Contemporary A Text for College Students is designed for beginning students of Japanese language at the university level, intended for use in the classroom as well as for self-study. Each lesson is based on a single communicative objective and uses a "guess and try" approach to learning, which encourages problem-solving versus rote learning. This innovative way of teaching through observing real-life conversations enlivens the learning process, and will motivate independent and non-vocational learners.
Contemporary A Text for College Students Volume I contains 14 chapters, broken into 61 short lessons, each of which involves a variety of activities and is designed to be covered in a single session-the 'daily multivitamin' approach. An audio CD containing pronunciation guides, and dialogs for each chapter accompanies the book.
Eriko Sato, Ph.D is Assistant Professor of Japanese Linguistics and Pedagogy in the Department of Asian and Asian American Studies at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Sato's research interests include Japanese linguistics and pedagogy, translation studies, and second language acquisition. In addition to several journal articles in these research areas, Sato published a number of Japanese textbooks and grammar/kanji reference books. Sato serves as the advisor for Teacher Certification Program for Japanese, the Executive Committee Chair for the Japan Center at Stony Brook and the Director of the Pre-College Japanese Program.