Book Description

Our proven Spectrum Language Arts grade 4 workbook features 200pages of fundamentals in grammar and sentence structure.Recentlyupdated to current national standards, including tips for clearerwriting, proofreading activities, and combining sentences.Thisworkbook for children ages 9 to 10 includes exercises that reinforcemechanics and punctuation to assist in developing proficiency.

Customer Reviews (1)

Good, but not great
I am using the Spectrum line of workbooks to homeschool a couple of my children.In general, I like them, however, I am a bit disappointed in the Language Arts book.It moves too quickly from lesson to lesson, and I have had to buy another workbook to suppliment this one so that I can make sure that he is really grasping the material. ... Read more

Book Description
Rarely has a book so packed with accurate and well researched factual information been so widely read and popularly acclaimed. This Second Edition of The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language has been fully revised for a new generation of language-lovers. The book is longer and includes extensive new material on world English and Internet English, in addition to completely updated statistics, further reading suggestions and other references. First Edition Hb (1995): 0-521-40179-8 First Edition Pb (1997): 0-521-59655-6 David Crystal is a leading authority on language, and author of many books, including most recently Shakespeare's Words (Penguin, 2002), Language and the Internet (Cambridge, 2001) and Language Death (Cambridge, 2000). An internationally renowned writer, journal editor, lecturer and broadcaster, he received an Order of the British Empire in 1995 for his services to the English language. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (16)

For language lovers
Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language by David Crystal

Very British, packed full of facts, but eminently readable.Many illustrations and little sidebars keep it from being too dry.It's appropriate for the layman, but is still quite sophisticated.I recommend this book.

The Cambridge Encyclopedia of English Language(paperback)
Most of all, I thank David Crystal, the author of this book. I majored in English language and Literature, English Education in South Korea.
However, disappointedly I haven't been recommended this book by any professors and there is almost no this book within university's lirararies in our nation. Anyway, I am glad to have this book and study contents. Firstly, the advantage of this book covers all ranges of English. This point makes us easy to find favorite parts. However, this book seems to have a drawback, too. Because of the introduction for broad parts of English, examples for some definitions seem to be lack, in my opinion.
However, I think this book seems to be very useful to the related students of English Language.

Very informative
First thing I need to say is that this book is an overview of English Language and designed for average intelligent adults, not for serious academic settings. You'll notice plenty of photographs, charts, and such. It's quite fun to flip to any page and just start reading. It included a lot of contemporary figures, like pop singers, current politicians, and authors. It tried to make readers understand the older form of English culture by linking the current one to it. I must say this approach worked only so far as to get your feet wet. Again, it's an introductory sort of book, but still has many things we modern citizens don't know about English.

good breadth; a bit shallow
This book is somewhere between a reference and an entertainment.It has a large amount of material, some useful as well as other that is merely curious.It is beautifully printed, but the large format might be difficult to handle.Open it anywhere and you are sure to find something you did not know.

1st Edition same as 2nd Edition and a lot Cheaper
Buy the 1st Edition and save yourself thirty bucks.

It's got the same cover (but a different color), the same number of pages (506 pages) and is as far as I can tell, the exact same book.I'm tired of "edition inflation."Buy the first edition and save yourself a lot of money. ... Read more

Book Description

The book presents an interdisciplinary approach to knowledge representation and the treatment of semantic phenomena of natural language, which is positioned between artificial intelligence, computational linguistics, and cognitive psychology. The proposed method is based on Multilayered Extended Semantic Networks (MultiNets), which can be used for theoretical investigations into the semantics of natural language, for cognitive modeling, for describing lexical entries in a computational lexicon, and for natural language processing (NLP).

Customer Reviews (1)

Wealth of information, buried in jargon
This book has a wealth of solid information about knowledge representation (KR).It is focused on Multinets, an advanced type of semantic network.The author brings years of experience to this subject.The book deals thoroughly with many aspects of KR such as relationships, categories, generalization, real vs hypothetical, cardinality, and variability, just to name a few.Although the book is focused on Multinets, the concepts should be relevant to other knowledge representation schemes.

Frequent natural language statements clarify the issues under discussion.For example, here are two of the statements on page 49 that illustrate different types of information that can be communicated by "is".

"'A bachelor is an adult unmarried man.' (Relation EQU),'The cherry is red.' (Relation PROP), . . ."

In other words, the first "is" links equivalent ideas, the second "is" indicates "red" as a property.

The book also contains numerous, well designed, helpful diagrams.

Unfortunately, the jargon is very thick, and difficult to navigate.For example, from page 20: "As already mentioned, the arcs of the semantic network have to be considered as epistemologically and cognitively justified categories which function as fundamental deep semantic relations in the framework of meaning representation."After reading this sentence several times, I think part of what it means is "the arcs of semantic networks should match actual deep semantic relations".But I'm not sure.I frequently find myself reading sentences several times, then moving on, only partly satisfied.

