Advanced Spanish I

Course Overview

This course is designed as a continuation of Intermediate Spanish II. During this course, the students will put in practice all the grammatical structures learned in previous Spanish classes with the purpose of applying them in a more communicative way. The students will acquire a greater proficiency in the Spanish language and an understanding of different Spanish speaking cultures. They will analyze and compare cultural information and read more complex and authentic texts. In each Unit there will be a specific emphasis on using certain grammar structures, but students will continue using the grammar structures they know. They will gain confidence to engage in conversations of more abstract content as well as current events. The students will improve their writing techniques, express themselves in longer and more organized paragraphs, incorporating all the learned grammatical structures. They will critically analyze important topics of discussion and class debates. They will continue the cultural written exchanges with students from another Spanish speaking country and discuss and compare national and cultural topics with them.

Course Content

Unit 1: Perspectivas: Percepciones e impresiones.

The objective of this unit is to learn vocabulary to talk about qualities that describe people, participate in class debates about what stereotypes and perceptions are, how they originate, and about different ways to break them down. The students will use all the grammar they previously learned, the main grammar points they will focus on will be ser, estar, gender and number agreement, adjective and noun agreement, comparisons and superlatives. In the cultural section, they will learn about music, art, and important information about different places in Spain. The students will lead cultural presentations and engage in meaningful readings, allowing them to think critically and arrive to their own conclusions while they exchange cultural information with students from a Spanish speaking country.

Unit 2: Conexiones: Nuestras raices.

The main objective of this unit is to practice narration in the past using preterite, imperfect, present perfect and expressions using “hace que”. The students will continue using all the grammar points they know, and the grammar reviewed in Unit 1. They will learn more expressions about how to react to a story. The students will be using more vocabulary to talk about family interactions. One of the main topics during this unit will be immigration, family roots, and generational differences. They will watch authentic videos about what it means for different people in Latin America to be an immigrant, current events about immigration, and cultural information about Cuba, Venezuela, Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico.

Unit 3: Pasiones y sentimientos: Las relaciones humanas

During this unit, the students will learn vocabulary to describe and talk about feelings and relationships. This unit will focus on the use of subjunctive in nominal clauses and commands. The students will have to continue implementing all the grammar structures they know and reviewed in the previous units. The students will read cultural information about different places in Mexico, music, and art, as well as history.