Cuentos y más Cuentos

Cuentos y más cuentos is a collection of stories made available to readers in the early part of the course. With emphasis on the audiolingual approach in speaking featured today, the story material supplies the student with a splendid opportunity for oral self-expression. If he must learn to speak Spanish and acquire some degree of fluency, to talk about different situations in life is the best choice of topics because they are meaningful to him.

No apology is offered for the simple style used in the first thirty stories. It was done to give the student plenty of reading experience and to cover ground when reading is begun in the course. In the last twenty stories of established authors, simplification was necessary. They wore those stories for a Spanish-speaking public with a wide cultural background which our students do not have in the junior and senior high schools. While the stories have been simplified, they maintain a natural style intended to promote the acquisition of a number of pattern sentences, useful idioms, and a practical vocabulary of real conversational value. The constant use of basic words and pattern sentences employed over and over again, establishes a solid basis for daily speech forms of high frequency.

The stories in the book give a composite picture of Spanish and Spanish American life. The variety of plots and people make it possible for the student to see a parade types pass before his eyes.