Customer Reviews

Dime Uno

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I am in a school district that uses this textbook and as a Spanish teacher I often feel frustrated. The flexibility is very limited. The order that the authors teach the concepts is blatantly non-traditional. However, there really never seems to be a reason for their non-traditional stance. Are they mimicking the natural order of L1 acquisition? Students are always asking questions about concepts that they are supposed to acquire through their own intuition.

The book starts by teaching school supplies in the singual format and immediately provides examples in the plural. Why not start with the basics? What's your name? Hello? Good Day? Why have a preliminary lesson at all?

The authors constantly dazzle you with comments and suggestions in the teacher's edition. However, their suggestions often fall flat. There is really no space for individualization within the lesson. To me, it seems as if they handle each lesson as if it needs to be idiot proof. Suggestions are often along the lines of "Don't translate this passage for the students. Use transparencies and gestures to illustrate the meaning."

It seems they break things down in multiple steps that can be covered rapidly (First singular and later plural articles OR First singular and later plural conjugations) Other things that need more detailed explanations are glossed over. The thought seems to be along Krashen's input output theory, yet the input deviates a bit too far from what they are able to produce. For me, it is not a good idea to assume that the students will catch on implicitly. For many, it never really becomes apparent until the grammatical points are explained with more traditional methods or at least in a clearer context.

The book does seem to appeal to students and the illustrations are a bit "busy" but very vivid and perhaps memorable to the students. I definitely feel that this book works better for younger learners (middle school). I also like the video tapes that accompany the series and I feel it is great to illustrate the dialogue in the textbook that will be shown in the video. The actors do a great job of speaking clearly. The textbook itself could use some revamping, too say the least. As a whole, I am not too impressed.

I used the Dime series for about five years in a high school setting until moving to a different state. My experience with the program was extremely positive! After a few weeks, my students were writing paragraphs, and by the end of the school year they were able to understand and participate in a majority of conversations, even if they didn't understand or know every word they wanted. (They could at least describe what they wanted to say.) If a gramatical concept needed better explanation, it was usually sufficient to refer to the "G" pages in the back of the book, where there were also more grammatical exercises for practice. I have routinely used this section.

Although grammar wasn't explicitly taught in the chapters (the book and teacher are intended to get the student to figure out the pattern themselves first before an explanation or referring to the "G" pages), I need to point out that the testing was largely of grammar- in addition to listening and writing sections being tested each time. (Writing is graded with a rubric, which the program provides, and which I distributed a copy of to each student.)

While I see that some people might view the accompanying videos as largely "corny," my students had a sense of humor about them and we laughed a lot about the situations. I did, personally, tend to ignore the cartoons in the book, which were a basic copy of the videos.

I have used a few other series of books which paled in comparisson to Dime. They tended to be "drill and kill" which bores everyone to death, or they didn't expect the same level of skills that Dime does - for example, the past tense might not have even been covered during the first year. After using the other series my students could produce very little in either speaking, writing, or understand much during reading or listening.

I found that practicing listening & reading comprehension in more "realistic" ways, as with Dime, helped with understanding other areas, such as Shakespeare! The idea is to use context clues for comprehension, rather than expecting students to read or listen to something very watered down which really only includes the vocabulary or grammar that they've been exposed to.

My high school was on a traditional 6-period schedule. Instead of trying to cover the entire book in one year, we covered the first 4 chapters during first semester, and the next 4 during second semester. That is sufficient for continuing on to Dime Dos, which does have a review of those eight chapters before heading on to new material. It would be more of a challenge to cover those 8 chapters competently on a block schedule.

I use this Spanish book in school and I don't think that it is a very good one. It is hard to figure out how the activites are set up and what is the new material. It does not have an english to spanish glossary, and the glossary already in there is not very helpful. I would not recommend this book.

This book should not be used to teach beginning students Spanish. I think it is confusing, and many grammar and verb tense rules are not clearly stated in the book. Honestly, I didn't use the book much....I relied more on the teacher's notes. Plus, the stupid videos and comic-type strips become annoying and monotonous.

As a student in high school trying to use Dime Uno, I find that I cannot find any information about grammar, punctuation, or vocabulary without reading the entire chapter through. The cartoons would be better if the were not quite so frequent, as they are, they hinder learning. They only teach in the singular for the first unit,making it hard to learn the plural when it is taught. I would look for another textbook.

Man this book changed my life. Beto Chavez, Ana Montoya, Jaime, and the rest of the gang make this the best book I've ever read. Beto's many adventures and hijinks make for great reading. The part when Ramone says, "Hay un cuaderno," was the single most influential life lesson I learned in my high school career. I only wish that Beto and Jaime could have figured out their differences. I highly recommend this book and will cherish it myself forever. JAJAJA