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

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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.

OBJECTIVES
The main objective of this Course is to enable students to become familiar with the key aspects of the Grammar of Spanish with regard to the issues arising from them for English-speaking students. Students will be provided with the basic tools whereby a clearer understanding of the grammatical structures of the Spanish language may be ensured so that they may acquire the capacity to identify the most common errors both in the use of both written and spoken language, the aim being to correct them.

METHODOLOGY
With this aim in mind, a highly practical methodology will be employed, whereby grammatical explanations will always be geared toward the development of basic communication skills, through which the more complex structures of Spanish Grammar may be assimilated and understood, on a gradual basis, in relation to the grammatical structures of students' mother tongue.
Therefore, the activities carried out during class sessions will have a double projection: one, of a theoretical kind, wherein the key problems raised by the Grammar of Spanish for English-speaking students will be highlighted, and the other, of a practical kind, which will allow for the acquisition of the already-mentioned communication skills via especially designed batches of exercises and by means of other parallel activities inside and outside the classroom space.

SYLLABUS
1. The Substantive.
Noun Classes and their Use.
Morphology of the Noun: Gender, Number, Derivation.
2. Determining the Noun.
Classes of Determiner: Articles and Demonstratives (Morphology and Uses).
Classes of Determiner: Possession (Morphology and Uses).
Classes of Determiner: Quantification (Morphology and Uses).
3. The Adjective.
Morphology and Uses.
Gradation of Adjectives. The Comparative Degree.
4. The Personal Pronoun.
Uses and Placement of the Pronoun.
The Different Forms of "se". Expressing the Impersonal.
The Neutral Demonstrative Pronoun.
Indefinite Pronouns and Adjectives.
5. The Verb I.
The Conjugation of the Verb in Spanish: Person, Tense, Aspect, and Mode.
The Use of the Present Tense: The Continuous and Habitual Present. The Periphrastic Structure "estar + gerund".
The Uses of the Future Tense. Future Simple and Future Perfect. The Use of the Future Tense to Express Doubt.
Past Tenses. Aspectual Differences in the Indicative: the Indefinite, the Imperfect, the Perfect, the Past Perfect.
Ser Estar: an Appraisal.
The Passive Voice.
6. The Verb II.
The Potential Mood.
The Subjunctive Mood: Commonly Found Values (creo/pienso/opino.que + indicativo no creo/ pienso/opino.que+subjuntivo).
Imperatives and Negative Imperatives within the Subjunctive. The Use of "ojalá".
The Use of the Subjunctive in Subordinate Clauses.
7. Prepositions.
Verbs + Preposition Grid (verbs with prepositions: alegrarse / estar harto / tener ganas / acordarse+ de+infinitive).
The Preposition "a": Values and Uses.
The Prepositions "por" and "para": Values and Uses.
Locative and Temporal Prepositions: the Adverbial Expressions involved.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
ALARCOS, E. Gramática de la lengua española. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1994 (varias eds.).
BOROBIO, V., PALENCIA R. Curso de español para extranjeros (intermedio-libro del alumno). Madrid: SM.
HILL, S. & BRADFORD, W. Bilingual Grammar of English-Spanish Syntax. Lanham: University Press of America, 1991.
LAROUSSE. Gran diccionario usual de la lengua española. Madrid, Larousse, 1998.

ASSESSMENT
Students' assessment and grading will be derived from their on-going classwork, the carrying out of the exercises set, and from the extent of their acquisition of communication skills in Spanish. Two key tests will also be set, one mid-way through the semester (during the fifth or sixth week) and another at its close.