Monthly Archives: March 2021

My new book is out — and selling briskly!

Although the Routledge website and Amazon still say that my new book won’t ship until next month, the copy that my father pre-ordered arrived last week, and my own copies a few days ago. So those of you who have been looking forward to reading the book shouldn’t hesitate to place an order, or to request that your library do so. According to Amazon many readers have already taken the plunge:

¡¡#1!!

I am very happy with the look of the book, including the cover. The crucial center illustration is hard to read in the screenshot above, though, so below please see a clearer version. The speech bubbles represent topics (e.g., acquisition), types of student activities and projects (e.g., WebQuest), and the overarching and organizing theme of essential questions.

The book is slender for its price, but of course half of the work on this project went into the 300+ accompanying PowerPoint slides which are available on the Routledge website. The slides are under copyright, and I do hope that anyone who finds them of value will show some respect for my time and effort by purchasing a copy of the book. Ahem.

What next? Besides teaching and blogging, I’ve had two book ideas on a far-back burner for some time. One is The Story of Spanish in 100 Words: a version, for Spanish, of David Crystal’s delightful book about English. I should be able to write that in my sleep, right? Another idea would be a major departure for me, though still language-related: a book about “grand-names,” meaning the names grandparents choose to be called — or their grandchildren choose to call them. This book would be timely as more and more Baby Boomers are becoming grandparents.

Or…I could decide to just spend a lot of time with my own grandchildren. Time will tell.