Teaching Books

If you are looking for a book that will thoroughly teach you both the grammar and idiomatic usage of Spanish, there is no better introduction than this. Even for the native speaker, this book is a great resource for learning why certain expressions not only 'feel' wrong but infact are incorrect in usage. The book's divisions make it slightly dry reading but if you persist and complete all of the exercises, you will notice a dramatic improvement in your Spanish. Whether you are a novice or a third-year college student of Spanish, this book will help you advance from conversational spanish to advanced constructions and expressions including the dreaded subjunctive. Enjoy!

This book is definitely a great resource to have as a teacher of ELL students. It covers all the areas necessary to provide better instruction. Lots of self-assessments to help students know where they are and where they need to go.

I find that the information it contains supports most of what I believe in assessing students in the classroom.

I bought this for an ESL Assessment class at the graduate level. I also teach ESL at a university, and this book comes in very handy, both in theory and in practice. I especially like the rubrics you give to students so they can assess their own strengths and weaknesses. For example, when working together in groups, students fill out a form after their work is done, stating how well they listened, asked for clarification, or offered/asked for opinions. I continue to use this book long after I've taken the class, and I believe this is the best assessment book out there. Don't waste your time (or money) on books like "ESL Assessment: On the Yellow Big Road to the Withered of Oz" (or whatever the title of that book is!)
Buy this book and you won't regret it. A winner!

I have just completed a graduate course in Assessment for teachers of ELLs. Almost all of the students in this class, including me, found this book to be a very valuable resource. Some of the information is redundant, but for a teacher looking for ideas on how to construct an authentic assessment of student work (reading, writing, speaking or listening) it is full of great insights and models that can be copied from the book or revised for individual use.

This book is a fairly easy read. However, so far it has been more about authentic assessment than how to assess English Language Learners. Also, there are some editing mistakes that drive me crazy! This would be a good resource if you wanted to know about using portfolios or other forms of authentic assessment.

this book explains the material in an understandable way. it has lots of examples and the homework section covers everything.
i highly recommend it.

I teach a university course based on this textbook and I really like it. It is full of mathematics that students can apply readily to everyday situations, without being heavily computational. The problem sets are relevant to the chapter text. Also, the problem sets are divided into three categories ("walking", "jogging", and "running") based on the level of thought that must go into them. The four chapters on statistics and probability are not quite what I'd like them to be, because in my opinion they cover too much statistical ground in hardly any depth. They would be better if they just did some basic statistics and didn't try to get students at this level into normal curves and standard deviations and all that. My students are particularly fond of the graph theory unit (chapters 5-8). In fact, their only complaint of the book so far is the high price.

I have developed a life-long habit of taking notes of every book I read. My bookmark is a blank piece of paper on which I write things of interest that strike me as I read along. Within a couple of pages of "The Handbook" I stopped taking notes. If I had continued, I would have had as many pages of notes as the book is long. This book is jam packed with very useful information for those thinking of a career as a magazine writer. I have just begun working in this field, and I must say that there is not an area not covered by the 56 contributors to this work. This is like a college course that instructs you on how to find ideas for articles, how to write a great query letter, the dollars and cents of running your own free-lance business, researching, interviewing, developing a style, it is all-inclusive. If you have thoughts of becoming a magazine writer, you can cut out a lot of the uncertainty, stress, waste motions, and rejections of this business by studying this book. I daresay I'll be turning to this handbook on at least a weekly basis. Thank you to the editor and contributors for a job very well done.

The information covers the entire non-fiction magazine market, not just journalism. Includes the best ways to break into freelancing, and compares small and large markets. Creating a niche for yourself versus generalizing is also covered. Some writing tips are offered, as well, but the focus is on selling your work.

I am very pleased with this book, and I recommend it.

I had to purchase this for an online writing course. I didn't expect much. I have read about half a dozen other books on magazine writing that weren't required reading. But this book is really solid and doesn't meander aimlessly, like a couple others I've read. I'd first recommend Jenna Glatzer's book, but this is a good addition to your writing reference shelf.

The "Writer's Digest Handbook of Magazine Article Writing" takes information from a wide variety of highly successful freelance writers and edits it together into a seamless instructional manual. It starts off with a discussion of finding ideas that addresses more than inspiration--it delves into methods to find topics that will sell. "Querying" and "Finding Markets" teach you to pick markets for your work and get assignments from them. "Selling Reprints and Rewrites" and "Business and Rights-Related Issues" help you to understand what your work is worth to whom, and how to make sure it remains worth as much as possible to you.

