Beginning Spanish language and culture taught using a communicative approach. Through the use of drama and themes, this course focuses on listening, speaking, reading and writing skills and the culture of the Spanish-speaking world.
Quarters Offered
Fall,
Winter,
Spring
Course Outcomes
Upon successful completion of the course, students should be able to demonstrate the following knowledge or skills:
- Speak basic Spanish with standard pronunciation of simple words.
- Use third-person present and past tense verbs in conversations and in writing.
- Orally produce and respond to common Spanish greetings, discussions of weather and states of being.
- Read and summarize elementary texts in Spanish.
- Construct grammatically correct sentence structures in simple sentences and questions.
- Compose comprehensible compositions in Spanish of gradually increasing length throughout the course of the class.
- Identify the general history, geography and culture of Spanish-speaking countries.
- Articulate an understanding of the value to themselves of learning about other cultures.
Institutional Outcomes
IO1 Communication: Students will be able to communicate clearly and effectively.
Course Content Outline
- Students will read stories in Spanish of differing lengths to introduce vocabulary and grammar; the stories will be acted out or simply translated.
- Students will further discuss the stories as a class by answering discussion questions in Spanish.
- Students will read a novel in Spanish.
- Students will take quizzes demonstrating cultural and geographical knowledge of Spanish speaking countries and cultures.
- Students will translate various stories into English.
- Students will translate parts of a novel into English.
- Students will research a holiday celebrated in a Spanish-speaking country and will write a short paper describing the history, meaning and celebration of this holiday.
- Students will view Spanish videos on-line and complete workbook pages demonstrating their understanding.
Department Guidelines
PO4 should be assessed: Students will be able to recognize or articulate personal/interpersonal aspects of, or connections between, diverse cultural, social, or political contexts.