Note: A placement exam will be required when you arrive on site.

Intermediate

This course is designed for students who have completed or tested out of a minimum of two semesters (or three quarters) of college-level Spanish. However, students must take a placement exam to determine the course level into which they will be able to enroll.

The Intermediate level course is 90 contact hours and consists of two 45-hour modules. Module I, or the Intensive Course, is an intensive 15-day Spanish course taken at the beginning of the program. Once completed, the students will move on to Module II of the intermediate level, which is a 45-hour non-intensive course lasting the final 12 weeks of the program.

INTERMEDIATE LEVEL

1. Objectives

1.1.- The capacity to communicate

-Be able to understand the principal points of clear texts and writings in standard language, that deal with issues, either in work situations, studies situations or leisure situations
-Know how to deal with most of the situations that come out during a trip around any of the Spanish speaking places.
-Be able to produce simple and coherent texts about familiar themes in which there is a personal interest
-Be able to describe experiences, events, wishes and aspirations, as well as briefly justify one’s own opinions or explain one’s own plans

1.2.- Linguistic competences

-Be able to set out enough linguistic elements in order to describe unpredictable situations, to explain the main points of an idea or a problem with reasonable precision and to express ideas on abstract or cultural themes, such as music or cinema.
-Have enough vocabulary to express everyday life most pertinent subjects in a runabout way, like, for example, family, interests, job, travel and current events.
-Manifest a good elementary vocabulary command, even if making mistakes when expressing more complex ideas, or when dealing with non-frequent theme and situations.
-Communicate with reasonable correction in everyday situations, with good grammar control most of the times, even if there is influence of the mother tongue, and the eventual presence of mistakes, that, however, do not impede the interlocutors’ comprehension of the message
-Pronounce clearly and intelligibly, even if there is a still perceptible foreign accent in some situations and possible sporadic mistakes.

2.- Contents

2.1.- Notions and functions

-Recommend something to someone
-Express uncertainty or doubt
-React to new information
-Express different degrees of probability
-Express prohibitions
-Ask and give permission in specific conditions
-Express surprise, astonishment, lack of interest, boredom, pity and fear
-Complain and protest
-Encourage and calm down
-Recommend and ask for recommendation
-Yield the election to the interlocutor
-Compliment and react to compliments
-Offer yourself to carry out an action
-Be excused to do something

2.2. Grammar

2.2.1. Morphology

-Consolidation of the pronominal system and of determination, command of alternative resources and special cases:
--Personal pronoun: stressed, unstressed of DC and IC, uses of se (substitute of le, impersonality, involuntarity)
--Demonstratives: consolidate, forms and contrast between degrees of proximity; exophoric and endophoric uses
--Possessives: form and use of the possessive pronoun preceded by the article
--Relatives and interrogatives, with or without preposition
-Consolidation of quantificatives, indefinites and expressions of gradation (poco / un poco, cualquier(a), todo (singular/plural)...
-The adjective and modes: position in the sentence, options in the gradation
-The verb:
--Systematization of verbal tenses of indicative (presente, pretérito perfecto, pretérito imperfecto and pretérito pluscuamperfecto). General contrasts.
--Systematization of the morphology of tenses of the subjunctive (presente, pretérito perfecto, pretérito imperfecto and pretérito pluscuamperfecto) and introduction to their use
--Sistematization of verbal tenses of the conditional. General contrasts.
--Future in the expression of probability
-Verbal periphrasis: enlargement

2.2.2.- Syntax

-Impersonal constructions (hacer / haber / estar / ser).
--Total and partial interrogative structures, direct and inderect
--Comparative structures
--Impersonality: se/uno, tú impersonal, 3rd person plural
--Complex substantive sentences with infinitive and with que (ya sé que..., quiero que…, me apetece que…, me doy cuenta de que…, la idea de que…)
--Complex relative sentences (que) with or without preposition
--Complex concessive sentences: sin embargo, a pesar de que
--Cause complex sentences: porque, ya que
--Conditional sentences
--Temporal sentences
-Introduction to the indirect style
-Diverse use of verbal periphrasis (ponerse a + infinitivo; quedarse + gerundio; quedarse + participio; dejar de + infinitivo; etc.).
--Interorational connectors: además, incluso, entonces, de todas maneras, en cualquier caso…
-Preposition: verb and adjective regime

2.2.3.- Vocabulary

Character, tastes interests, obsessions
Feelings, sensations, moods
Human communication and language learning
Attitudes and valuations
Places, leisure, shows
Health: diseases, accidents, parts of the body
Objects, tools and machines of everyday use: materials, forms
Establishments, products, services
Food and drinks
Society, technology, environment
Personal relations and kinship
Invitations, petitions, congratulations
Geography, economics, customs and history