My book does not represent an untried theory. It is the result of many years of successful teaching. As stated in the title, it is written to teach Spanish to beginners. I have named it "Spanish Conversations in the Classroom: Spanish Through Spanish." The aim is to teach Spanish in a very simple way, training the ear, the tongue and the mind at the same time. As the title "Spanish Through Spanish" indicates, I teach Spanish in Spanish, not in English.

Spanish is very easy to teach, and easy to learn, but one must follow fundamental laws of teaching and learning: two difficulties must not be presented at the same time; one must progress from the easy to the difficult; each lesson must be a continuation of yesterday's and a preparation for tomorrow's lesson; there must be many examples and few rules, etc. There are many good textbooks for advanced students, but in every textbook of Spanish for beginners which I have seen, the poor beginner and his unfortunate teacher have to struggle with pronunciation, vocabulary, rules, etc., at the same time. This is a big mistake, and entirely contrary to good sense and principles of teaching. Not any of the books which I have seen contains regular lessons in pronunciation. Most of them have the alphabet with the equivalent pronunciation in English, long explanations about the different letters, but no regular lessons with exercises and drills in pronunciation. These exercises and drills are as important in Spanish as spelling is in English. Spanish is a phonetic language, and we should never teach writing by spelling, but by sounds. In fact, I have never "spelled" a word in Spanish. I was taught in the phonetic way only, and great was my surprise to note, in some books for beginners, the inclusion of the burden of spelling! "Spelling in Spanish", said Gabriel Compayré toward the end of the last century, "is an old method entirely out of modern schools." (El deletreo es un procedimiento viejo enteramente deseartado de la escuela moderna.)

Instead of spelling drills there should be much dictation. If the teacher wishes to have matches in class, these must be in sounds and not in spelling. New words must be dictated to the class to ascertain if the students recognize the sounds when these are pronounced.

With respect to vocabulary: in all books for beginners which I have seen, words are piled up to serve as examples of the rules, and the student has to learn at the same time the rule--in English, of course--and the words to serve as examples for that particular rule. Some books claim that one of their features is "small vocabularies", and I have counted forty new words in one vocabulary list.