Newswise — An international partnership between West Virginia University, the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid in Spain, and a Spanish high school will oversee the production of new, bilingual textbooks for use in both English and Spanish-speaking countries.

Ángel Tuninetti, chair of the Department of World Languages, Literatures and Linguistics said the partnership will give WVU greater international visibility and provide middle school and high school students with free quality reading materials.

“These are short stories, vetted by native speakers in both languages, that will allow students to better understand how languages work,” Tuninetti said. “These will be valuable, high-quality materials.”

Besides the two universities, the project involves four Spanish high schools, and it has been funded by the Spanish Ministry of Culture and Education. Several books will be produced during the partnership, with the first to be released later this year. The books will contain folk tales, plays, and short stories based on classical myths, in Spanish and English versions and including pedagogical activities for both languages. They will be available both in print and electronic format.

“The idea is that the books can be used bilingually, or just one language,” Tuninetti said. “If the teacher wants students to confront the two versions, he or she can do that. But also, a teacher can just say ‘Oh, let’s only use the Spanish version’ or ‘Only the English version.’”

The project is directed by Dr. Mónica Durán Mañas, from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. Tuninetti, along with associate professor María Amores and graduate teaching assistant Ángela Matute Sánchez, will oversee the development of the English language portion of the books.

Tuninetti hopes the collaboration will benefit middle school and high school teachers in the state of West Virginia, and the department will promote the event at the West Virginia Foreign Languages Teachers Association in October. It will also be promoted at the Northeast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages in New York in February.

“This projects fulfills our mission to serve the state of West Virginia, help foreign languages teachers with high-quality materials and fosters our international relations,” Tuninetti said.

MEDIA CONTACT
Register for reporter access to contact details