"Researching" and "Interviewing" get you through the information-gathering phase, which can take longer than the actual writing. "Avoiding Problems" helps you to avoid accidental plagiarism and similar legal problems. "Writing Techniques and Revision" deals with general issues of writing magazine articles, while "How to Write Common Articles" delves into specifics on article types such as profiles, roundups, how-to articles, service journalism, art-of-living articles, and even pieces for children's magazines. "Working With an Editor" shepherds you through the relationships that will make or break your career.

Because the book gets into so many specifics (there's even a sidebar on writing book reviews!) regarding particular article types and so on, you're likely to find it useful even if you've already done some magazine freelancing. It's so helpful to know all the little rules of thumb and instructions regarding different types of articles, not to mention what editors are looking for and get the least of in their submission piles.

The chapter on working with editors presents particularly valuable information in a remarkably even-handed and balanced format. It presents a number of ways to maintain a good relationship with your editor, and these tips are useful and specific. A "damage control" section is included, since everyone runs into trouble now and then despite the best of intentions. There's information on "problem editors" to watch out for and how to best work with (or avoid) them, as well as types of writers that editors hate to find themselves working with and how you can avoid being one of these writers.

Quotes from freelancers and editors liven things up and bring a personal touch to the book. Clear, bulleted lists of helpful points are balanced by enough detail to make sure that you can figure out what you're doing in specific circumstances. The information presented is broad enough to be applicable to any sort of magazine freelancer, and specific enough to be applicable to every sort of magazine freelancer.

This book gave me even more valuable information than I anticipated. I recommend it for anyone who may want to write and get published in magazines.

I learned Japanese as a second language from the Genki books, and now I use them to teach students of my own. This is by far the best Introductory Japanese book out there!

This workbook is a wonderful supplement to Genki 1 the text. It provides for great practice. You need the student CD for this workbook. I recommend it very much. I am teaching myself Japanese and found this set to be excellent. My Japanese friend is very impressed with what I have taught myself.

I agree with on of the other reviewers that the Genki textbook just does not have enough examples or in-depth / creative discussions of grammar. So when you then go to the workbook, it's kind of a baptism by fire into putting the rather anemic lessons to some use.

Another issue is that you will need the answer key to this workbook if you self-study. That is also around $20. Unfortunately, all of the answers are written in that book exclusively in kanji, which of course is not taught until the very end of the first textbook. So, when "grading" your exercises it will be a constant flipping between not only the workbook and the answer key, but the relevant textbook page itself. Which is all the more frustrating because there is minimal benefit to kanj-correction if one has not specifically been including this in the curriculum.

Another 20% of this workbook will not be of use to you unless you purchase the multi-CD listening comprehension set which is around $225! I'd opt for the less expensive 2-disc set that sources the textbook (and not this workbook) exclusively.

Lastly, I also have to laugh at one of the other reviewers who credits her "perfect" Japanese with the Genki series. Nothing could be further from the truth; one does not even begin to understand the myriad of honorifics of the language, not to mention how to speak in anything other than what might be considered ELEMENTARY, textbook Japanese. Hence, the title.

Japanese is a very difficult language for English speakers to learn. If you've learned some French or Spanish (as I have), forget about it! Japanese is many times more difficult. That being said, Japanese is also more interesting, in that it has a completely different structure and forces you to think differently.

Genki does a good job of presenting Japanese is an orderly fashion. The authors are all native Japanese speakers, and there are a few places where they make mistakes in English, but those small errors do not take away from the text.

Genki could use a few more sample Japanese sentences, though. For example, when they present a new pattern, they often provide just a couple of examples when ten or twelve would be better. I suppose they assume (correctly) that this book will mostly be used in a classroom setting, and that the teacher will provide additional material.

In the end, Genki is a good textbook, but you will need more help if you are going to learn to speak Japanese. That is not the fault of the authors, it is just the way it is.

I used this workbook in my first year Japanese class in college. It complements the textbook wonderfully. The lessons are taught in a way that makes it easy to remember what you learn. This series has a rather engaging story about a girl studying in Japan, which makes it both entertaining and fun to learn Japanese. I accredit my now perfect Japanese to the Genki series. It kept me interested and motivated, while teaching me a lot. I recommend it to anyone who wants to learn Japanese!

This is a wonderful book. I read it many years ago as a young person. And after becoming an adult I purchased it and read it again. My son read it when he was younger and he still keeps a copy at his home.
His son is reading it now. This is a book that everyone should read. It's a great read for blacks, because it's about blacks. However, this book is enlightening for anyone who dares to pick it up.
Great read!

This book has been a mainstay in Black Literature because the relevance of the content still apply, and have applied to every generation of African-Americans since it was originally published in 1933. I recommend this book to all African-Americans, young and old.

This is book a must have for anyone studying African American History. If you are building a library, it cannot be complete without this writing - this is one of the foundational cornerstones.

