SYLLABUS SPANISH IV

Spanish IV Syllabus

Course instructor :   Omar Antonio Anduaga Bocanegra (mdeamiens@hotmail.com)

 

Course description:

This course meets four times a week, for 45 minutes for 3 quarters during the year. This course is developed, as a group of seminars were students show their ability to use the Spanish language through discussions, presentations, critical reviews, and reading comprehension. The topics will vary and will cover different subjects of life and culture in Latin America and Spain.

Standards

One year of Spanish III is required and, also proficiency in speaking, listening and writing is a must. It is understood that students arrive to the fourth level of Spanish with knowledge of all the tenses and structures learned during their studies in Spanish I, II, and III. The students must be able to communicate using the Royal Academy of Spanish Language standards as well as informal structures allowed by the Academy through accepted regional expresions.

Texts and readings used in the course:

Students will be provided with an online book created by the teacher. Activities and other resources will be available in the website of the course.

Course Scope and Sequence

                       

1. Final Tenses in the Spanish Language (August-September)

a.     The Perfect Tenses (review)

                                                             i.      The Present Perfect

                                                           ii.      The Past Perfect

                                                        iii.      The Future Perfect

                                                         iv.      The Preterit Perfect

b.     The Perfect tenses and Perfect Subjunctives (continues)

                                                             i.      The Conditional Perfect

                                                           ii.      The Present Perfect Subjunctive

                                                        iii.      The Preterit Perfect Subjunctive

                                                         iv.      The Past Perfect Subjunctive

                                                            v.      Future Subjunctive and Future Perfect Subjunctive

c.      The Compound Conditional.

2. Expresión Oral y Escrita (Oral and Writing Strategies) October -November

a.      Projects with the Vocabulary to be used in the seminar.

b.     Structures and writing modes in Spanish.

                                                             i.      The Monologue

                                                           ii.      The Biography

                                                        iii.      The Poem

                                                         iv.      The Story

                                                            v.      The Advertisement

                                                         vi.      The Comic

                                                       vii.      The journal article.

3. El Arte en Latinoamerica y España (Art in Latin America and Spain) December-January.

a.     Traditional Music: Joan Manuel Serrat – Spain, Joaquín Sabina – Spain, Carlos Gardel – Argentina, Chabuca Granda-Perú

b.     Poetry: Pablo Neruda “Pido Silencio” – Chile, Mario Benedetti “Tácticas y Estrategias” – Uruguay. Francisco de Quevedo “Oda a una Nariz” – España. “Borges y yo” – Jorge Luis Borges – Argentina. “Romance de Fonte Frida” – Anónimo.

c.      Comics: Mafalda- Quino, Condorito – Pepo.

d.     Film: Mujeres al Borde de un ataque de Nervios – Pedro Almodóvar- Spain.

e.      Painting and Sculpture: Frida Khalo – México, Botero – Colombia, Velásquez –Spain, Francisco de Goya-Spain.

f.       Modern Music: Juanes – Colombia, Alejandro Sanz- Spain, Natalia Oreiro-Uruguay, Gianmarco-Perú, La Ley-Chile, Paulina Rubio – México, Diego Torres-Argentina.

g.     Literature: Excerpts. “Cien años de Soledad” – Gabriel García Marques,  “El Túnel”- Ernesto Sábato. “Tradiciones Peruanas” – Ricardo Palma, “La incredible y triste historia de la cándida Eréndira y su abulea desalmada” – Gabriel García Marques (all the story, by chapters)

h.     Sports: Soccer teams in Perú, Argentina and Spain

i.       Food: Traditional food in Latin America and Spain

4. History of Latin America and Spain. Current Politics (February-March)

a.     Latin American perspectives on the history of the XV-XIX centuries. (Debates, readings, discussion and texts)

b.     Development of politics in the XX century.

                                                             i.      Process after Independence.

                                                           ii.      Understanding Latin American unstable politics.

                                                        iii.      The Spanish Civil War.

c.      Politics nowadays. Major problems of Latin American and Spanish society.

