!Te Toca!: A New Communicative Spanish Course

Languages are best learned when real-world information becomes the focus of students' activities. In this respect, !Te Toca! definitely encourages advanced learners to focus on exchanging real-life information about the world around them. Moreover, since the topics and issues presented in the book are controversial in nature, they seem especially appealing to college students. Dr Maria Jesus Amores, University of West Virginia!Te Toca! is a thoroughly innovative approach to advanced language learning. Imaginative, exciting and fun, it uses language simulations to take students into a virtual Spanish-speaking world where they adopt a new Spanish or Latin-American identity. Creating a learning environment in which they need to use Spanish to solve a problem or engage in debate, the language simulations draw and expand on students' linguistic, communication, and information-gathering skills.Covering a variety of engaging topics, the simulations literally put the students centre-stage, requiring them to think on their feet and speak exclusively in Spanish. The topics revolve around contentious issues and each chapter includes a simulation exercise with all its associated documents, as well as a lead text, comprehension questions, a guide to relevant points of functional grammar, associated exercises, a glossary of terms, and suggestions for written work.

Richard Pym is Senior Lecturer in Spanish at Royal Holloway, University of London. Mark Allinson is Professor of Spanish at the University of Leicester.