Yoshi Goes to New York

📙 Yoshi Goes to New York has been designed to improve listening comprehension through listening to natural, spontaneous speech. The materials comprise twelve taped conversations and an accompanying workbook. The conversations are based on situations chosen to generate primary language functions. Many of these functions are recycled throughout the series. Conversations have been thematically linked for high interest. The workbook contains exercises that require the student to listen repeatedly to the conversations while leading him/her gradually to a deeper understanding. Unlike most recorded materials, the conversations represent authentic discourse. To insure that specific language functions were generated, scenarios were prepared in advance, though the conversations themselves were unrehearsed. No prepared transcripts were used, no lines memorized. All participants were native speakers who spoke spontaneously at normal speed. As a result, the conversations contain all the elements that make up everyday speech: hesitation, reductions, false starts, grammatical errors, and a full range of speaking speeds and intonation patterns. Variety in social register naturally occurs through the interaction of the characters. Derived from several years teaching at the Foreign Language Institute of Japan, this material may be used in the classroom or the language laboratory; it may also be used very effectively for self-study.