¿Sabias que...? (Student Edition)

Rating:
Summary: Two Words
Review: BO-RINGGGGGGGGG...when is someone going to write a good foreign language text book that gives the students interesting stories in addition to verbs and grammar. How about a story about Mariachi bank robbers who hold a small Mexican town captive while their leader (we can call him El Loco Uno) holds the mayor's daughter captive. After a band of rebels (these are good rebels not bad ones) catch word, they quickly dispurse to the village, where they find El Loco Uno holding Marietta (the mayor's daughter) at knifepoint. The leader of the band of rebels, Rico, throws his lassoo out but misses, and instead catches Mariettas poodle, who is barking nearby. This is key later in the story. So now El Loco Uno is angry, and he sends his men after the rebels. They engage in bloody war for a long time. Finally, after many men have died, Rico sees El Loco Uno eating a sandwich. Rico sneaks up behind him and tries to strangle him, but El Loco Uno picks up his fork and stabs Rico in the neck. Rico stumbles backward, struck with pain, and El Loco Uno kicks him in the groin. Rico falls down, and El Loco Uno pulls out his knife, ready to finish Rico. Desperate, Rico searches for a weapon, but instead finds a small ball of fur. In a last ditch attempt to save himself, he picks up this ball of fur, which happens to be muffin, Marietta's dog, and hurles it at El Loco Uno. Now ordinarily muffin would be frightened, but what El Loco Uno doesnt know is that a piece of turkey is stuck to his lower lip, and muffin is very hungry. Anyway, the story ends with Marietta falling madly in love with Rico. Now that would be an interesting book.

Rating:
Summary: Horrible Book
Review: If you really want to learn Spanish this is not the book for you. This book is boring and unhelpful. I found my students to be frustrated and annoyed with this book. They did not feel it was a good resource. I found it annoying myself and it does not provide good activities for a college or high school level. In my opinion, the activies are a bit hokey.

Rating:
Summary: Groundbreaking text in communicative Spanish teaching
Review: The first edition of SQ blasted onto the market nearly 10 years ago and broke ALL the rules. It's a gutsy, interesting book that does what most other first year Spanish textbooks fail to do - gets you students using and understanding Spanish from the beginning of the school year! It is not easy to teach from Sabias que - you're going to have to work as hard as your students are, but the rewards will be amazing! This is not a teach-yourself Spanish text. It is meant for classroom use.