If you can get past the jargon, the book contains a thorough, solidly supported treatment of the knowledge representation of natural language.

Perhaps someone with more prior experience with knowledge representation would find the book more approachable.

Based on the quantity of information, the strong relevance to knowledge representation and the clarifying examples, I give this a generous 4 star rating.However, I'm worried that some readers will find the jargon so impenetrable that the book would lose most of its value to them. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Before the invasion of the statisto-weenies, there was....
Last week, I was looking at the back flap of this book, and I saw something so shocking that I started choking on my pretzels!My wife, after slapping me on the back till I stopped choking, glanced down at the page--filled with bizzare symbols--and said, "How shocking could that page possibly be???"

Well, Iwas looking at a list abbrieviations of the categories (parts of speech) which the book used, and I noticed, for the first time after owning this book for over 10 years, that there was no abbriviation for "conjunction" listed.And indeed, after consulting the index and looking through the book, it is plain to see that this book doesn't treat conjunction at all!

I have many fond memories of this book--it is the book which my beloved professor at grad school taught me NLP from, and indeed, it contains far more information about NLP than most of its successors.For example, this book gives perhaps the best discussion of quantifier scope ambiguities of all the major NLP textbooks.(cf. with Jurafski and Martin's book, which devotes about 1/2 a sentence to quantifier scope ambiguities).

But it has odd ommissions, one of which is the lack of treatment of conjunction/disjunction.After devoting so much time to quantifier scope, why does Allen leave me in the dark aboutwhether "Every woman" can take scope over "a man"in the sentence "A man and every woman hug each other?"Does that scope differently from "Every woman and a man hug each other?"Or what about "Every woman and her mother fight?"Can that mean "Every woman fights with her mother" or are we to look for another antecedient for "her"?

Or again, Allen's treatment of prolog-esque definite clause grammars.Allen deserves major kudus here for including them.Its obvious that he comes from the LISP side of the tracks, and most LISPy books on NLP ignore DCG's altogether (Norvig's "Paridigms of AI programming" being a notable exception).But it seems almost like Allen goes out of his way to present DCGs in the most unattractive light possible.Prolog has a nice syntactic sugar which makes a DCG look almost exactly like a context-free grammar specification, but you'd never know that if you only read this book--Allen chooses a wierd way to translate strings into clauses, which implies a bizzare-looking prolog grammar for them.The student naturally recoils in horror, but unless she reads a prolog-oriented book on NLP, she would never know how much easier DCGs are to program than ATNs or the bottom-up parsing methods which Allen goes on to expostulate.

Since this book was published, the field of NLP has taken a bit of a side-track through statistical learning of grammars--the thought being that, well, we really don't know how to do knowledge representation or pronoun resolution very well, so lets all spend a decade or so on how to induce grammars from corpora.This book doesn't cover any of this research, but frankly, I really don't consider that a critique of the book.Because now that grammar induction has been done to death, we're right back where this book leaves off--computers can parse sentences all right: heck, these days, computers can even assign numbers between 0 and 1 to parse trees-- but can computers UNDERSTAND sentences?

I would love to see a 3rd edition of this book, and I'm sure I'm not alone.What I'd like to see it cover is (surprise surprise) conjunction/disjunction, discourse representation theory, underspecification, and a more meaty discussion of knowledge representation and inference.Also, a few chapters on natural language generation would be nice, as well as discussions on dialogue.Skip the sections on ATNs and other parsing methods which are only of historical interest now.

Flaws and all, this book is beloved of generations of NLP researchers and is still indispensible, after all these years.

A classic
Allen's book is a standard introduction to NLP in industry and academia.His exposition permits straightforward implementation and provides a lucid motivation for the algorithms he describes."Natural Language Understanding" was the first NLP text I read (for a summer job), and I've always referred to it first for its balance of formal and practical considerations.

However, some developments in the past few years outpace his treatment.In particular, the stochastic viewpoint has become more common in natural-language processing, and Allen does not consider related innovations in great depth.Passing mention of the interaction between NLP and the speech processing and information retrievals would also benefit a revised version.

Now THERE'S a good book!
James Allen introduces the concepts required to build a NL system without losing you in the psycholinguistics, psychology and philosophy of language. The great part is that he gives you enough of a background in each of thesefields before going into a topic in depth. Plenty of examples help definewords like "morpheme" so you don't get lost in the psychobabblejargon of the required disciplines. (Wouldn't that be an ironic thing tohave happen in a NLP book?!) :)

I'd love to tell you more, but I onlystopped by to catch the author's name and look for whitepapers on his(hopefully existant) website.

A great text, and useful reference
This books serves as a very useful introduction to computational linguistics. It is clearly laid out, and will serve the reader for many years as a continuing reference.

The TRAINS project at Rochester (the author's institution) was based on many of the concepts outlined in this book... proof that they work and can be made to handle real-world situations.

