The required textbooks for this course are the following ones: 

• Doyle, Michael, T. Bruce Fryer and Ronald Cere.  Exito comercial: Prácticas administrativas y contextos culturales. 4th. ed. Thomson-Heinle: Forth Worth, 2005.

             

            The previous edition is from 2001, and you can use it in class as well (there are minor differences). This is the cover:

 

• Doyle, Michael, T. Bruce Fryer and Ronald Cere.  Exito comercial: Cuaderno de correspondencia y documentos comerciales. 4th ed. Thomson-Heinle: Forth Worth, 2005. 

This textbook (plus the workbook) comes with a cd-rom that we will occasionally use although you are encouraged to use it at home for your own benefit and improvement of your language skills. There is a pretty useful website that you can browse for consultation at all times.

You can find these books at the Rice store on campus but also on Internet and through other dealers. Our textbook includes very valuable appendixes, bibliography and commercial vocabulary that you should consider when dealing with your research and study for this course. 

If you have the previous edition of this textbook or the workbook, you can keep it since you can manage to follow the same chapters and basically the same contents with just some few exceptions.

A bilingual commercial or language dictionary should be considered a useful tool for the student of this course. On-line dictionaries can be very useful but in general, I recommend you to have a decent dictionary with you at all times. On-line dictionaries can be quite misleading sometimes and they don't allow you to learn as much as you could with a book. The use of a bilingual dictionary (and here you have some virtual ones from the web) is absolutely necessary for any typing or writing for this class.

Other recommended books, especially for those taking the Madrid Chamber of Commerce Exam, are:

• Maliveo, Elena et al. Mastering Spanish Vocabulary: A Thematic Approach.  Barron's: New York, 1997.

• Business Spanish Dictionary: Spanish-English / English-Spanish.  London: Peter Collin Publishing, 1993.

• Certificado Básico de Español de los Negocios. Cámara de Comercio de Madrid: Madrid, 1997. (On reserve at the library for your convenience during the Spring semester) (Núm. de catálogo en la biblioteca de Rice: PC4120.C6 C47 1997).

• Certificado Superior de Español de los Negocios. Cámara de Comercio de Madrid: Madrid, 1997. (On reserve at the library for your convenience during the Spring semester) (Núm. de catálogo en la biblioteca de Rice: PC4120.C6 C472 1997).

• Bilingual dictionaries in Commercial Spanish like for instance this one by  Oxford or this one by Collin.

• Teach Yourself Business Spanish. (Núm. de catálogo en la biblioteca de Rice: PC4121.K38 1989).

        Other remarks related to this section: 

• E-mail and Owlspace communication will be extremely important. You will be asked to check your e-mail and Owlspace account for changes and news concerning the course as part of those required activities due before next class. E-mail and Owlspace will be also an additional way of communication between the instructor and you for comments, questions, announcements and some of the tests if necessary. It is very important that you make sure you are getting the instructor's emails during the first days of the semester. If your email address changes or you regularly use a different account other than your Rice account, you should notify your instructor by email. The link to Owlspace is included on the mainpage of this website.
  

• Students also need to review at all times this website for changes and any questions concerning the course and its syllabus (especially the daily schedule for the classes). 

• The material distributed by the instructor in class should be kept in a folder for future reference, tests and written assignments. Student's own material (papers, research documents and so on) should also be included in this folder or, even better, Owlspace. The utility of this personal folder goes beyond the duration of this course and these documents could be useful in other courses taken by the student in related fields or any other personal projects in the future. 

• Optional handouts (like grammar reviews) could be offered during the semester. These exercises are highly recommended for those students still having problems with verbs, syntax or vocabulary. Please, bear in mind that grammar is not a topic to be dealt with in class. 

• Some movies, documentaries and other audiovisual material may be part of the syllabus for the class. To check the current list of audiovisual materials on reserve for this class, go and check this link (you can get the password from me, ask me by email or in class).
  

• The instructor will encourage the students to take part in different cultural events organized mainly by The Department of Hispanic Studies , the different Hispanic clubs at Rice (like HACER and MESAR ) and the Baker Institute due to their high interest for the contents of this course.
  

• Also, attendance to the different Spanish tables will result in extra credit or compensation for missing activities (we especially recommend you the ones at Baker College , Hanszen College, Wiess College and Jones College).  Please join the group "Friends of the Spanish Table" on Facebook to keep up with news, pictures, and so on.
  

• We will also use some of the material available at the LRC: software, special tools, and so on that you will be shown during our orientation at the lab during week III or IV. For a detailed list of the Spanish-related software available at the LRC, please visit this link.