In this age of climate change, killer germs, and obesity, it's easy to feel as if we've fallen out of synch with the global ecosystem. This ecological anxiety has polarized a new generation of Americans: many are drawn to natural solutions and organic lifestyles, while others rally around high-tech development and industrial efficiencies. Johnson argues that both views, when taken to extremes, can be harmful, even deadly. Johnson, raised in the crunchy-granola epicenter of Nevada City, California, lovingly and rigorously scrutinizes his family's all-natural mindset, a quest that brings him into the worlds of an outlaw midwife, radical doctors, renegade farmers and one hermit forester. Along the way, he uncovers paradoxes at the heart of our ecological condition: Why, even as medicine improves, are we becoming less healthy? Why are more American women dying in childbirth? Why do we grow fatter the more we diet? Why have so many attempts to save the environment backfired? In All Natural*--a sparklingly intelligent, wry, and scrupulously reported narrative--Johnson teases fact from faith and offers a rousing and original vision for a middle ground between natural and technological solutions that will assuage frustrated environmentalists, perplexed parents, and confused consumers alike.

A comprehensive guide by international TPRS presenter and author Terry Waltz on teaching any language, but especially those with "unusual" features like tones or non-phonetic writing systems, using TPRS, a method based on Comprehensible Input.

This collection of twelve papers demonstrates that the concepts developed within the Cognitive Linguistics movement afford an insightful perspective on several important areas of second language acquisition and pedagogy. In the first part of the book, three papers show how three Cognitive Linguistics constructs provide a useful theoretical frame within which second language acquisition data can be analyzed. First, Talmy's typology of motion events is argued to constitute the base relative to which acquisition discrepancies in motion events are most valuably investigated. Secondly, the notion of "construction" is invoked in order to account for systematic differences between the native and non-native speakers' use of the English verb get. Finally, frequency and similarity effects are shown to play a crucial part in the learning of prepositions in a second language. The second part of the book shows that the key concepts commonly invoked in Cognitive Linguistics analyses allow language teachers to insightfully structure the presentation of problematic material in the foreign language classroom. These concepts include among others polysemy, the figure/ground gestalt, the usage-based conception of grammar, the radial organization of categories, metaphors, and cultural scripts. The Cognitive Linguistics paradigm has already shown its viability to analyze a wide array of linguistic phenomena. This book establishes its relevance in the areas of second language acquisition and language pedagogy. Its intended public is composed of Cognitive Linguists, Second Language Acquisition specialists, as well as foreign language pedagogy researchers, instructors, and students.

From the Preface: Most Americans who have studied Latin, with our priests and seminarians included, have employed this method, which they thought was 'traditional'. But as something fully developed, this tradition scarcely goes farther back than 1880; and even in its beginnings it hardly antedates the seventeenth century. In contrast to this method of grammatical analysis, Father Most's textbooks reproduce much of the "natural method" by which children learn their native language. Hence, the significance of Father Most's books is manifestly great for the Latin classes in any Catholic high schools or colleges. So much of our Catholic doctrine and culture have been deposited in Latin that we want many of our educated Catholics to be able to use Latin with ease. But the special significance of Father Most's texts is for the Latin classes in our seminaries. Here the students still have much the same cogent motives to master the art of using Latin with ease as the pupils of the thirteenth or sixteenth century. They need it as an indispensable means of communicating thought in their higher studies, and afterwards throughout life. The objectives (knowledge about Latin and training of mind) and corresponding methods (grammatical analysis and translation) "traditional" since 1880 have taken over in our seminaries; and there too the students have been experiencing an ever growing inability to use Latin. Father Most's textbooks can contribute much towards revolutionizing the teaching of Latin by bringing back, as the chief objective, the art of reading, writing, and (when desired) speaking Latin with ease." Fr. Most's textbooks can be classed in categories of similar texts, such as Hans Ørberg's Lingua Latina, as well as Ecce Romani which is a simplification of Ørberg or others which aim to teach Latin not even so much as a modern language, as to teach it by a method more natural to the philosophy of learning Languages. Fr. Most's text follows the view that Latin of the later period is actually more advanced in communicating ideas and is easier to learn than Latin of the classical period, and thus this Second Volume begins the transition with readings and vocabulary from the Vulgate, continuing with the more ancient collects of the 1962 Missale Romanum, St. Cyprian and culminating with a reading from the Roman Historian Sallust. This is an excellent text applying the "natural method" with English language instruction to help the student read and understand Latin natively, with numerous vehicles for simplifying the necessary memorization as well as aiding in truly understanding Latin without constant need to look in a dictionary for rudimentary sentences. This is reprinted from the 1960 edition, and follows the presentation of the text found in that edition.

To those familiar with the field of linguistics and second-language acquisition, Stephen Krashen needs no introduction. He has published well over 300 books and articles and has been invited to deliver more than 300 lectures at universities throughout the United States and abroad. His widely known theory of second-language acquisition has had a huge impact on all areas of second-language research and teaching since the 1970s. This book amounts to a summary and assessment by Krashen of much of his work thus far, as well as a compilation of his thoughts about the future. Here, readers can follow Krashen as he reviews the fundamentals of second-language acquisition theory presents some of the original research supporting the theory and more recent studies offers counterarguments to criticisms explores new areas that have promise for progress in both theory and application. An invaluable resource on the results of Krashen's many years of research and application, this book covers a wide range of topics: from the role of the input/comprehension hypothesis (and its current rival-the comprehensible output hypothesis), the still-very-good idea of free voluntary reading, and current issues and controversies about teaching grammar, to considerations of how it is we grow intellectually, or how we "get smart."

English by the by Nature Method. The aim of the natural approach is to develop communicative skills, and it is primarily intended to be used with beginning learners.It is presented as a set of principles that can apply to a wide range of learners and teaching situations, and concrete objectives depend on the specific context in which it is used.Terrell outlines three basic principles of the approach: "Focus of instruction is on communication rather than its form." "Speech production comes slowly and is never forced." "Early speech goes through natural stages (yes or no response, one- word answers, lists of words, short phrases, complete sentences.)"These principles result in classrooms where the teacher emphasizes interesting, comprehensible input and low-anxiety situations.