Spanish For Heritage Speakers

Center:

Madrid

Program(s):

Madrid - Language & Area Studies [1]

Discipline(s):

Spanish

Course code:

SP 490

Terms offered:

Fall

Spring

Credits:

Language of instruction:

Spanish

Instructor:

IES Abroad Madrid Faculty

Description:

This course is designed for bilingual students in order to develop communication competencies, increase vocabulary, and increase knowledge of certain uses and grammatical structures. It will also address how to value the socio-cultural aspects of the culture in which the student as well as their own culture.

By the end of the course the student will be able to:
• Maintain consistent grammatical control over a complex linguistic repertoire
• Understand and interpret different critical forms of literary and not-literary texts
• Produce well-structured, fluid, efficient discussions, both oral and written, using mechanisms of textual organization and cohesiveness
• Understand films that use colloquial language and idiomatic expressions
• Summarize information from different sources and reconstruct arguments and recount in a coherent form
• Able to use a variety of vocabulary terms including colloquial expressions and different degrees of formality/register
• Be aware of sociolinguistic and sociocultural implications in the language used by native speakers and know how to react

Prerequisites:

Successful completion or level above SP478

Method of presentation:

There will be a special emphasis on learning and the use of Spanish as a foreign language in order to correct possible problems and enrich vocabulary usage.

Required work and form of assessment:

Participation and assigned homework (20%); Quizzes
(20%); Midterm (20%); Final Exam (20%); Field Work Assignment (20%). Field Study Group Project
Objective: The idea is for students to have direct contact with the different layers of Spanish life through group

work and practice with Spanish outside the academic environment. In the second week of class the professor will assign a topic of investigation; the students should include the following aspects:
- brief theoretic information about the topic
- carrying out a survey
- carrying out interviews
- visiting a representative institution

Students should share all difficulties with the professor. Each student should present an activity book to the professor the day of the midterm exam. This work will be considered part of the exam. During the last weeks of the class the student will present their work to the language class and this will be part of the oral evaluation.

Presented in 10 lessons, divided into independent sections that facilitate the student’s learning of uses and concrete rules. The sections are as follows:
• Norms and rules: Grammar. The grammatical content is presented over the course of the semester.
• Taking notes: Writing. Students will work with spelling of special difficulty with different types of text.
• Words, Words: Lexicon. Each lesson corresponds to a specific vocabulary set.
• Blah, blah, blah. Non-functional conversation and content. This section presents activities that help students practice linguistic content from the other sections like questions relative to the analysis of conversation
• Sounds Good: Phonetics. The exercises of phonetic self-correction, getting to know the variety of Spanish dialects, both Peninsular and American.
• Our way of doing things: Allowing the student to reflect on the culture of Hispanic America
• Review: a number of games, activities, etc, that review all learned sections

The manual includes a glossary at the end to serve as a help to the student and professor. It is the specific vocabulary in the section Words, words from each lesson.

content:

Grammar
• Review the Indicative. Review the past verb forms.
• Review the future and conditional forms and uses.
• Ser/estar
• Impersonal Form
• Pronouns
• Por/para
• Verbs with prepositions
• Verbs with change of meaning change
• Verbal circumlocution
• Subjunctive: nouns, relative clauses, conditional, commands, relativism, temporal, final, accusatory, concession, modal, and comparative.
• Indirect style

Spelling
• Accents
• Numbers
• Using the correct letters (b/v, c/z, c/qu/k, d/z, g/j, h. i/y, y/ll, m/n, r/rr, x/s.)
• Using upper case letters
• Groups of letters
• Punctuation
• Abbreviations
• Acronyms

Written Expression
• Use of connectors
• Narrative and descriptive texts
• Argumentative texts
• Formal letters
o Official requests
o Commercial letter
o Curriculumn Vitae
o Cover letter
o Complaint letters
• Public language
• Scientific/technical language
• Journalistic language
• Legal and administrative texts.

Required readings:

Blanco Canales, A., M.C. Fernández López and M.J. Torrens Alvarez. Sueña 4. Libro del Alumno y Cuaderno de ejercicios. Nivel superior. Madrid. Anaya. 2001.
Cisneros S. Una casa en Mango Street (translation Enrique de Hériz). Barcelona.
Ediciones B, 1991.
Cascón Martín, Eugenio. Ortografía del uso a la norma. Madrid. Edinumen. 1998. 2ª Edición.