Spanish Language: covering the skills of writing, reading, speaking and listening

GENERAL OBJECTIVE

To understand and be able to express one self in general situations that require exchanging information. To be able to convey personal attitudes about familiar subjects and to branch into subjects outside personal experience.

SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES

Oral comprehension-To understand the main idea and some essential details of conversations among native Spanish speakers about several subjects familiar to the student. To understand public announcements and media news briefs.
Oral production-To express oneself in simple tenses and conveying general opinions about familiar topics.
Reading comprehension-To understand the main idea and grasp essential details of texts about several topics familiar to the student.
Written production-To write simple phrases appropriate to the students' level, giving information and expressing personal opinions about several topics familiar to the student.

SUMMARY OF CONTENTS

1. Communicative summary:

- To speak about oneself and others: personal characteristics, likes, experiences, opinions.
- Geographic location: Compare countries and identify them by their distinct characteristics
- Speak about people: Compare customs, express differences, recognize contextual information.
- To outline ideas in a written text.
- To express possession.
- Speaking in different tenses:
- Compare quantities.
- Speak in the past tense I: Talk about actions with or without relation to the present. Refer to a specific moment in time. Refer to an amount of time. Relate two occurrences in the past.
- Speak in the past tense II: Talk about habits and their frequency in the present in relation to the past. Describe events in the past. Speak about time and limits.
- Speak in the past tense III: Tell anecdotes and stories. Introduce a personal view in a story.
- Speak about the future: Express levels of certainty with respect to the future. Talk about future activities.
- Express conditions and probability.
- Describe and ask for information about itineraries.
- React to the news. Express certainty.
- Express opinions and react to them. Demonstrate agreement and disagreement. Express an attitude about shared information.
- Recount statements I: Repeat what has been said. Make indirect questions. Note changes about a person or the surroundings. To tell someone else what was said.
- Recount statements II: Note changes in the weather. Note the validity of statements or their pertinence to the past.
- Ask for information about public services (formal). Talk about
complaints and inconveniences.
- Ask for and give advice.
- Describe and identify something that is unfamiliar to you.
- Make guesses. Talk about a hypothesis in the present, future or immediate past. React to other hypotheses. Express astonishment.
- Congratulate, thank, and react to people thanking you. Invite, accept and refuse invitations. Express desires in specific situations. Express and accept praise.
- Ask for things react to others asking things of you. Note the level of formality of the request. Offer things react to offers.

2. Verb form summary:

- Vocabulary related to personal experience and characteristics.
- Basic functions of ser and estar.
- Vocabulary of geographical descriptions.
- Express reasons: por + noun, porque + sentence.
- People/the majority...+ singular verb.
- Conjunctions of opposition: on the other hand/ instead of.
- Lo de + infinitive/name.
- Uses of parecerse.
- Syntax of comparative structures: more/less...as, as much as.
- Syntax of comparative identification: the most..., the one that has the most...;the best...
- Character and subject vocabulary.
- The impersonal se.
- Percentages.
- Conjunctions and order of basic discourse.
- Possessive adjectives and pronouns.
- Identifiers in a conjunction: he/she + [adjective de + name/ que + sentence].
- Comparing quantities.
- Morphology and the contrastive use of the Indefinite and the Perfect Indicative tenses.
- Speaking about a specific moment in time. En+ date; Desde+date; Hace+amount of time.
- Speaking about time: llevar + gerund; Desde hace + amount of time.
- Speaking about events in the past.: At the beginning + amount of time; amount of time + after; a + amount of time. Time + siguiente. Indicating time limits: Hasta que / desde que/ Ya no.
- Morphology and the use of the Imperfect indicative tense as an indicator of a continuum of time. Skills to express repeated or continued actions in the past.
- Uses of the imperfect tense: introduction to stories and outlines for essay writing.
- Skills to tell time: Hace/Hacía + amount of time (que)...
- Narration in the past: Using the imperfect and indefinites in combination and in comparisons.

3. Cultural contents for Intermediate level:

- General guidelines of Spanish social behavior.
- Uses of tú and usted.
- Linguistic expressions and colloquialisms.
- Norms and customs with respect to daily life: presentations, celebrations, etc.

- The support system of the family in daily life:
- Parent-child relationships
- Relationships in couples.
- Roles of family members.
- Spanish youth.
- Dictatorship and Democracy: general characteristics.
- Political Parties and Unions.
- Main problems of the Spanish Democracy:
- The strike
- terrorism.
- Spain and the European Union
- Spain and America.
- Spain: home of cultural fusion: Christians, Jews, and Muslims.
- Religion, folklore and superstition. Principal expressions of Holy Week.
- Spanish cultural topics:
- Bullfights.
- Flamenco.
- The Mediterranean diet: olive oil.
- Introduction to Spanish Literature I.
- Introduction to Spanish Art I:
- Painters: Velázquez, Goya and Picasso.
- Introduction to Spanish Cinema I.
- Buñuel.
- Almodóvar.