Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

SPA113B is a first-year level course designed for students who wish to improve their ability to converse in Spanish. Students will have the opportunity to practice the structures and vocabulary they have worked with in first year Spanish courses. This course also provides review for students who are entering a second-year Spanish class. This is a three-credit transferable course, and it counts as an elective toward associate degrees.
 

The student:

• communicates using common interactions in predictable settings and uses basic vocabulary, present tense, some present perfect, preterite and imperfect forms
• begins to apply language-learning skills to various real-life situations
• recognizes and begins to appreciate linguistic and cultural diversity within the Spanish speaking world

After the introduction to the course, Spanish will be used in the classroom at all times.

Students may be assessed by any combination of the following:

1. Active participation in class in the target language
2. Short individual oral presentations
3. Short frequent contextual written tasks
4. In-class, interactive student role plays with a partner or in small groups
5. Oral interviews with instructor

Include all or most of the following:

1. Greetings, introductions and leave-takings
2. Asking and giving names and personal descriptions, personal data
3. Basic vocabulary including some or all, but not limited to, the following: clothing, colors, numbers, alphabet and spelling, body parts, family, weather and seasons, expressions of time, food and drink
4. Origin and nationality
5. Hobbies and free time, talents and plans for the future
6. School and university
7. Responsibilities
8. Birthdays and holidays
9. Daily routines, use of reflexive verbs
10. General geography and information regarding Spanish speaking countries.
11. Careers and activities at work
12. Domestic activities and the home
13. Expressing plans for the future
14. Food cooking and restaurant settings
15. Holidays in the Spanish speaking world
16. Health topics
17. Influencing others
18. Discussion of different situations in the past travel, travel plans and the environment in Spanish speaking countries

(these concepts are not necessarily presented here in the order presented in class; presentation depends largely on the makeup of the student population in a specific course)
Competencies and skills:
The student will:

1. Manage introductions, leave-taking and exchange basic personal information in a culturally appropriate manner
2. Describe self and others: personality, physical attributes and emotions, weather and states date, time, year, and season
3. Make statements about daily activities, likes and dislikes
4. Recognize the wide diversity in culture and language between Spanish speaking countries
5. Formulate simple questions and answers
6. Appreciate the importance of speaking without continual monitoring for mistakes as part of the process of learning to communicate in Spanish at a basic level.
7. Manage very basic, predictable interactions in some of these settings: shops, restaurants, home, travel
8. Begin to talk about past events and childhood
9. Understand slow speech in a highly controlled/predictable setting
10. Discuss future plans and preferences
11. Describe daily activities in the present and past
12. Talk about travel and travel plans
13. Make himself/herself understood by native speakers in a highly predictable setting.