TEXTBOOK: Realidades and Look, I Can Talk! will be used as resources. No text will be distributed to students.
COURSE OBJECTIVES:
1. To participate in simple conversations in Spanish, using correct pronunciation, to share feelings, emotions, opinions, and information.
2. To comprehend simple oral and written communication on a variety of topics.
3. To present information, concepts, and ideas to an audience in Spanish.
4. To explore the relationships among the practices, products, and perspectives of the diverse Hispanic cultures.
5. To connect knowledge of Spanish with other disciplines.
6. To recognize the distinctive viewpoints of other cultures.
7. To compare the nature of the Spanish language to English.
8. To contrast Hispanic cultures with individual ethnic background.
9. To employ the Spanish language both within and beyond the school setting.
10. To develop an interest in continuing the study of the Spanish language for personal enrichment.
COURSE OUTLINE: This one-year course is designed to acquaint students with the basic skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing Spanish within a limited scope. The focus is communication in Spanish, incorporating understanding of Hispanic cultures, connecting with other disciplines, comparing native language to Spanish, and participating in multicultural communities. The course provides practice in correct use of basic vocabulary and language structures to enable students to function effectively within realistic settings. This course will fulfill one of the elective credits required for graduation.
METHODOLOGY: My class relies heavily on the TPRS (Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling) method of foreign-language teaching invented by Blaine Ray. It provides a language-rich environment that promotes foreign language learning by what sounds right. TPRStorytelling provides natural language acquisition in humorous, non-stressful situations. Strict grammatical instruction is not the focus, but through TPRS, grammatical correctness is modeled throughout the class within the stories in much the same way we all learned grammar in our native language.
This type of class is dependent upon ACTIVE participation and develops fluency in Spanish through understandable Spanish language; therefore, the majority of class time will be spent in the target language. Also integral to this method, is actively reading in the target language. To this end, you will be reading extended versions of the day’s story, spending twenty minutes per week reading children-stories in class, and reading short, comprehensible novels in Spanish. Your progress is directly linked to your level of participation.
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