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.
Prerequisites
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 first, second and 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 elementary texts and instructions in Spanish.
- Recognize and use comparisons of equality and inequality in written compositions.
- Write grammatically correct sentence structures for simple sentences and questions.
- Recognize and use written structures expressing obligations, desires, abilities and knowledge.
- Write comprehensible compositions in Spanish of greater length than those written in Spanish 121.
- Identify the general history, geography and culture of Spanish-speaking countries.
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 study a historical time period in a Spanish-speaking country which demonstrates the political and cultural controversies commonly experienced.
- Students will view Spanish videos on-line and complete workbook pages demonstrating their understanding.
Department Guidelines
With departmental approval, students with proven previous life experience/learning (i.e. high school study of the language, native or heritage speaking students) may receive credit for Spanish 121 by enrolling in Spanish 122 and earning a grade of 3.0 or higher in that course.
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.