled differ-ently (e.g., electrico EP vs. eletrico BP) constituteonly one entry (p. 4). In these cases, the entryappears with the EP spelling (which, in manycases, may soon be outdated, given the Acordo

Ortografico that has been approved by severalPortuguese-speaking countries, including Braziland Portugal). The authors explain that theBrazilian Portuguese (BP) form is used in sam-ple sentences if these come from Brazil (p. 4).Although opting for standardized EP spelling forthe headword simplifies the entries, it may alsolead learners to believe that a given word is spelledthe same way in both dialects when it is not. Thisissue arises when a word has different spellings inEP and BP and the sample sentence comes fromEP. Take, for example, the case of recto ‘straight,’spelled reto in BP. Given that the consonantal clus-ter ct may occur in BP (as in pacto ‘pact,’ whichappears in the dictionary), the learner may not re-alize that a word such as recto has another spellingin BP.

In spite of minor issues such as the occasionalone of spelling, this dictionary contains many pos-itive features and is useful and usable. A FrequencyDictionary of Portuguese is a welcome tool for learn-ers, instructors, and textbook authors, who cannow access information that had never been madeavailable previously.

GLAUCIA V. SILVAUniversity of Massachusetts Dartmouth

SPANISH

FOERSTER, SHARON W., & ANNE LAM-BRIGHT. Metas: Spanish in Review, Moving TowardFluency. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2008. Pp. xxv,356. $74.38, paper. ISBN 978–0–07–351320–1.Metas Workbook/Lab Manual . New York: McGraw-Hill, 2008. Pp. 198. $48.75, paper. ISBN 978–0–07–328551–1.

Intended for intermediate-level college Spanishclasses, Metas is essentially the authors’ amplifica-tion of their previous text, Punto y aparte . Accord-ing to the publisher’s Web site, Metas results fromrequests by users of the latter volume that it beexpanded for use over two semesters. AlthoughMetas may appear to resemble other intermediatetexts, it is distinguished by its organizing princi-ple. The program is built around seven commu-nicative goals, the metas of the title: description,comparisons, reactions and recommendations,narration in the past, likes and dislikes, stat-ing hypotheses, and talking about the future. Ina preliminary lesson, the authors identify thesefunctions and assign to each one a colored iconthat is reentered frequently throughout the text


and the accompanying Workbook/Lab Manual ,thereby reminding students that these functionsare constantly being targeted. In contrast to thepattern common to many other intermediate-level texts—that of beginning with a systematicreview of simple and compound tenses, uses ofgender and articles, and adjective agreement, forexample—the focus of Metas is on introducingreadings, grammatical exercises, and appropriatevocabulary needed to enhance the ability of thestudents to master each of the functions.

Although each unit includes a focus on one ormore grammatical features, such review is madewith reference to specific readings or auditoryselections, and the exercises are contextualized.There is, however, at the end of the text a well-articulated grammar review (pp. 306–356), ap-propriately referred to as the yellow pages. Inthis extensive section, students will find more for-mal grammatical explanations with correspond-ing practice exercises, for all of which a key isprovided. As is the case with the body of the text,the grammatical presentations in the review areorganized according to the established functions.The section on Description (pp. 306–314), for ex-ample, is subdivided into reviews of agreement,selection of ser or estar , past participles function-ing as adjectives, and inclusion or omission ofarticles, the belief of the authors being that agrounding in these four topics is critical to one’sability to formulate descriptions. Likewise, the sec-tion on stating hypotheses (pp. 341–344) pre-dictably includes a presentation of the past sub-junctive and conditional tenses and a discussionof the standard patterns essential to the construc-tion of hypothetical statements. Although the for-mal explanations are fairly standard in presenta-tion, the authors propose a number of mnemonicdevices and other gimmicks that they believe willassist students with mastery of some of the moretroublesome grammar points that do not easily fitinto one of the established functional categoriesyet that one would expect to see addressed ina text at this level (for instance, distinctions be-tween por and para, relative pronouns, and usesof prepositions).

