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Spanish Stage 4

Duration: 2 terms
Value: 30 units of credit
Course tutor: Carmen Rivera-Galicia (carmen.rivera-galicia@buckingham.ac.uk) and Ana Astudillo (ana.astudillo@buckingham.ac.uk)
Level: Common European Framework level B1

Aims of the course

• To develop skills for communicating with some confidence in familiar contexts: exchanging information, explaining and justifying opinions on topics that are familiar or of personal interest.
• To enable students to exploit a wide range of simple language and strategies flexibly in order to deal with both routine and non-routine situations and topics relating to everyday life.

Objectives of the course

On completion of the course students will be able to demonstrate:

Knowledge and understanding

1. the ability to recognise and reproduce a wide range of simple grammatical structures and vocabulary.
2. the ability to access and use a wide range of simple cultural information included in authentic materials.
3. the ability to appreciate and articulate a good range of similarities and dissimilarities between Hispanic culture and their own.

Key skills

1. Reading: the ability to gather factual information from different parts of a text to fulfil a specific task; the ability to identify the main conclusions and follow the argument in a clearly-written speculative text.
2. Writing: the ability to explain problems and solutions with reasonable precision in a formal letter; the ability to describe advantages and disadvantages of familiar items or practices in a short simple essay.
3. Speaking: the ability to construct a simple argument; the ability to express thoughts on more abstract, cultural topics; the ability to interact in less routine situations (problem solving, commenting on the views of others); the ability to deal with politeness conventions.
4. Listening: the ability to understand both the general message and specific details in speech or recorded materials on topics that are familiar or of personal interest when articulated clearly and in standard Spanish.

Syllabus / Study content

Grammar

Past tenses. The subjunctive mood: expression of opinions, feelings, emotions, wishes. Reported speech. More advanced use of direct and indirect object pronouns. Prepositions. Ser and Estar. Conditional tense: giving advice. Basic si sentences Affirmative and negative commands

Written production

Grammar and lexical exercises. Reading and listening comprehension exercises with guided questions. Creative writing (formal / informal letters, short essays).

Oral production

Interacting in less routine situations. Constructing simple arguments (for / against; advantages / disadvantages; compare / contrast). Presentations (cultural practices, newspaper articles). Role play, pairwork, improvisation.

Reading materials

Newspaper articles, documents of a factual or speculative nature.

Listening materials

Video / audio recordings: dialogues, narratives, presentations on topics relating to everyday life and / or cultural issues.

Key texts

• Castro, F. et al. Español en marcha 3. Student's book with CD (Madrid: SGEL, 2004). ISBN: 978-84-9778-240-1.
• Oxford Spanish-English / English-Spanish Dictionary (Oxford: OUP, 2008). ISBN: 978-0-19-954340-3.
• Turk, P. & M. Zollo ¡Acción Gramática! (3rd ed., London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2006). ISBN: 978-0-340-91526-4.
• Kendris, C. & T. Kendris. 501 Spanish Verbs (6th ed., New York: Barron, 2007). ISBN: 978-0-764-17984-6.

Assessment

• 20% assessed course work
• 80% end of course examinations (20% listening, 20% oral, 40% written)