Focus on Contemporary Arabic is the fifth volume in the Conversations with Native Speakers series, which strives to offer pioneering multimedia... language materials to students at the intermediate and advanced levels. These programs consist of a slim, user-friendly student textbook and an accompanying DVD that contains interviews with a variety of native speakers filmed in the target language. These speakers represent all areas of the cultural spectrum, offering a realistic view of the diversity of the native-speaking populations of the target language. The interviews on the DVD broach an assortment of socially and culturally relevant topics and present students of the language with a glimpse into the complexity of both the language and the culture.

With a fresh new design and a host of updated exercises and activities, the popular Focus on Grammar series is more practical and accessible than ever. ... Known for its focus on English grammar through contextualized listening, speaking, reading, and writing activities, this lively integrated skills course helps students bridge the gap between comprehending grammatical structures and actually using them. Centered on thematic instruction, Focus on Grammar combines controlled and communicative practice in a consistent approach that's a proven success among students at all levels. Each unit progresses through four steps: Grammar in Context, Grammar Presentation, Focused Practice, and Communication Practice, using a unique format that makes the program easy for students to understand -- and for teachers to implement. Each Student Book features: * Clear presentations and charts that make grammar easy to learn. * Creative activities that stimulate communication. *New high-interest readings that are rich in content. *From Grammar to Writing sections that build composition skills. *Review Tests to confirm progress and improve scores on standardized tests. *New Internet activities for individual, pair, or group work. Other Components (Available Separately): *Workbook offers a wealth of additional exercises. *Audio CD provides opportunities for both task-based and extended listening. *CD-ROM software features contextualized, interactive activities for listening, reading, and writing practice. *Teacher's Manual includes numerous teaching tips, audioscripts for all recorded exercises, and a CD-ROM with PowerPoint presentations and blackline masters. Also includes Student Book Answer Key. *New Assessment Package for each lever features placement, diagnostic, and achievement tests; general proficiency tests; audio CD with scripts; and test-generating software with thousands of items to create class-appropriate tests. *Transparencies of all grammar charts in the Student Books help instructors point out important patterns and structures. *Test-generating CD-ROM allows teachers to create and customize tests quickly and easily, and is available alone or in the Assessment Package. *Companion Website provides students with grammar practice in new contexts through web-based exercises. For online work, see Focus on Grammar Interactive 1.

Focus on Grammar, now in a new edition, maintains the proven pedagogy that makes it the most popular contextualized grammar series worldwide. Its... unique four-step approach takes students from context to communication — blending content, reading, writing, listening, speaking and critical thinking in a complete program, and preparing students to understand and use English more effectively.   Centered on thematic instruction Focus on Grammar allows students to interact with grammar in realistic contexts and moves them beyond controlled practice to authentic communication.   New features include:  Updated high-interest readings in multiple genres that expose students to the form, meaning, and use of grammar in natural contexts. Key vocabulary is taught, practiced, and recycled throughout each unit, to ensure acquisition. Fully redesigned grammar charts and notes that provide greater clarity. Explicit pronunciation activities to improve fluency and accuracy. Expanded listening tasks allow students to develop a range of listening skills. Flexible, ongoing assessment — including unit reviews, diagnostic and achievement tests, and test-generating software — allows students to monitor their own progress and teachers to track students’ mastery. (Test and test-generating software available in the Teacher’s Resource Pack)

