Earl W. Stevick

“ Those users who prefer to start with drills or with Cummings devices are free to do so. The dialog may then become, to the student, a culmination rather than a commencement—a happy concentration of elements that he had met earlier, one or two lines at a time. Or the dialog may remain as the starting point. In any case, the social and topical dimensions of the lesson have been 'customized' in an orderly way, and all three dimensions converge on a set of demonstrable non-linguistic objectives. ”

“ Adaptation of the dialog itself is likely to be slight and superficial. Some teachers will feel that if only one form of the second person is to be taught in the opening lesson, it should be the formal rather than the informal one. Most students will have destinations other than Santa Ana, Chile. Some will expect to live in hotels or dormitories rather than with a family. All of these changes can be made without disturbing the basic structure of the dialog. ”

“ Converse with a Spanish speaker other than your own instructor about your travel plans. Try to make a good impression. Tell where each person in the class is going, and say something factual about the city where he expects to stay. Using a map, give a lecture on the geography of the country that you expect to visit. Once the lesson has been adapted in these ways, its center of gravity in the linguistic dimension has moved outside of the basic dialog. To put the same point into a different metaphor, the dialog remains but is no longer basic. ”