Dos Mundos: A Communicative Approach

The philosophy of this best-selling introductory text is to emphasize communicative proficiency. Based on the Natural Approach, the text stresses the use of activities in a natural and spontaneous classroom atmosphere. In this comprehension-based approach, the development of receptive skills--listening and reading--precede and form the basis for the development of the productive skills--speaking and writing. Dos mundos is designed so that class time is devoted to exposing students to Spanish through the abundant activities in the text, allowing the grammar explanations and exercises to be studied outside of class.

Tracy D. Terrell (late) received his Ph.D. in Spanish Linguistics from the University of Texas at Austin and published extensively in the area of Spanish dialectology. Professor Terrell’s publications on second-language acquisition are widely known in the United States and abroad.

Magdalena Andrade received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Irvine. She has taught elementary and intermediate Spanish at San Diego State, UC Irvine, and UC Riverside, where she worked as a coordinator of the Teaching Assistant program.

Jeanne Egasse received her BA and MA in Spanish Linguistics from the University of California, Irvine. She has taught foreign language methodology courses and supervised teachers in training of foreign language methodology courses and ESOL at UC Irvine. She also serves as a consultant for local schools and universities on implementing the Natural Approach in the language classroom.

Elías Miguel Muñoz is a widely published prose writer and poet. He has a Ph.D. in Spanish from the University of California, Irvine, and has taught Spanish language and Latin American literature at the university level.l.