Focus on Grammar, now in a new edition, maintains the proven pedagogy that makes it the most popular contextualized grammar series worldwide. Its... unique four-step approach takes students from context to communication – blending content, reading, writing, listening, speaking and critical thinking in a complete program, and preparing students to understand and use English more effectively. Centered on thematic instruction Focus on Grammar allows students to interact with grammar in realistic contexts and moves them beyond controlled practice to authentic communication. New features include: Updated high-interest readings in multiple genres that expose students to the form, meaning, and use of grammar in natural contexts. Key vocabulary is taught, practiced, and recycled throughout each unit, to ensure acquisition. Fully redesigned grammar charts and notes that provide greater clarity. Explicit pronunciation activities to improve fluency and accuracy. Expanded listening tasks allow students to develop a range of listening skills. Flexible, ongoing assessment – including unit reviews, diagnostic and achievement tests, and test-generating software – allows students to monitor their own progress and teachers to track students’ mastery. (Test and test-generating software available in the Teacher’s Resource Pack) MyEnglishLab: Focus on Grammar, an easy-to-use online learning and assessment program, offers online homework and individualized instruction anywhere, anytime. Allows teachers to assign extra practice, organize homework, and track students' progress using a flexible gradebook. Includes hundreds of new automatically graded activities and assessments that support and go beyond the material in the Student Book. MyEnglishLab: Focus on Grammar, includes the complete Student Book listening program as well.

In The Program Era, Mark McGurl offers a fundamental reinterpretation of postwar American fiction, asserting that it can be properly understood only in... relation to the rise of mass higher education and the creative writing program. McGurl asks both how the patronage of the university has reorganized American literature and—even more important—how the increasing intimacy of writing and schooling can be brought to bear on a reading of this literature. McGurl argues that far from occasioning a decline in the quality or interest of American writing, the rise of the creative writing program has instead generated a complex and evolving constellation of aesthetic problems that have been explored with energy and at times brilliance by authors ranging from Flannery O’Connor to Vladimir Nabokov, Philip Roth, Raymond Carver, Joyce Carol Oates, and Toni Morrison. Through transformative readings of these and many other writers, The Program Era becomes a meditation on systematic creativity—an idea that until recently would have seemed a contradiction in terms, but which in our time has become central to cultural production both within and beyond the university. An engaging and stylishly written examination of an era we thought we knew, The Program Era will be at the center of debates about postwar literature and culture for years to come. (20090418)

Focus on Grammar, in its new fourth edition, maintains the proven pedagogy that makes it the most popular contextualized grammar series worldwide. Its... unique four-step approach takes students from context to communication — blending content, reading, writing, listening, speaking and critical thinking in a complete program, and preparing students to understand and use English more effectively.   Centered on thematic instruction Focus on Grammar allows students to interact with grammar in realistic contexts and moves them beyond controlled practice to authentic communication.   New features include:  Updated high-interest readings in multiple genres that expose students to the form, meaning, and use of grammar in natural contexts. Key vocabulary is taught, practiced, and recycled throughout each unit, to ensure acquisition. Fully redesigned grammar charts and notes that provide greater clarity. Explicit pronunciation activities to improve fluency and accuracy. Expanded listening tasks allow students to develop a range of listening skills. Flexible, ongoing assessment — including unit reviews, diagnostic and achievement tests, and test-generating software — allows students to monitor their own progress and teachers to track students’ mastery. (Test and test-generating software available in the Teacher’s Resource Pack)

With a fresh new design and a host of updated exercises and activities, the popular Focus on Grammar series is more practical and accessible than... ever.  Known for its focus on English grammar through contextualized listening, speaking, reading, and writing activities, this lively integrated skills course helps students bridge the gap between comprehending grammatical structures and actually using them. Centered on thematic instruction, Focus on Grammar combines controlled and communicative practice in a consistent approach that’s a proven success among students at all levels.  Each unit progresses through four steps: Grammar in Context, Grammar Presentation, Focused Practice, and Communication Practice, using a unique format that makes the program easy for students to understand – and for teachers to implement.  Each Student Book features: Clear presentations and charts that make grammar easy to learn. Creative activities that stimulate communication. New high-interest readings that are rich in content. From Grammar to Writing sections that build composition skills. Review Tests to confirm progress and improve scores on standardized tests. New Internet activities for individual, pair, or group work. Other Components (Available Separately): Workbook offers a wealth of additional exercises. Audio CD provides opportunities for both task-based and extended listening. CD-ROM software features contextualized, interactive activities for listening, reading, and writing practice. Teacher’s Manual includes numerous teaching tips, audioscripts for all recorded exercises, and a CD-ROM with PowerPoint presentations and blackline masters.  Also includes Student Book Answer Key. New Assessment Package for each lever features placement, diagnostic, and achievement tests; general proficiency tests; audio CD with scripts; and test-generating software with thousands of items to create class-appropriate tests. Transparencies of all grammar charts in the Student Books help instructors point out important patterns and structures. Test-generating CD-ROM allows teachers to create and customize tests quickly and easily, and is available alone or in the Assessment Package. Companion Website provides students with grammar practice in new contexts through web-based exercises. For online work, see Focus on Grammar Interactive 1.

