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.

OBJECTIVE
To provide the student with the linguistic tools necessary to express oneself in the Spanish language in everyday situations.

COURSE CONTENTS

TOPIC 1--Talking about habits and routines.
Expressing frequency. Present tense of regular and irregular verbs. Reflexive verbs and pronouns. Expressing possession.

TOPIC 2--Describing personal traits, states of mind, sentiments.
Giving and asking for information about location. Comparing different realities. Contrasting ser and estar. Prepositions and adverbs of place. The difference between está / hay. Estar + gerund. Adjectives and comparative structures.

TOPIC 3--Talking about actions in the past.
Expressing tastes and preferences. Indefinite preterit of regular and irregular verbs. Temporal markers. Adjectives and indefinite pronouns. The verbs gustar, encantar, interesar.

TOPIC 4--Expressing actions in the recent past.
Talking about personal experiences. Preterit perfect. Temporal markers. Contrasting perfect/indefinite.

TOPIC 5--Describing characteristics and situations in the past.
Talking about past habits. Preterit imperfect. Contrast perfect, indefinite / imperfect.

TOPIC 6--Talking about a previous situation at a moment in the past.
Relating events in the past. Organizing a story. Pluperfect preterit. Discursive connectors. Synthesis of the four past tenses.

TOPIC 7--Talking about future events.
Expressing grades of certainty with respect to the future. Talking about plans and projects. Indicative present, paraphrasing, simple and compound future. Present subjunctive. Constructions with cuando and other markers.

TOPIC 8--Expressing doubt and indifference.
Expressing cause and finality. Markers of hypothesis with the indicative and the subjunctive. Ojalá and que + subjunctive. Prepositions por and para.

TOPIC 9--Giving advice, instructions. Giving and denying permission. Affirmative and negative imperatives. Personal pronouns of direct and indirect object.

TOPIC 10--Expressing sentiments, prohibition, obligation.
Expressing opinions. Verbs of feel and influence + infinitive/subjunctive. Verbs of understanding, perception and language + indicative/subjunctive.

EVALUATION
30% midterm exam
40% final exam
30% assignments, participation, and attitude

ATTENDANCE
Attendance is mandatory.

LEVEL CHANGES
Changes of level may only be made during the first week of the course.