The six units have both thematic frameworks—such as a focus on feelings, environmen-tal concerns, and contributions of immigrantpopulations—and a topical focus on a pri-mary geographical entity in the Spanish-speakingworld (Spain, the Caribbean, Mexico, the South-ern Cone, the Andean countries, and CentralAmerica). The authors provide a diverse andrich collection of cultural and literary read-ings, which represent considerable variety and

contemporaneity. Significant from a pedagogicalstandpoint is that the readings are purposeful,each one providing opportunities for students tofocus on one or more programmatic functions.Each unit contains related Internet activities, aninterview, a musical selection, and appropriatewriting assignments. Provided that students takeadvantage of the developmental vocabulary ex-ercises and prereading activities in the text andManual , the readings will be accessible. The vo-cabulary in each unit is driven by topical and the-matic content, as well as by the need for studentsto address the communicative goals to enhancetheir control of spoken and written Spanish.

Functioning as a unifying thread throughoutthe program are the five characters introduced inthe preliminary unit and at least some of whomappear in each unit by means of a wide range ofphotographs, dialogues, interviews, and writtendocuments. These young Hispanics representdifferent geographical and professional back-grounds; through the events in their lives, theirconversations with one another, and their reflec-tions recorded in the text and Manual , studentswill learn to identify them, predict how they willbehave in specific situations, and feel that theyknow them personally.

To aid students in developing their writing abil-ity, the authors provide systematic guidelines andlevel-appropriate exercises throughout the pro-gram. A valuable tool is the list of transitionalwords and other connectors on the inside flapof the back cover: words and phrases that shouldprove useful in helping students to move beyondthe stage of being merely passable writers to be-coming effective communicators. Although Metascontains a Spanish–English glossary, there is nocomplementary English–Spanish dictionary, a fac-tor that some instructors may see as limiting theability of students to be as effective as possible inwriting and speaking on the themes and topics ineach unit.

In their introduction, the authors highlightthe ancillary materials, which they view as beingcrucial to the success of the program. The mostimportant of the ancillaries is the Workbook/LabManual , which provides substantial listening andwriting practice to reinforce vocabulary and gram-matical structures presented in the text. Withthe exception of guided compositions and note-taking activities, all exercises are accompanied bya key. The “Oral Practice” sections in each unitbegin with pronunciation practice, often in theform of a series of tongue twisters, a dictation, andlistening comprehension exercises related to thetopical themes and the key functions highlighted

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in the unit. Although some of these may provedifficult for students at this level, they are of vary-ing degrees of difficulty and are arranged in an in-cremental fashion that will allow students to buildconfidence as they complete the simpler exerciseswhile having the opportunity to listen multipletimes to passages or questions that prove to bemore daunting. An online version of the Manualcontains the audio program for Metas and per-mits students to correct their work immediatelyand permits instructors to take advantage of thecourse management option. There is also an on-line ActivityPak that contains games and furtherenrichment activities.

The text is visually pleasing and has been care-fully edited. With the exception of the small printin the verb tables (pp. A7–A12), written mate-rial and illustrations are clear. However, althoughthe use of the icons is consistent and convinc-ing throughout both text and manual, the smallicons lack sufficient visual appeal to do credit tothis otherwise well-structured concept. In a subse-quent edition of the text they can be improved.

Metas, the accompanying Manual , and the an-cillary materials address the contemporary goalsof our profession, are organized in a coherent andcohesive fashion, and provide a pleasing formatthat should engage college students of Spanish atthe intermediate level and facilitate their devel-opment of oral and written fluency.

CHARLES MAURICE CHERRYFurman University

MEJIA, CLAUDIA M., & CONCHITA L. DAVIS.Miradas: Contextos para conversar y escribir . Up-per Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2008.Pp. x, 254. $70.80, paper. ISBN 978–0–13–19441–2.

Miradas has much to offer to the profession be-cause of its diversity of reading selections, inter-esting discussion questions, rich vocabulary, andstructure explanations and exercises. A thematicapproach is used throughout, which facilitates in-structors’ planning and finding of supplemen-tary materials. This book has been designed for“intermediate-high level students going into theadvanced level according to ACTFL oral profi-ciency guidelines or fifth-semester” (p. v) Span-ish students. Through this textbook, students areintroduced to short literary passages written bynoted Hispanic writers. In addition, popular songsand movies are presented and discussed, featuresthat constitute an asset to this textbook.

