Puntos de Encuentro: A Cross-Cultural Approach to Advanced Spanish

Puntos de encuentro: A Cross-Cultural Approach to Advanced Spanish is an innovative task- and content-based textbook that rethinks advanced Spanish instruction. Based on research on second language acquisition in the classroom, it combines language-as-discourse instruction with content-based learning.

This text emphasizes the analysis of spoken and written texts drawn from real-world sources, such as journalism, history, literature, and film. Students reflect on language forms and functions in context before using task-based, collaborative activities to process language and content at higher levels by synthesizing information, distinguishing opinions from facts, drawing comparisons, and debating points of view.

The source materials have been carefully selected to introduce students to relevant and engaging issues in the Spanish-speaking world, such as the environment, human rights, indigenism, immigration, and bilingualism. In order to understand these topics better, students are asked to compare Spanish-speaking societies with their own, promoting cross-cultural awareness.

Puntos de encuentro analyses complex, contemporary issues as a means to achieve advanced proficiency in Spanish, which results in more language production, increased multicultural understanding, and enhanced critical thinking skills. This groundbreaking approach makes Puntos de encuentro unique among advanced Spanish textbooks.

María J. de la Fuente received her B.A. and M.A. degrees in Spanish linguistics from the University of Salamanca in Spain, and her Ph.D. in Spanish and second language acquisition from Georgetown University. She is currently professor of Spanish at The George Washington University, where she directs the Spanish Language Program. She has received a Bender Teaching Award for Excellence in Teaching and is a member of the Academy of Distinguished Teachers. Previously she taught at Duke University and Vanderbilt University. Dr. de la Fuente is the author of several research articles in the field of instructed second language acquisition, and has had a long-standing interest in task-based and content-based approaches to classroom language learning, including teaching Spanish through disciplines such as sustainability. Dr. de la Fuente has also authored the task-based textbook Gente, a widely used college elementary Spanish textbook.

Beatriz Cobeta received her M.A in teaching Spanish as a second language and her Ph.D. in Spanish literature from the Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia de Madrid. She is an assistant teaching professor of Spanish at Ball State University and has previously taught at the George Washington University, Oberlin College, and the University of Notre Dame.