I continue to use it, now in its second edition as a reference for myself, and to train those who need to work with our project.

I cannot recommend a book more highly. If you want to learn computational linguistics, or need to push the state of the art, this is the book you need.

The standard among NLP textbooks
An excellent book; the best introduction to the subject of Natural Language Processing, made even better by its second edition.If you wish to learn how computers can be made to process human language, go no further. ... Read more

Book Description
This publication highlights the need for test developers to provide clear explanations of the ability constructs which underpin tests offered in the public domain. An explanation is increasingly required, if the validity of test score interpretation and use are to be supported both logically, and with empirical evidence. The book demonstates the application of a comprehensive test validation framework which adopts a socio-cognitive perspective. The framework embraces six core components which reflect the practical nature and quality of an actual testing event. It examines Cambridge ESOL writing tasks from the following perspectives: Test Taker, Cognitive Validity, Context Validity, Scoring Validity, Criterion-related Validity and Consequential Validity. The authors show how an understanding and analysis of the framework and its components in relation to specific writing tests can assist test developers to operationalise their tests more effectively, especially in relation to criterial distinctions across test levels. ... Read more

Book Description

Customer Reviews (2)

Nonno had a point
Set in the period soon after Garibaldi's conquest of Sicily and the island's subsequent amalgamation into the Piedmont kingdom of Victor Emmanuel (II), these stories vividly document the necessity for mass emigration. Several of these stories have provided rich themes for 20c artists: Visconti's film La Terra Trema (1948) derives from the authors great novel, I Malavogli (The House by the Medlar Tree), which derives from the author's short story, "Fantasticheria." Of course, "Cavalleria rusticana," made into a drama by Verga himself, would morph in Mascagni's resplendently poignant opera (a far better story on the same theme is Verga's "Jeli il pastore"). And "The History of St Joseph's Donkey" would be wonderfully realized by Bresson's cinema masterpiece, Au Hasard Balthazaar (also drawing on the poems of Verga's French contemporary, Francis Jammes). This bilingual edition should be most useful for students of the Italian language (you will not need a dictionary of Sicilian words; the Introduction and subsequent notes offer a useful summary of island protocols). Verga wrote for the letterati of Milan and Florence; these tales of Catanian folk customs (that is, miseries) first
appeared in northern magazines in the 1870s. For all students of Italian literature, a basic text. For readers seeking roots, read it and weep; Verga makes Bicycle Thief seem like a MGM musical. For an antidote, or the other side of the story, read Lampedusa's The Leopard (1958), also made into a film by Visconti (1963)(altho the aristocratic Lampedusa can be as grim as Verga); and for the 20c scene read Silone's Bread and Wine (1936) and Sciascia's The Owl (set in the 1950s). For a contemporary view, read Camilleri's Inspector Montalano Mysteries series.

Nonno had a point
Set in the period soon after Garibaldi's conquest of Sicily and the island's subsequent absorption into the Piedmont kingdom of Victor Emmanuel (II), these stories, combining stark social realism with psychological determinism, vividly document the necessity for mass emigration. Several of the stories have provided rich thematic material for 20c artists: Visconti's film La Terra Trema (1948) derives from Verga's great novel, I Malavogli (The House by the Medlar Tree), which derives from the author's story "Fantasticheria." Of course, "Cavalleria rusticana," made into a drama by Verga himself, would morph into Mascagni's resplendently poignant opera (a far better story on the same theme is Verga's "Jeli il pastore"). And "The History of St Joseph's Donkey" would be wonderfully realized in Bresson's cinema masterpiece, Au Hasard Balthazaar (also drawing on the poems of Verga's French contemporary, Francis Jammes). This bilingual edition should be most useful to students of the Italian language (you will not need a dictionary of Sicilian words; the Introduction and notes offer a useful summary of relevant island protocols). Verga wrote for the letterati of Milan and Florence; these tales of Catanian folk customs (namely, miseries and duplicities) began their appearance in the northern magazines of the 1870s. For all students of Italian literature, especially the short story. For readers seeking roots, read it and weep; Verga makes Bicycle Thief seem like an MGM musical. For an antidote, or the other side of the story, read Lampedusa's The Leopard (1958), also made into a film by Visconti (1963) (altho the aristocratic Lampedusa can be as grim as Verga); and for updates read Silone's Bread and Wine (1936, 1955) and Sciascia's The Owl (set in the 1950s). For a contemporary view read Camilleri's Inspector Montalbano Mysteries series. ... Read more

Book Description
The Turkic languages are spoken today in a vast geographical area from the Balkans to the Arctic Ocean and from Southern Iran to China. There are currently 20 languages in the group, the most important being Turkish (50 Million speakers) other major languages are Azerbaijanian, Bashkir, Chuvash, Kazakh, Tatr, Turkmen, Uyghur, Uzbek and Yakut.