The titles of the book’s five units, Identi-dad , Herencia: Resistencia y asimilacion, Memoriahistorica, Juicios y prejuicios, and Imaginacion y hu-mor , present worthwhile topics for class discussionin which students will produce the target languagein short paragraphs to give their opinions on di-verse topics. Additionally, students will read andwrite compositions and journals at home as wellas answer questions on the readings and inves-tigate reading-related topics using the Internetlinks provided on the textbook’s Web site. Eachunit opens with a picture for discussion that in-troduces the unit theme and sets the stage for theissues to be developed in the unit.

It is of crucial importance to present studentswith literature and culture, in addition to lan-guage, because these are so interrelated. Re-searchers have demonstrated that emotions affectlanguage learners’ usage and choice. Through au-thentic materials students understand the targetlanguage perspectives and products in a subjectiveway.

Unit 5 is devoted to humor, and the authorshighlight how humor operates in different lan-guages with multiple cultural and linguistic iden-tities and elements, as well as how important anddifficult it is to understand jokes and comics ina second language. In addition, comics reveal agreat deal of culture and language usage. The au-thors also introduce theater in unit 5, throughwhich students can explore various aspects of so-cial injustice and the psychology of human beings.

The textbook has several flaws as well. Forexample, it contains vocabulary lists for each read-ing passage or poem, except for the first read-ing selection about Frida Kahlo (p. 2). Thereare several difficult words for fifth-semester stu-dents in this reading passage—for example, secue-las, abatido, altibajos, involucro, apoyo, and sostiene .These words are not listed in the appendix, either.

The prereading and postreading activities areappropriate, too, because they review vocabularyand prepare students for the reading topics byasking pertinent questions. Postreading activitiesquery students about the reading itself and its pro-jections to society, making them think critically, anecessary aim for third-year Spanish classes.

The impact of the title Miradas can be foundin the authors’ use of Spanish words for “look” or“eye” in different unit section titles: una ojeada alvocabulario, con otros ojos, abre bien los ojos, con cienojos, ojo avizor , no pierdas de vista, and ojos abier-tos. I believe the authors’ purpose here is to havestudents pay close attention to the different sec-tions of each unit and to emphasize the multipleperspectives on language and culture that are in-corporated into the book.


With regard to grammar, the textbook has use-ful and clear explanations about the present andimperfect subjunctive, preterit, imperfect, andcomplex tenses, all of which are appropriate forthis level. Nevertheless, it would have been help-ful to include more grammatical exercises forincreased practice at this level, given that theseare difficult structures for nonnative speakers ofSpanish.

As a whole, I find this textbook helpful in itsdepth and its practical aspects, in addition to thepresentation of many controversial cultural andsocietal topics that other textbooks have oftenavoided—for instance, homosexuality. This text-book can be best used in a third-year readingand conversation class because the reading selec-tions are accessible and students can gain someinsight into literary analysis. The topics are ap-pealing and I am sure students will find themfascinating.

LUISA C. PEREZEmporia State University

STIEGLER, BRIAN N., & CARMEN JULIAJIMENEZ. Hacia niveles avanzados. Composicionpor proceso y en contexto. Boston: Cengage, 2007.Pp. IE–16, xviii, 210. $71.95, paper. ISBN 1–4130–3006–8. CD–ROM, free to adopters.

The book begins with two introductions in En-glish: a detailed, although not overly long, onefor the instructor and a clear, concise one forthe student. The table of contents precedes thebody, which is divided into six chapters: Los his-panohablantes en los Estados Unidos, La linguısticadescriptiva, La diversidad cultural en el mundo his-panohablante , La literatura en el mundo hispano-hablante , La linguıstica aplicada, and El espanol yel mundo profesional . Each treats a different kindof writing: description, correspondence, journal-istic reporting, narration, exposition, and argu-mentation. The text guides students through rel-evant readings and several drafts of the respectivepapers.

