Touchstone Series
Apolonio Hicks
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Touchstone seriesAuthor Andrea K. Hst Narrator Stephanie MacfieStatusCompleteLinksTouchstone series on Amazon USTouchstone series on Amazon UKTouchstone series on GoodreadsGenre Information Science Fantasy Young Adult
On her last day of high school, Cassandra Devlin walked out of exams and into a forest. Surrounded by the wrong sort of trees, and animals never featured in any nature documentary, Cass is only sure of one thing: alone, she will be lucky to survive.
The sprawl of abandoned blockish buildings Cass discovers offers her only more puzzles. Where are the people? What is the intoxicating mist which drifts off the buildings in the moonlight? And why does she feel like she's being watched?
Increasingly unnerved, Cass is overjoyed at the arrival of the formidable Setari. Whisked to a world as technologically advanced as the first was primitive, where nanotech computers are grown inside people's skulls, and few have any interest in venturing outside the enormous whitestone cities, Cass finds herself processed as a 'stray', a refugee displaced by the gates torn between worlds. Struggling with an unfamiliar language and culture, she must adapt to virtual classrooms, friends who can teleport, and the ingrained attitude that strays are backward and slow.
The Centino series blends with any landscape setting. Perfect for illuminating walkways, landscapes, and gardens. The CenTino is available in 6 different powder coat finishes and stands 20 in. tall. The center stem design creates an outward and downward circular lighting effect. The top twists off for easy LED access.
However, despite the enjoyable aspects of this novel, there are some parts of it that do not sit well with me at all: specifically, certain aspects of the worldbuilding. While the concept and the characters are a great joy to read about, the world itself does not do it any favours. The pseudo-European setting, as well as the mind-boggling number of fantasy races, some of which do not make a lot of sense (how can a Wizard be considered a separate race entirely from Human?), are not particularly interesting, and add very little to the story beyond explaining why certain characters are good at certain things and bad at others.
Overall, Touchstone is sufficiently entertaining and engaging, for the most part. The concept of magical theatre is appealing enough to get the reader hooked, and the characters are fascinating enough to make he or she want to keep on reading till the end. However, readers might find themselves far less invested in the world itself, or in the fact that there are only hints of a plot that really only gets going in the next book, not in this one. I am interested in reading the next book in the series, but I am rather glad to finally leave this one behind.
Touchstone, a series by Michael McCarthy, Jeanne McCarten, and Helen Sandiford, is a well-thought out and motivating text for young adult beginning and intermediate learners of English and is written with the intention of helping students to develop confidence in their ability to understand real-life English and to express [themselves] clearly and effectively in everyday situations (Welcome to Touchstone,p. iv).
Corpus driven and grounded in lexical and communicative principles, the series comprises four course books of 12 units each (plus four revision units), which take learners from beginner to intermediate levels. Each text is buttressed by attendant workbooks and listening material (which comes in a choice of CD or cassette format). Add in the teacher s editions, and there are 36 different components in all (not to mention the video series or online test creator).
Each book, fronted by a comprehensive scope and sequence matrix, comprises 12 units, each interspersed with Checkpoints at three-unit intervals which review and revise what has already been learned.
Each unit is further broken into four sections, A to D. Each section typically occupies two pages, excepting section D, which runs to a third: the Vocabulary Notebook. Grammar is presented in the first section of each cycle and reinforced in the second, where it is integrated with vocabulary while sections C and D tilt the balance in favor of listening and speaking activities. Useful corpus inspired tips such as In conversation, I don t know is the most common three-word expression appear throughout as boxes in margins.
All readers will appreciate the series layout with its bright, modern and engaging photographs and illustrations. However, while the target audience,young adult learners, shouldeasily connect with the multicultural group of 20-somethings who people these books, older learners may have trouble identifying with the characters presented in the texts.Yet despite this, the Touchstone Series, due its content and design,is a good resource for beginning and intermediate students who wish to express themselves clearly and effectively in everyday English.
Dr. Su is a director of Center for the International Affairs at Aletheia University, Taiwan. Dr. Su held research editor positions at Universal Journal of Educational Research; Associate editor for the University of the Visayas-Journal of Research, and editor for Asian EFL Journal. She is a Professor at Department of English where she has taught Applied English courses since 2008.
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The Iconic Country Boy model finally makes its way to the Bourgeois Touchstone Series. The Touchstone series is a collaboration between Bourgeois Guitars and Eastman. The tops are made and voiced by Dana and the Bourgeois team and the mahogany back & side
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