For Elementary Spanish conversation courses taught at community colleges and in adult education and vocational programs. Margarita Madrigal's books have been used by thousands of students around the world. Former successful students applaud the Madrigal Method: its simplicity, its copious use of cognates, and its humor. The conversations, explanations, exercises, activities, and tapes in Open Door to Spanish teach students to recognize the large number of words and expressions that are alike in English and in Spanish (cognates), strategies and rules for converting English words to Spanish, hints for identifying large numbers of new words in Spanish, and formulas to help students use Spanish verbs to describe events in the past, present, and future.

The first study into how children acquire Creoles as their first language in the absence of a conventional language model.