Notes regarding credits...

This course consists of 40 hours of instruction. However, students may earn 45 hours by attending supplemental sessions and completing additional coursework. Please check with your home university to find out whether you need 40 or 45 hours to earn course equivalents.

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

High Intermediate

This course is designed for students who have completed or tested out of a minimum of three semesters (or five 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.

1. Introduction
This class will try to explain and understand the basic elements that shape the Spanish American culture. Those questions that today constitute models of understanding of the contemporary reality of Spanish America are discussed in this class. The fundamental objective is to serve as an approach to the complex reality of peoples who are the result of a laborious process of acculturation.
2. Program
1. The American geographic means
2. Racial distribution and historic evolution
3. The demographic explosion and its problems
4. Familial structure and everyday life
5. The social groups and their behavior
6. Political tendencies and modern ideologies
7. Dependency and underdevelopment
8. The external debt.
9. The world of culture
10. Popular art and folklore

3. Activities
Besides the explanations in class, the reading of the written works, newspaper articles, etc. are considered important by the professor in the same way that the visualization and hearing of that material contributes to the best comprehension of the subject.

4. Evaluation
Attention and participation in class will be valued at 20%. The presentation of the small work will be valued at 30%. There will be two elimanatory exams. A midterm and a final exam. Both tests will be valued at 50% of the final grade.

5. Bibliography
Given the contents of the class, the professor will proprose for each theme the appropriate work material : bibliographic selections, press, audiovisuals., etc.