The Turkic Languages is the first reference book to bring together detailed discussions of the historical development and specialized linguistics structures and features of the languages in the Turkic family.

Each chapter contains modern linguistic analysis with traditional historical linguistics, allowing for easy typological; comparison of the languages. ... Read more

Book Description
Aimed at non-Chinese speakers visiting or living in China, New Chinese 300 covers 300 basic sentences the visitor will need. Topics include greeting friends, performing introductions, attending a party, taking a bus, and other situations from daily life. Each chapter consists of 10 sentences, given in simplified characters, pinyin and English, as well as illustrative dialogues, vocabulary, grammar, and drills and exercises. The presentation is intensive and suitable for college students, business travelers, and other motivated learners with no prior knowledge of Chinese. Accompanying audio cassettes are available in two versions--the complete set, which reviews the basic sentences, vocabulary, dialogues and exercises in each chapter, and the abbreviated set, which omits the exercises and the pauses for repetition. Answers to the exercises and an index to vocabulary are included. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A beginning Language Course
I don't really like this book. It's kind of disappointed! It's just way too simple and didn't creative enough!

A superb textbook for classroom-based Chinese courses
Having studied (Mandarin) Chinese for some years - beginning with a full-time intensive course that went on for several months - I've acquired a lot of Chinese learning materials. Out of all these, however, I think that NEW CHINESE 300 is one of the most effective textbooks for groups.

What makes NEW CHINESE 300 remarkable is that it manages to pack a great deal of the Chinese language into less than 400 pages, without throwing out sufficient explanation for the reader. Plenty of examination of the student's skill also abounds; a teacher utilising the book's drills to their fullest could bring a class to significant fluency very quickly.

NEW CHINESE 300 starts off with an ideal introduction to the language. Students are introduced to the phonetic system of Chinese - syllables can consist of an initial, vowel, and final - which has been neglected in many recent textbooks. Then the book makes the student learn the writing system as soon as he or she is given Chinese vocabulary, resulting in an impressive command of a couple of hundred ideographs by the end of the course. And to top it all of, the book is a superb value.

I don't want to gush too much, as the book is not without its faults. It would be nice if it was easier to cover up the pinyin transliteration that accompanies each dialog sentence given in Chinese characters, so that the reader can concentrate on reading only characters. Also, NEW CHINESE 300 is best when it is used in a structured classroom course. For the self-teaching student, it could be helpful but would seem rather daunting to most.

I earnestly recommend taking a look at NEW CHINESE 300 to any Chinese teacher looking for a textbook. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Speaking Romanian with an accent
OK, they do try to give me a clue to how the words sound when spoken by giving me a pseudo-phonetic hint. But many times, the hint would have me saying the words incorrectly. I know this because my wife is Romanian and I've tried to say a few of the phrases the way the hint implies ... only to be laughed at.

Teaching me to say the words incorrectly doesn't inspire a lot of confidence in the book. But I guess it was based on the language courses for the U.S. Foreign Service Personnel. It's just a good thing that many of the Romanians these government employees will face know English.

For example, to say "I'd like to eat," the book tells me to say "ahsh vree-AH sa ma-NUNK." Well, I'd be closer to how the Romanians say it if that last word had been "ma-NINK."

But overall, it's a half-way decent traveler's Romanian. And I can tell them I'm an American ... though, using the pronunciation in this book as a guide, I don't think they'll have any trouble guessing that I am.

Not really a "Learn Romanian" book
I have bought a small set of books to learn the Romanian language and this seems to be the least useful of them.

It's not a book that will teach you the language - it will only provide you phrases that will be useful if you want to spend some days in Romania and be minimally understood. If you really want to learn the language by yourself, it should be really a better idea to buy some method (I particularly like the one from Assimil, which has an option with audio from the lessons spoken by native Romanians), a Romanian grammar (the one from Christina Hoffman is very helpful) and a good dictionary. This one is just for tourists.

romanian made easy
well i am not done with it yet but from where i'm at it is really helpful and easy to use as is stated in the name.

Pragmatic if not scholarly
This book can give English natives who do not master phonetic transcription of any kind a very useful idea of how to pronounce Romanian by reading and not listening--as close as native English speakers can get it. As long as students of Romanian possess no theoretical basis such as phonetic transcription (either American or European) which can help with reading a foreign language, and want to get a crash course in everyday phrases,this book provides an almost ideal approach to the learning of spoken Romanian--it is "nice and easy", as promised.