The layout utilizes only black, white, and gray.It avoids the complementary evils of clutter andwasted space. The various short sections of eachchapter have different formats, obviating visualboredom.

The first introduction articulates the authors’goals. Seven times they identify the target levelas the bridge course, which some of us call thegateway. In any program, it ranks as critical. Thelarge group of students enrolled in Spanish to

fulfill a graduation requirement is gone and themore motivated, better prepared ones continuein their quest for mastery. With a bold stroke, thisbook proposes not only to hone their skills to-ward that end but also to introduce them to theprincipal aspects of the field of Spanish studies,as indicated in the chapter titles. That is, after all,what a number of other disciplines do.

All of the talk of standards will undoubtedlyraise red flags for some instructors not involvedwith teacher education, but their understandablephobia cannot change political realities. Similarly,many students at this level may not care aboutthe discipline per se, but no reading material willprovoke universal interest.

Another likely concern is the outsourcing ofgrammar to Web sites. I am the first to acknowl-edge the risk, but I believe it is acceptable fortwo reasons. Students must take responsibility forstrengthening their weak areas and the instructorcan address pervasive problems in class.

That said, the book has many indisputablevirtues. Several short sections offer pearls of wis-dom that many instructors regularly try to convey,but it is undoubtedly more effective to incorpo-rate them in the text along with the writing as-signments. They include several commandmentsthat provide a necessary, if not sufficient, basis forgood writing by students of Spanish as a secondlanguage: avoid literal translation (p. 6), use thedictionary wisely (p. 19), write even your first draftin Spanish, not English (p. 74), keep it simple(p. 133), and learn to use circumlocutions(p. 136). I also celebrate the twin admonitionsthat diacritical marks are part of correct orthog-raphy and that students should use the computerto insert them (p. 13). There is an illustration ofhow to do so (p. 47), but, inexplicably, it does notinclude capitals.

Furthermore, the text explicitly encourages ac-tive reading (p. 109) and tries to get studentsto look at both sides of sensitive issues such asimmigration (pp. 9, 17, and 152). Additionally,chapter 1 treats Spanish speakers in the UnitedStates, not to foster a U.S.-centric view but to stateemphatically and from the start that this countrybelongs to both the Hispanophone and Anglo-phone worlds, independent of whether one re-joices or recoils at the idea. Finally, it relates theother three skills to writing and gets students usedto different modes of writing, just as happens inEnglish courses, or so one would hope.

A number of minor problems escaped the ed-itors. The most striking factual error is the state-ment that Franco died in 1979, rather than 1975(p. 94). I would quibble with the idea that Spainwas at the height of its power in the 18th century

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(p. 63). There is a suggestively misleading refer-ence to the Maya language rather than languagefamily (p. 62). In a salute to women writers, onefinds “Isabel Allende en Chile” (p. 95), where shehas not resided since the mid-1970s.

There are also a few typos. Alineacion shouldbe alienacion (p. 20). Accents are missing on raız(pp. 32 and 200), como (p. 65), Nunez (p. 203), andlinguıstica (pp. 204 and 205). Likewise, materialshould be materia (p. 120) and pecosa (p. 199)should be pecoso.

There is an appropriate and unforced effort atgender-inclusive language with instructor(a), cor-rector(a), companero(a), and so forth, but editor(p. 174) and corrector are missing the (a) in sen-tences where other words have it (p. 175). Thereare also passages that address the reader directlyusing lo instead of lo/la (pp. 65, 126, 153, and165).

I identified a handful of semantic issues. “Volvera leer el texto otra vez” (p. 6) makes me cringe, butat least it left off “de nuevo.” “ . . . con un tremendoimpacto cultural y economico. Ese impacto es notableen el renglon economico” (p. 7) requires improve-ment. In context (pp. 5 and 7), billones appears tomean billions rather than trillions, so one suspectsan Anglicism.

There are occasional inconsistencies in glossingthe reading passages. For example, words fromthe vocabulary lists are superfluously cited (perju-dicadas, p. 182). Elsewhere, lujoso is glossed, buthuachafo is not (p. 53); apelar (p. 147) is, but thetricky inexcusable (p. 144) is not.