Specific assignments and assessments for the course:

Students are evaluated in three different skills:

1.     Grammatical knowledge

2.     Communicative and writing skills

3.     Creativity and responsibility

The most important goal of this course is that students communicate using the Spanish Language in the most accurate way.

As part of the course work students have to:

1.     Bring a good Spanish Dictionary to every class.

2.     Read the texts every week in order to participate in the debates and discussions in class. Texts will be given the previous week of the debates and discussion, without exception.

3.     Write papers of 200 words for each topic, and present about one of the characters under study. When required.

4.     Participate, and investigate about the topics under discussion.

5.     Christmas Carol that is sung to the administrative staff at the School as a group project for Christmas.

6.     Participate in class.

Grading System:

1.     Presentations, quizzes, debates and participation: 35%

2.     Papers, compositions and all written work: 35%

3.     Activities in class, homework and attendance: 30%

Rubrics for Papers

1.     Times New Roman 12, Space 1.5

2.     200 words

3.     Papers have to be printed and handed to the teacher before the discussion of the topic starts (dates to be given). Students can have a copy of their paper for the discussion.

4.     Topics of the Papers follow the syllabus, but specific requests will be given.

5.      All papers are graded over 100 points. A grammatical mistake (gender/number) takes 2.5 points. Conjugation mistakes take 3 points.

6.     ELECTRONIC TRANSLATION POLICY:  If the student is suspect of using Google translate or any other electronic translator for the papers:

a.     The teacher will meet the student and ask about the word/phrase that might have been translated.

b.     The teacher will ask about complex structures that might be suspicious of translating or copy (students CAN always quote, and that IS valid).

c.      If the student cannot explain or does not show any knowledge when explaining the complex word or phrase, will immediately be reported to the school, and will earn the equivalent of ZERO (0) in the grade of the activity.

Rubrics for Presentations and Debates

1.     Presentations must be an explanation about the reading to the other students, as not all of them will choose to read the same reading.

2.     Presentation must last not more then 10 minutes and must be able to explain to the class, the content, and specifics on the readings.

3.     Presentations must be clear, and the use of Power Point or other resources is allowed.

4.     Once the presentation ends, the class MUST ask questions to the presenter, in order to clarify the ideas.

5.     Once the questions are over, the teacher will ask questions to the rest of the class in order to confirm that they understood the presentation.

6.     Not participating in the debates or question rounds, will give a grade equal to ZERO.

RUBRICS FOR FINAL PROJECT

The final project consists in a Magazine/Newspaper, that will be worked in groups of 3 that contains:

-         An Editorial

-         An article on economics in a Spanish speaking country.

-         An article on politics in a Spanish speaking country.

-         An article on an artist in a Spanish speaking country.

-         A music critique of a song in a Spanish speaking country.

-         A movie critique of a movie in a Spanish speaking country.

-         An interview to a Spanish native speaker.

-         A comic.

-         A biography of an important personality of a Spanish speaking country.

-         A section on Advertisement for American companies, for Spanish speaking consumers.

All the articles must be at least 200 words long. Photos and pictures must be part of the project.

The grade of the final project that is due the last day of class will be averaged with the 75% combination of the written and oral skills in the grade system.

Rubrics on Participation and Presentations

Presentations and active participation are an important part of the grade. Students must show work and knowledge in the topics that they are presenting and the ability of answering questions and follow a debate. The grade of each presentation will be in a scale of 100 points.

-         Use of the right tenses and proper conjugations in the speech – 50 points. Each mistake will gradually take more points of these fifty first points.

-         Use of the proper structures that include gender, number and Spanish syntaxis. – 30 points – Each mistake that includes gender, number, use of indirect and direct objects, double pronoun or special use of verbs and “for” (por/para), “to know” (saber/conocer) will immediately affect the score in this item.

-         Presentation development, structure of the speech, attitude, and creativity – 20 points.


Download Syllabus Spansih IV