Focus on Grammar, now in a new edition, maintains the proven pedagogy that makes it the most popular contextualized grammar series worldwide. Its unique... four-step approach takes students from context to communication - blending content, reading, writing, listening, speaking and critical thinking in a complete program, and preparing students to understand and use English more effectively. Centered on thematic instruction Focus on Grammar allows students to interact with grammar in realistic contexts and moves them beyond controlled practice to authentic communication. New features include: * Updated high-interest readings in multiple genres that expose students to the form, meaning, and use of grammar in natural contexts.* Key vocabulary is taught, practiced, and recycled throughout each unit, to ensure acquisition.* Fully redesigned grammar charts and notes that provide greater clarity.*Explicit pronunciation activities to improve fluency and accuracy. *Expanded listening tasks allow students to develop a range of listening skills.* Flexible, ongoing assessment - including unit reviews, diagnostic and achievement tests, and test-generating software - allows students to monitor their own progress and teachers to track students' mastery. (Test and test-generating software available in the Teacher's Resource Pack, available separately.) MyEnglishLab: Focus on Grammar, an easy-to-use online learning and assessment program, offers online homework and individualized instruction anywhere, anytime. * Allows teachers to assign extra practice, organize homework, and track students' progress using a flexible gradebook.* Includes hundreds of new automatically graded activities and assessments that support and go beyond the material in the Student Book. MyEnglishLab: Focus on Grammar, includes the complete Student Book listening program as well.

Focus on Grammar, in its new fourth edition, maintains the proven pedagogy that makes it the most popular contextualized grammar series worldwide. Its... unique four-step approach takes students from context to communication – blending content, reading, writing, listening, speaking and critical thinking in a complete program, and preparing students to understand and use English more effectively.   Centered on thematic instruction Focus on Grammar allows students to interact with grammar in realistic contexts and moves them beyond controlled practice to authentic communication.   New features include:  Updated high-interest readings in multiple genres that expose students to the form, meaning, and use of grammar in natural contexts. Key vocabulary is taught, practiced, and recycled throughout each unit, to ensure acquisition. Fully redesigned grammar charts and notes that provide greater clarity. Explicit pronunciation activities to improve fluency and accuracy. Expanded listening tasks allow students to develop a range of listening skills. Flexible, ongoing assessment – including unit reviews, diagnostic and achievement tests, and test-generating software – allows students to monitor their own progress and teachers to track students’ mastery. (Test and test-generating software available in the Teacher’s Resource Pack)

With a fresh new design and a host of updated exercises and activities, the popular Focus on Grammar series is more practical and accessible than... ever.  Known for its focus on English grammar through contextualized listening, speaking, reading, and writing activities, this lively integrated skills course helps students bridge the gap between comprehending grammatical structures and actually using them. Centered on thematic instruction, Focus on Grammar combines controlled and communicative practice in a consistent approach that’s a proven success among students at all levels.  Each unit progresses through four steps: Grammar in Context, Grammar Presentation, Focused Practice, and Communication Practice, using a unique format that makes the program easy for students to understand – and for teachers to implement.    Each Student Book features: Clear presentations and charts that make grammar easy to learn. Creative activities that stimulate communication. New high-interest readings that are rich in content. From Grammar to Writing sections that build composition skills. Review Tests to confirm progress and improve scores on standardized tests. New Internet activities for individual, pair, or group work.