To those who want to learn it for more serious purposes, though--such as getting a better grasp of the language, writing correctly, or even taking academic courses in Romanian--I would suggest them to supplement with more serious books, such as the Teach Yourself Romanian Complete Course, for example.

like the title says. "Nice and Easy"
i bought this book because my girlfriend's family is from romania and she speaks the language. i wanted to learn the language so her family would see me trying to fit in and... well, let me fit in. after i got the book, i pulled out my phone and sent a text in romanian. she replied back in romanian. the only problem with the book is it does'nt go very deep. it's pretty short. i'd love it if the same people wrote something bigger in the same format. the pronunciation guides were great. if you're just looking at getting started at learning romanian, or you just want to impress a romanian/american girl (cuz they're so hot) buy the book. ... Read more

Book Description
The study of the relationship between natural language and spatial cognition has the potential to yield answers to vexing questions about the nature of the mind, language, and culture. The fifteen original contributions in Language and Space bring together the most important theoretical viewpoints in the areas of psychology, linguistics, anthropology, and neuroscience, providing a much needed synthesis across these diverse domains. Chapters address such questions as: How does the brain represent space, how do we learn to talk about space, and should experimental tests of the relations between space and language be restricted to closed-class linguistic elements or must the role of open-class elements be considered as well? ... Read more

Book Description
Pictures for Language Learning is richly illustrated and provides a valuable guide to the role of pictures and other visual materials in language teaching. It brings together a wealth of ideas on how to use pictures in a wide range of language learning situations. The first section discusses the contribution visuals can make to all the classroom settings in providing real opportunities for students to communicate, whether they are working as a class, in groups or in pairs. Sections B and C contain over 200 practical suggestions for picture-generated language work. These make use of visual materials which are readily available to teachers anywhere or illustrations which have been kept simple so that they can be copied easily. The activities can be integrated into all stages of the language teaching process and advice is given on how to adapt the ideas to suit different teaching environments. The final section describes the process of setting up a picture library and offers guidance on where to begin looking for visuals, how to categorise pictures and different methods of storage. ... Read more

Book Description
This book examines the evidence relative to the idea that there is an age factor in first and second language acquisition, evidence that has sources ranging from studies of feral children to evaluations of language programmes in primary schools.It goes on to explore the various explanations that have been advanced to account for such evidence.Finally, it looks at the educational ramifications of the age question, with particular regard to formal second language teaching in the early school years and in `third age' contexts. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A very thorough guide to age-factor studies
This book is an excellent serious review of age-related stuides in second language acquisition. The authors are fairly thorough, covering a lot of research from the past 40 years. If you are reseraching the topic, the book is very useful, however, it makes very few conclusions and advocates very little. It is meant to give a reader a review of the evidence, and let the reader make his or her own conclusions. Any support the authors give to any theories is usually followed by caveats. The book is farily academic, and not a casual read. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

essentially an IL generation book
The book does NOT cover all phases of a compiler as a previous reviewer indicated, such as parsing or designing and constructing abstract syntax trees.It only covers the last phase of generating IL for equivalent Pascal code.In that sense, it duplicates what you can learn from the ildasm and reflector tools, as well as the more recent book Inside Microsoft .NET IL Assembler by Lidin.The book is well written, however I would have liked to have seen more coverage of emitting IL to handle non-Pascal or non-C# features.The book mentions a corresponding website with more code, but I couldn't find much there at all.Also the book suggests looking at "Project 7" by Microsoft which apparently years ago implemented many languages for .NET including Python, but there is nothing about that project available anywhere.

I would recommend the Lidin book instead, plus the use of ildasm and Reflector.

Excellent coverage of IL and practical compilation for CLR
Compiling for the .NET Common Language Runtime is a very complete book and an excellent reference. It provides a solid introduction to the CLR, type system and instruction set (IL). The discussion of code generation for the CLR is thorough.

An excellent aspect of the book is that it goes beyond the more mundane aspects to discuss broader issues (for example, in mapping language semantics to the CLR). It also manages to include very practical tips such as using the visitor pattern. The book has amazing breadth and depth, yet it is marvelously concise! The writing is clear and easy to understand.

Every compiler phase (from scanning to code generation) is covered, so the book is very accessible for programmers new to compilation (as I was). However I doubt that more experienced programmers will find it tedious as the chapters on scanning, parsing and semantic analysis could probably be skipped. The emphasis is obviously on code generation, and the usual language constructs (such as loops, etc.) are covered with some interesting discussion. The book also discusses other issues with compiling for the CLR-- using custom attributes, mangling names for languages that don't support method overloading, even dealing with languages with multiple inheritance (the CLR only supports single inheritance).

The book generates textual IL that is compiled with ilasm, but there is a chapter on using System.Reflection.Emit. This is the only real coverage of an API, so the book avoids any tiresome material that is better left to the MSDN.

Review from CodeGuru.com
The following review from a CodeGuru member was posted to CodeGuru.com for this book:

Finally a book written by an author who knows his material and is able to express himself clearly in written form.I have reviewed many books and most of them leave me unsatisfied with the depth of information or the breadth of coverage.This book did not disappoint in either of these areas. It is excellent for those wishing to learn precisely how a language is mapped onto the CLR. Granted not everyone will have a need for such information but if you do then I would not hesitate to recommend it.