For the English section, I will forgo listing splitinfinitives, and “oral speech” (IE–11) and “In ev-ery possible way, it would not have been possible”(p. xii) require little comment.

In spite of the disproportionate amount ofspace devoted to these minor gaffes, in the lastanalysis they do little to diminish the manifoldvirtues of the book. If I were in charge of select-ing a text for our gateway course, I would seriouslyconsider this one.

ROBERT O. GOEBELJames Madison University

TESTING

EAST, MARTIN. Dictionary Use in Foreign Lan-guage Writing Exams: Impact and Implications.Philadelphia: Benjamins, 2008. Pp. xii, 228.$158.00, cloth. ISBN 978–90–272–1983–1.

In this volume, Martin East addresses the questionas to whether foreign language students should be

allowed to use dictionaries in timed writing exams.East explains that in the United Kingdom (unlikethe United States), such exams have been used fordecades to assess foreign language skills. It was theBritish government’s decision to ban dictionariesin the exams—after they had been permitted for 5years—that prompted him to conduct the studiesreported here. East’s goal was to “investigate whatwould happen if you allowed higher level moreproficient users of a foreign language to take adictionary with them into a writing exam” (p. ix).

East begins the book with a discussion of variousconsiderations in the use of dictionaries in writ-ing exams, including a review of several previousstudies on the topic. He points out that althoughdictionaries are the most frequently used booksin foreign language learning, there exists little re-search on their use by students.

East then proceeds to describe three studiesthat he conducted with foreign language studentsin timed writing exams with dictionaries and with-out them. Two of the studies were small-scale ex-ploratory case studies of students of German ata New Zealand tertiary institution, whereas thethird study was broader in scope, involving 47 highschool students of German. In terms of method-ology, all three studies are unusually strong, withcareful controls to maximize validity. East reportson each study in detail, examining the findingsfrom both quantitative and qualitative perspec-tives. A bonus is the inclusion of the analytic rubricthat was used to score students’ writing, whichserves as a helpful resource to readers who maybe involved in scoring such exams.

Among the many topics addressed in East’s find-ings are the following: students’ overall test scoreswith and without a dictionary; the lexical sophis-tication of their writing; the types and frequencyof errors in dictionary use; the usefulness of var-ious types of dictionaries; the time that studentsspend looking up words; and the validity, reliabil-ity, authenticity, utility, and fairness of tests withand without dictionaries.

One unique aspect of the work is the amount ofspace devoted to the reactions of students, whomEast views as the most important stakeholders inthe exams. Surprisingly, not all students favoredthe use of dictionaries in writing exams; studentspointed out negative aspects of dictionary use(e.g., the amount of time that it took to look upwords) as well as positive ones (e.g., increased con-fidence and reduced stress).

Although the book provides a wealth of in-formation on seemingly every possible factor re-lated to dictionary use, readers who are lookingfor a definitive recommendation as to whetherdictionaries should be permitted in writing tests


may be disappointed. East is objective and impar-tial in reporting his findings, taking into accountboth advantages and drawbacks to dictionary use.He concludes that the decision depends largelyon the purposes for which the tests are to be used.He does, however, suggest that dictionary use inwriting exams “offers a positive link between thesummative assessment of learning and several di-mensions of assessment for learning” (p. 188; ital-ics in original).

One of the most useful features of the book isits final chapter, which offers ideas for maximiz-ing the benefits of dictionary use in exams andminimizing the liabilities. The chapter includesexamples of exercises designed to give students

practice in using the dictionary effectively, whichare an excellent resource for foreign languageteachers and students alike.

Overall, the book is highly readable, with fre-quent summaries of what has been said and in-dications as to what is coming next, as well asan explanation of repeated measures for readerswho may be unfamiliar with that aspect of exper-imental design. Anyone who is interested in theuse of dictionaries by foreign language students,whether in exams or in other settings, should findthis to be an informative and useful work.

BLAIR BATEMANBrigham Young University

Self-Esteem and Foreign Language Learning edited by RUBIO, FERNANDO

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