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.

COURSE OBJECTIVE

The overall objective of this course is substantial vocabulary expansion and the improvement of communicative competency in describing, giving directions, getting information, narrating and describing in the past, reacting to events through the use of the subjunctive, comparing, narrating in the future, and hypothesizing.

This course has a double emphasis. The first focus is on active mastery of the following proficiency skills. The second focus is on the following grammar skills studied from a linguistic perspective, practiced in context, and recycled throughout the semester.

COMMUNICATIVE OBJECTIVES

1. Daily life for a student of Spanish
2. Vocabulary of the city and the country
3. Ways of life in the past
4. Talking about the body and physical aspects
5. Ecology
6. Geography and the countryside
7. Spanish customs
8. Discuss movies, newspaper and magazine articles
9. Sports and hobbies
10. Social and cultural aspects of different countries
11. Personality and the use of gestures
12. Read texts by Cela, Delibes, Machado, García Lorca

GRAMMAR OBJECTIVES

1. The verb "ser", interrogatives, negation, adjectives, Roman numerals
2. Demonstrative adjectives and pronouns. The noun and number agreement: plurals. The verbs "ser" and "estar"
3. Present indicative of "tener" and "hacer". Possessive adjectives. "Hay" and "está". Difference between "mucho" and "muy"
4. Conjugation of verbs in the present indicative. Irregular verbs. Subject and complement pronouns.
5. Second conjugation of the present indicative. Irregular verbs. Reflexive pronouns. Possessive pronouns.
6. Infinitives. Indefinite adjectives and pronouns. Use of prepositions for location.
7. Adjectives and adverbs. Verbs of obligation. Use of prepositions for time.
8. The imperfect tense. Relative pronouns.
9. Indefinite past. Irregular verbs,
10. Ser and Estar + adjective
11. Superlative adjectives and review of comparatives
12. Relative pronouns (que, quien, cual)
13. Adverbs
14. Para + infinitive
15. Exclamatory sentences with ¡Qué…
16. Future: simple, compound, and probability
17. Ordinal numbers
18. Hace + time
19. Present subjunctive after certain triggers: Quizá, a lo mejor; noun expressions (me parece que, veo que); decir que; cuando; expressions of contingency (de modo que, a fin de que); expressions with emotion
20. Si clauses + subjunctive/ indicative
21. Gustar and similar verbs
22. Sentences with porque and para que
23. Justifications (es que..)
24. Formation and derivation of words
25. Syntax of oral speech
26. Present and past perfect tenses (había hecho)
27. Soler/ acostumbrar + infinitive
28. Gerund periphrases: llevar + time + gerund, llevar + gerund + desde, estar + gerund + desde (de)
29. Passive voice

EVALUATION

The student will be evaluated on daily oral and written exercises, classroom participation, a mid-term exam, and a final exam.