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Madrid

Spanish Language and Culture Trimester - Spring 3 2009
Practice of Communicative Skills

45
Language Level: Advanced
Placement Exam Required
Practice of Communicative Skills
Language of Instruction: Spanish
Course taken with: International Students
Complutense University of Madrid (Madrid, Spain)

Course Description

Area of Study

Language and Culture

Hours & Credits

45

Hours of Instruction

3

Semester Credit Units

4

Quarter Credit Units

Prerequisites and Language Level

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

Advanced
This course is designed for students who have completed or tested out of a minimum of four semesters (or six 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.

Overview

COURSE OBJECTIVE

The overall objective of this level is to enable students to communicate more accurately and in a more sophisticated manner. The focus is on vocabulary and grammar associated with commercial, professional, and academic situations.

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

COMMUNICATIVE OBJECTIVES

1. Requesting clarification
2. Establishing contact with a salesperson
3. Talking about character and states of mind
4. Giving information
5. Relating events
6. Soliciting and giving professional information
7. Expressing and justifying opinions
8. Giving orders and advice
9. Making recommendations
10. Indirect discourse
11. Academic, professional, and commercial vocabulary
12. Vocabulary associated with soccer and bull-fighting
13. Vocabulary unique to the different Spanish regions
14. Expressions to begin and conclude conversations

GRAMMAR OBJECTIVES

1. Review preterite and imperfect
2. Review of perfect tenses
3. Oral versus written language
4. Conditional tense
5. Past subjunctive
6. Conditional + subjunctive/ indicative
7. Connector words: entonces, luego, ¿no?, ¿no es así?
8. Costar, valer, and ser
9. Differences between: quiero, quería, quisiera, querría
10. Emphatic and metaphoric comparisons
11. Verbs of will and wishing + subjunctive
12. Verbs of opinion + subjunctive
13. Interjections
14. Negative words
15. Tener que, deber que, and hay que + infinitive
16. Future used as an imperative
17. Conjunctions of contingency + indicative/ subjunctive
18. Uses and meanings of impersonal forms of verbs: infinitive, gerund, and participle

EVALUATION

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