That's the good news, the bad is that this book is not really needed to be a proficient C# programmer.I believe the audience for this book will be very specialized. People interested in squeezing the very last bit of performance out of C# will undoubtedly compare the IL code generated by the compiler and then modify their C# practices accordingly. Others faced with debugging in the absence of a symbolic debugger, embedded environments???, will need to code in C# and then debug in IL. For these types of situations this book will prove to be invaluable.

The book does an excellent job of taking sample C# code and showing the resulting generated IL code.I can't realistically think of an example of typical code or a typical code sequence that is not covered by one of the many examples. It digs into assemblies, unmanaged code, and interaction with COM.It even goes so far as to describe how name mangling can be accomplished in languages that traditionally do not support such a feature.

The assumed knowledge section indicates that the reader should be familiar with the basic concepts of programming languages, customary data structures and algorithm theory.I would also recommend that the reader have some knowledge of grammars, lexical analysis and parsing to the level of a first college course. ... Read more

Book Description
Praised for its fresh and informed discussion of language instruction and language acquisition, the first edition of Making Communicative Language Teaching Happen was recognized by the Modern Language Association as one of the twenty most influential methods textbooks. The authors are both internationally recognized scholars in the field of second language acquisition research and have also written numerous successful language textbooks. The guiding principle of Making Communicative Language Teaching Happen is the premise that communication is the expression, interpretation, and negotiation of meaning, and not simply oral expression. Following that framework, Making Communicative Language Teaching Happen helps instructors develop communicative classroom environments that blend listening, speaking, reading, and writing. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Superb book for Methods Courses
VanPatten has a gift for writing and a penchant from staying away from the trendy, faddish, or easy answers. This isn't a pure methods book--VanPatten cribs some from his book on SLA "From Input to Output" and brings in SLA research that focuses on best practices. VanPatten details in this book, his own approach to instruction--Processing Instruction (PI). PI differs from traditional grammar approaches because the exercises deal with meaningful communication and PI differs from totally communicative methods because explicit grammar instruction may be given on difficult points that learners struggle over.
Interestingly enough, I agree with a lot of what the poster said who gave a low rating to this book because they felt many of the exercises were more for university learners rather than high school ones. That may be true. VanPatten comes from the university teaching environment. However, I believe that this book deals with methods excellently, PI incorporates good practice, and after reading it, a high school teacher will be able choose the *textbook* for their language class that incorporates best practice. In other words, this book is many things, but it is not a cookbook. But after reading it, you'll be able to know what you should be doing in language classes--and what you shouldn't.

Has made me rethink my teaching of language
I recently returned to teaching Spanish after several years of teaching English composition.So far during this first year back I've had many moments of frustration in teaching grammar and conjugations despite knowing that the kids were only learning it for a test/quiz and would not remember it much longer than that.What's the point?Lee and VanPatten's book should be required reading for all language teachers as it provides much food for thought as to the efficacy or even the 'point' of traditional grammar-based language teaching.Language teaching is so grammar-driven because it's the easiest way to 'measure' student learning and give them a grade.I find Lee and VanPatten's research into input processing very intriguing, and obviously a must for language teaching if we are to help our students truly 'learn' or acquire a language.

Give this book a chance!
I must disagree with the reviewer who could not find applicability in her secondary French classroom.I have found Lee and VanPatten's approach to teaching grammar quite enlightening, and it has prompted me to change the way I will structure such activities in my middle school Spanish classes. Considering the considerable research they presented in support of their theories regarding structured input, there is little reason we should continue with traditional grammar instruction without even giving processing instruction methods a chance.It is understandable that moving from an explanatory, resarch-based text toward immediate application in the classroom can be confusing and frustrating.Try viewing sample copies of the text books the authors have worked on, ¿Sabías qué...? or Vistazos, to see how they created structured input activites in beginning level Spanish. Perhaps this could assist in creating similar activities in whatever language you teach.

A great book for college teachers but not secondary ones.
I used this book for a graduate level course on Foreign Language Teaching Methodology given by my school district.I am a secondary level French teacher.The theories of instruction that this book explores are very enlightening, however the practical examples it offers are more suitable for university level instruction.My biggest complaint with this text is that the examples of communicative language teaching methods it offers are in English and are too vague to lend themselves to practical application.One is left wanting more specifics than the examples give, especially when the text advocates such activities as "brainstorming" or group input activities.For example, how can one brainstorm in the target language when that is precisely what one is trying to teach?I made lots of notes in my copy of the text, but I have not had success in applying what I've learned in my classroom.

