Sol Y Viento: Beginning Spanish

"Sol y viento: En breve" is an exciting new film-based introductory Spanish program that seamlessly integrates the feature-length film "Sol y viento" into the instructional and learning experience for both students and instructors. This brief version of "Sol y viento: Beginning Spanish" (McGraw-Hill, 2005) presents a briefer text that is easily managed for programs with fewer contact hours or as an intensive high beginner course.

The movie "Sol y viento," created specifically for beginning language learners, was filmed on location in Chile, Mexico, and the United States. The film tells the story of a Chilean family and their winery, threatened by internal deception and external corporate development. A young U.S. Latino businessman finds himself intricately involved with the family and its winery as his company tries to buy their land. Later, as he rediscovers the past he fought to put behind him, he begins to question his own role in the ongoing intrigue. Mystery, romance, and the unexplainable forces of nature all play a part of this spellbinding story as it unfolds.

The "Sol y viento: En breve" textbook and accompanying ancillaries have been developed with and around this exciting movie, providing students with exceptional input developed specifically for beginning learners. Language is presented within the context of the movie; and linguistic skills are developed through engaging, meaningful activities that encourage students to develop real-world skills and abilities. Both instructors and students alike will find "Sol y viento: En breve" to be a highly motivating introductory Spanish program designed especially for today's language learners!

Bill VanPatten is Associate Professor of Spanish at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Chanpaign, where he is Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese and the Advisor for the undergraduate program in Spanish teacher education. He received his Ph.D. in Hispanic Linguistics from the University of Texas at Austin in 1983. His areas of research are input and output processing in second language acquisition, the impact of instruction on second language acquisistion, and the acquisition of Spanish syntax and morphology. He teaches a wide range of courses from beginning Spanish to doctoral seminars on language acquisition. He has published numerous articles and chapters in books and is the co-author of several McGraw-Hill Spanish textbooks. He is also the designer of Destinos, a television course for PBS.