| 5 • The Project expands to other textbooks & software | last modified: |
Goethezitat: "[Gott:] Es irrt der Mensch, solang er strebt."
• ca. 1987: publisher's acquisitions editor: "Too bad this isn't a Spanish books. More students are taking Spanish now than before." Authors' reply: "Would you like us to make you a Spanish book?" (authors' preference had been to produce for French).
• Began "cloning" Wie, bitte? as "¿Cómo? Introductory Spanish for Proficiency", with Earl Rees (PSU) and Juan Gomez (Linfield) as co-authors. "¿Cómo?" was used at PSU and Linfield starting about 1993 (PSU until 2001, Linfield even later). Student fees (far lower than textbook costs) supported production, including further development of "Wie, bitte?" and new software for Spanish and German.
• Solicited publishers to have our tech team produce audio recordings for their books (did one: "Na klar!")
• Big Plan: Produce, based at PSU, a rotating series of textbooks for many languages, with re-editions feeding off each other. Also subcontract resources for other books / publishers. Keep local team, now in place, steadily employed.
It didn't work out that way.