Leyendas del mundo hispano (English and Spanish Edition) - Softcover

Perhaps no other story is as compelling, as universal, or conveys as much about a culture as does a legend. In this widely used reader, the second edition of Leyendas del mundo hispano offers 12 Hispanic legends from Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia¿ Cuba, El Salvador, Mexico, New Mexico (U.S.), Paraguay, Peru, Spain, and Uruguay. Abundant pre- and post-reading activities accompany each story and help students improve their reading, writing, and speaking skills.

• A preliminary chapter presents popular North American legends in order to provide a framework for the Hispanic legends and create a link to something they already know.
• 4 new legends: an Inca creation myth, an Arab-Spanish legend, a Cuban legend/myth, and a Sephardic legend.
• Each chapter has:
• A listening activity that corresponds to the audio CD
• Internet activities that refer students to the Leyendas web site
• An activity involving a map or other visual
• The web-based activities encourage students to look beyond the stories to the context in which they were created.
• A more robust Spanish-English glossary

Since legends are an inherently aural medium, an audio CD has been created that contains a spoken version of each legend. Students can practice their listening comprehension, feel the rhythm of the language, and experience the intonation and inflection of the words. The Audio CD invites students to journey back in time and experience the legends just as they were initially experienced—in the telling for aural preservation from one generation to another. With each telling, the legends take on the particular characteristics of the time and the teller. One spoken version is offered for each legend.

Susan Bacon (Ph.D, Ohio State University) has been teaching at the University of Cincinnati since 1985. She is currently Professor of Spanish and Associate Director for the Institute for Global Studies and Affairs (IGSA). In addition to her administrative duties, she teaches Spanish Language and Culture, Spanish Teaching Methodology, Second-Language acquisition, and Global Studies. Previously she has been involved in K-12 teacher education. Her research interests include child and adult second-language acquisition, and the processing of authentic input. She is recipient of the prestigious Paul Pimsleur Award for Research in Education awarded by the American Council for the Teaching of Foreign Languages and the Modern Language Journal. She has been Project Director for a four-year grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, and a Fulbright-Robles Scholar in Mexico. She is primary researcher for several empirical articles, and has co-authored several elementary and intermediate-level Spanish texts including ¡Arriba!, Conexiones and Leyendas del mundo hispano.

Nancy Humbach coordinates the Languages Education Program at Miami University, Oxford, OH.  She is a veteran teacher at the secondary level and has authored more than a dozen textbooks.  She is a former Fulbright-Hayes Scholar (Bogotá, Colombia) and the recipient of numerous awards, including the National Endowment for the Humanities-Readers Digest Teacher-Scholar Grant for Ohio.  During her sabbatical funded by that grant, she research legends and myths of Mexico.

Born and raised in Columbus, Ohio, Gregg O. Courtad likes to say that he was educated on three continents, having taken courses in Colombia, Spain and North America. Currently an Associate Professor of Spanish at Mount Union College in Alliance, Ohio, he recently taught a course for American students at the Universidad Nacional in Heredia, Costa Rica. Among his past teaching experiences he is particularly fond of his life as an ESL instructor at the Oficina Hispana de la Comunidad in Boston, Massachusetts. When not trying to make the world a better place for hispanophiles, he is busy restoring his Tudor Revival “Cottage” in an historic section of Canton, Ohio.

Aitor Bikandi-Mejias (Ph.D, University of Cincinnati) has been teaching, since 1996, at Colby College, Maine, and Saint Louis University, Madrid Campus. He is currently Visiting Professor of Spanish at University of Cincinnati. He teaches Spanish Language, Spanish Culture and Civilization, and Spanish Literature. His research interests include Teaching of Spanish Language, Contemporary Literature from Spain, Spanish Cinema and Cultural Studies. He has co-authored elementary and intermediate-level Spanish texts, including Leyendas del mundo hispano. He is also the author of the books, Galaxia textual: Cine y Literatura, Tristana (Galdós y Buñuel), and El Carnaval de Luis Buñuel: Estudios sobre una tradición cultural.