Useful for new students of second language acquisition
I read this as a master's candidate in a TESL in Washington, DC. I found it relatively easy to read.Still, it's academically written and focuses on theories and research done on second language acquisition.Topics covered include grammar in communicative language, speaking, reading and writing.This book is for those who want to take a step forward into academia and research in teaching methodology. ... Read more

Book Description
This manual of ideas zeroes in on current picture book titles. It features reproducible worksheets, writing activities, related reading based activities, and technology for grades three through five. The ideas have been tested in the authors' libraries and are linked to national curricular standards. Though school librarians are targeted as the main audience for this book, it also is a valuable resource for the classroom teacher and reading specialist. Librarians will find the ideas and plans valuable as they collaborate with teachers to teach content area standards. The most similar resource to this book of lesson plans is the authors' first book, Linking Picture Books to Standards. This new book has the same format, but focuses on upper- level picture books and activities. It provides the librarian, classroom teacher, or reading specialist with worksheets that are ready to copy and patterns that are easy to follow. There are few resources of a similar genre on the market today--this book should help bridge the gap and provide much needed materials. Grades 3-5. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

An introduction to the often difficult process of teaching small children the intricate details of the English language
Using Picture Books To Teach Language Arts Standards In Grades 3-5 deftly co-authored and illustrated by element school librarian and media specialist Brenda S. Copeland and Patricia A. Messner is an informed and informative introduction to the often difficult process of teaching small children the intricate details of the English language. Designed specially for school librarians, but also providing teachers and homeschooling parents with a comprehensive and "user-friendly" mapping of the particulars in language arts instruction, Using Picture Books To Teach Language Arts Standards is an exceptional value as a resource for the curriculum enrichment. Enhanced with an appendices, a bibliography, web resources, and an index, Using Picture Books To Teach Language Arts Standards is confidently recommended to the attention of teachers, librarians, and reading specialists of grades 3-5 for its exclusively expansive conceptual grasp of the teaching standards for the language arts.
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Customer Reviews (5)

belongs in the library of every language, library, and tool designer

Excerpt from C# Online.NET Review (wiki.CSharp-Online.NET):
"...this book goes beyond the online documentation to clarify and amplify the original standard and describe its implementation.... the single source programmers, language and tool designers, and library and VES developers need to render the CLI and the CLR fully comprehensible."

A unique 'insiders' look at many details that would otherwise not be exposed
This is not just a reference guide (although it is a very good one). It is also (due to the annotations, often funny) that give you insight into the 'why' behind thing like naming, design decisions, things that were internally debated that we would not normally know about, and in general you come away feeling like you were there creating .NET. I find it required reading and often use it as a reference. 5 stars. An amazing read.

Kind Regards,
Damon Carr
(...)

Excellent Reference Guide
Well, you know it's a winner b/c it's in Addison Wesley's Microsoft .Net Development series.Like their Hejlsberg title, this is pure reference.However, there's a lot to it (almost 900 pages in total) and EVERYTHING in the CLS is covered here. It's very technical, and definitely not a cover to cover read, but there are many good examples and if you need a quick reference for any topic in the Framework, this book is a must have.

Interesting Commingling of Languages
When Microsoft released its .NET platform, it attempted, and is attempting, something quite audacious. It is putting forth a programming environment whereby you could combine modules written in different languages, without recompiling, let alone rewriting.

Arguably, Microsoft set itself a harder task than did Sun with java. Along this road, as the book describes, a standard arose - the Common Language Infrastructure. It describes a Virtual Execution System and what type of executable code can use it. So a version of Pascal, say, that wanted to run on a VES would need to pass the compilation rules of a Pascal compiler that adhered to CLI.

An analogy might help. In some rough way, you might consider CLI + VES to be like a java virtual machine, and the choice of a language to use atop CLI to be like running java under its jvm. Granted, this is crude, but many readers are probably unfamiliar with CLI, whilst having more acquaintance with java.

Warning. The book may be heavy sledding for most. The main audience is compiler writers and language developers. Daresay that even experienced developers may not usually deal with a language at this level.

A slight irony is that CLI is meant to decouple programmers from any specific platform, which is why Microsoft pushed it over to a standards body. But the most developed instantiation currently appears to be .NET, which is inextricably interwoved with Microsoft's operating systems.

Wow! The authorative coverage of the CLI (.NET) standard
.NET, unlike Java, is an implementation of an ECMA and a ISO standard.
This book, from the Microsoft employees that created .NET and with input from members of the standards bodies, annotates the standard with comments that provide insights into the reasoning behind the standard. If you are in one of these categories, you should seriously consider buying this book:
1. advanced .NET developers
2. language designers
3. tool designers
4. those interested in understanding virtual machines
5. developers of libraries
6. Java developer (wondering what a standard looks like, just kidding. As an intermediate-advanced Java developer, the book is very interesting though.)
7. developer who wants insight into currentsoftware architecture
Otherwise, the book is still a useful guide to help you grow as a developer if you even browse it sporadically, and unlike many programming books, it will not be obsolete in a year. ... Read more