This book is such an eye-opening piece of work. I believe that people of all races can be motivated by this book.

Although copyright for this title is dated 1933, I found that the vast majority of the information therein, pertinent, applicable, and relative to our situation today. This book-as it has been said before-should be required reading for all Black Americans.

The analysis put forth by Dr. Carter G. Woodson on subjects like commerce, religion, and the value of an uncompromising education within our community, are profound.

Wonderful book when you are starting to learn GRE. If you read through the book thoroughly you can easily go above 600+ in GRE verbal

Where else would you prepare GRE from. I got it for the third geenration of my loved ones, as a gift for the GRE preparation. I couldnt think of any other title except the one that served me in my years. Only now it carries 2008 seal.

I had 5 weeks to prepare and I really appreciated the thoroughness of this GRE prep./review book and it made me feel like I could perform decently. If you're far removed from middle and high school math I would recommend doing the math review section at the latter end of the book before you go through the quantitative section. I did not do it that way and ended up feeling a bit stupid because I could not figure out the math to several problems. For the money, this was a great tool to use to review and prep. for the GRE.

In preparing for the GRE, I did some research as to which prep books were user's favorites and then narrowed them down to the top 3: Barron's, Kaplan and Princeton Review, not necessarily in that order but it turned out that way for me. I used the Barron's GRE as my main prep book, in terms of memorising word lists, studying the basic math formulas, and applying math skills towards problem-solving. However, Barron's is not very helpful in terms of preparing for the essay component which didn't really matter that much since the essay component is the least important component of the GRE anyway. So for the purposes of preparing for the verbal and quantitative component, Barron's was adequate.

That being said, I would recommend supplementing Barron's GRE with at least two other prep books. I found Kaplan's and the Princeton Review prep books [with the CD-ROM] to be excellent resources in helping me develop familiarity with the CAT model. However, I place Kaplan above the Princeton Review as I found the Princeton Review's online access tools too cumbersome and not user-friendly. The CAT tests provided on both though were quite good.

All in all, Barron's GRE Prep [I got the one without the CD-ROM] is a handy study guide covering both verbal and quantitative how-tos. But, you will need some other supplements in order to get more practice tests done, as well as preparing for the essay component.

NOT for math practice!!

I own this book along with the Princeton Review "Cracking the GRE" book. I've used this book mainly for the math practice/help... I test fairly high on the verbal practice tests so I've been hitting the math practice hard (I can't say how the verbal part of this book is) . I'm NOT a math person. Luckily my husband IS. After working through the problems and looking at the explanations for the solutions in both books, we both agreed that this Barron's book will show you the mathmatically correct way to do things. However, the Princeton Review book will show you easier ways and quicker ways to do the same problem in a more understandable way for us non math people and it will help math leaning people look at the same problem differently so that they can finish it quicker. Sometimes the mathmatically correct way to do things is NOT the quickest or easiest... it would be easy to get hung up on doing a problem the "correct way", thereby wasting time, while the rest of us have read the Princeton Review guide and are using the tricks and tips that are much faster. It's the difference between trying to figure out 20% by first figuring out 10% and then adding the two and trying to multiply out large numbers in your head... the first way may not be the "correct way", but it can be 10X faster than doing it the "correct way". With this Barron's book, we were both left with the feeling that there MUST be a quicker and easier way to arrive at the same answer than is explained in the book. I feel that the practice questions are harder than Princeton Reviews, thereby preparing me for a more difficult test... I just wish that the explanations were clearer and better. If I didn't have someone to give me alternate ways to arrive at the answer than what is printed in this book, I think that this book would be a total waste. We also found a few errors in the practice questions, that didn't add to our confidence.

This textbook was required for completing prerequisites to obtain my Early childhood degree. But it was one helluva good book. The chapters were short so it was never overwhelming to read. At the end of each chapter were lesson plans and therein lies the gold at the end of this rainbow. This book is a treasure trove of easy lessons to implement in a preschool early childhood classroom. This is not just a fabulous textbook it is an amazing classroom and center resource.

this book is excellent because now I know almost all about the health,nutrition, and safety for the young child.

I was required to buy this book for my class. It is utterly boring. If I had trouble going to sleep, I just read this book. Some of the information is outdated (e.g. how the chicken pox vaccine should be given), as it's copyright is 2005, and the subject matter it contains on the health, safety and nutrition of the young child is constantly changing. The publisher needs to create a 7th edition and use different authors.

Book was delivered quickly and in good condition, Got a great deal and more than i expected would definitely order again

I ordered my book on the 31st of December and I recieved it by the 3rd of January. I use my book for school and it has really helped me alot.