Book Description
Teachers who are making the transition into management need to gain expertise in specialist areas such as finance, marketing and personnel. This book is the first to provide a comprehensive and practical introduction to these areas written specifically for those working in the field of English language teaching. The book is divided into three sections which deal with three key areas: People and organisations covers staff selection and development, managing curriculum development and innovation, and organising resources and information. It emphasises the importance of communication. Marketing begins by defining marketing and describing 'the marketing mix'. It goes on to offer detailed guidance for developing and implementing a marketing plan. Finance deals with the essential aspects of finance - financial records and statements, cashflow management, management accounting and using financial information - in terms which are accessible to non-specialists. The book gives clear explanations in each area supported by examples and case studies drawn from the author's own extensive experience. Each chapter contains a set of follow-up activities which reinforce and develop the content of the chapter by relating it to practical issues. The book also contains a bibliography for further reading. Management in English Language Teaching will be a valuable book for teachers whose career development is taking them to management positions as well as for more experienced managers. ... Read more

Amazon.com
Pattern Languages of Program Design is the first of three volumes of groundbreaking research on patterns, ranging from smaller-scale design patterns to larger patterns useful for software architecture and process engineering.Early chapters look at frameworks and components for engineering solutions to particular types of problems at a higher level, such as looking at patterns as "tools and materials" that can be used to solve problems effectively.The guide also discusses how to use patterns with interpreters and client-server systems.

Distributed processing is a difficult and exciting area of computing, and patterns presented in Pattern Languages of Program Design can help solve some of the problems of scalability, concurrency, and transaction management. These patterns include several business objects for managing transactions and accounts, as well as for optimizing queries across distributed systems.

The middle section of this text applies patterns to the software engineering process itself and several papers (including one intriguingly called "Caterpillar's Fate") show how the pattern movement can benefit software engineers and managers. Further material looks at the process of defining and implementing patterns. (Discovering patterns is only a start; learning to reuse them effectively is another challenge.) Final chapters look at patterns that manage state and events for real-time and behavioral systems.

Although the first installment of Pattern Language of Program Design offers a decidedly mixed bag of essays, it is particularly strong on distributed systems and provides a strong overview of some central thinking on pattern research, which is still relevant. --Richard Dragan ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Correction Please
Well, suffice it to say the one review here, aside from having nothing to say, could not be farther from the truth. I still open this book all the time. The whole series of PLoP books are immensely useful texts. To tell the truth, these compilation books of papers are, if they are good, in their own realm, far above what you will get from one author. Too much of the computer press turns out the 'work' of exhausted people who are clearly trying to spread a couple ideas across a whole book. Even the Gang of Four book is really a compilation of sorts.

Anyway, this book has many good things in it. Anyone who is interested in Patterns should have the whole series of PLoP books.

The very beginning of Patterns movement
This book is really reserved for pattern's fans, because material inside is essentially focused on processes patterns, and design materials are expressed in a textual way. Anyway, some ideas are good to be kept aside,but amount of such ideas don't justify the book size. ... Read more

Book Description
This scarce antiquarian book is included in our special Legacy Reprint Series. In the interest of creating a more extensive selection of rare historical book reprints, we have chosen to reproduce this title even though it may possibly have occasional imperfections such as missing and blurred pages, missing text, poor pictures, markings, dark backgrounds and other reproduction issues beyond our control. Because this work is culturally important, we have made it available as a part of our commitment to protecting, preserving and promoting the world's literature. ... Read more

Book Description
This book provides a practical overview of the most important methods in the field.Readers are drawn into classrooms where various teaching methods and approaches are being used.They are encouraged to reflect on their own beliefs and to develop their own apporach to language teaching. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Solid and Practical
Unlike many texts for educators, Larsen-Freeman's survey of the methodologies that can be used in ESL is concrete and practical. The book devotes a chapter to each technique, from Grammar/Translation to ALM to Communicative Language Learning. In each case the author describes a lesson in minute detail, breaks apart the pieces, and then examines the principles underlying the steps in the lesson. Larsen-Freeman's point, which I think every good teacher instinctively realizes, is that every method has something to recommend it, and the best approach is to have a cookbook of methods at one's disposal. In an individual class, with any individual student, it's hard to predict what the key to learning will be. This book is simple when explaining theory, and detailed when it comes to practice--a good combination for the working teacher.

Excellent!
Bottom line, I got what I was expecting and what I paid for. It's in really great shape.

a must for every language teacher
Covers all current techniques for language teaching.Impartial treatment of each method and good arguments of how they may be actually implemented.

A bit of history mixed with important techniques
The methodologies presented in the first six chapters are each a compendium of obsolete second language teaching techniques. The information is interesting but not valuable.In its later chapters, this book successfully describes common methods used in today's classroom.It is a fairly good reference book for beginning ESL teachers to have.

A title is not necessary for a review
Excellent book for different methods of teaching. ... Read more