Spanish course in Spain - García Lorca Spanish School

Intermediate Level

This second level allows the student to build on his knowledge of the Spanish language. The general objective is to prepare the student to speak Spanish fluently and correctly in any given situation and introduce him to the use of the language in a personal way (narrative resources, emotion expressions, opinions and assessments...). We combine grammatical aspects of the Spanish language with all the linguistics and cultural elements required to obtain a sufficient level of communicative competence.

The Spanish courses offer a wide variety of activities including in-house bibliographic material that will introduce different studying practices: Spoken and written practice, reading and listening comprehension and phonetic exercises, vocabulary, simulation games, creative activities, dictionary references, student study assistance, cultural material.

At the end of each unit section, there is a test with its principal aim being to focus on subjects that will be reviewed. Exercises of previous sections are reviewed, focusing on communication skills, concentrating on both the course contents and its mechanics. The student will have to resort to his knowledge to undertake these exercises.

Course Outline

The course consists of three sections with an evaluation test in order to assess the learning process, as well as a verbal presentation, which comprises of approximately 60 class hours.

Objectives and contents. Presentation
Subject 1. You and the world around you
Subject 2. Real life situation assessment
Subject 3. Reality through time

Objectives and Contents

INTRODUCTION

The learning process of the Spanish language.
The D.E.L.E. Certificate.
- Ways to encourage communication in class.
- Development of personal strategies and learning techniques.
- Presentation of the D.E.L.E. Certificate.
- Introduction of the D.E.L.E. Certificate, learning materials and objectives of the centre.
- Looking at the intricacies of learning a foreign language.
- Introduction to Spanish orthography focusing on accents. Exercises and the presentation of D.E.L.E. material to practise orthographic aspects.s

Units

Subject 1.

YOU AND THE WORLD AROUND YOU

Description
Communicating, 1
Communicating, 2

1.1 Description

To prepare the student to:
- Show an interest in others. Ask for someone. Take interest in the activities developed by other people and tell them about your own activities.
- Describe someone you met in the past.
- Talk about people and question them about: Their physical aspect and personality.
Contents:
- o Discriminative use of past tenses.
- Forms of the relative pronoun: aquel que/de; el que/de.
- Morphology of the superlative in -ísimo.

1.2 Communicating, 1

To prepare the student to:
- Ask for authorization and favours in formal and informal situations. Understanding prohibitive situations and impersonal authorizations. Impose conditions to the granting of an authorization or favour.
- Give orders or recommendations.
- Ask for advice and help, advise and express doubt or concern.
Contents:
- Improve the command of affirmative and negative forms of the imperative tense.
- Position of the object personal pronoun in affirmative and negative imperative tense.
- Morphology of the second person (formal and informal) in negative imperative tense.
- Morphology of the present subjunctive tense.
- Present indicative tense to give instructions.

1.3 Communicating, 2

To prepare the student to:
- Ask for explanations/clarifications.
- Reproach. Insist while showing irritation. Give and repeat orders. Reproach something to someone in formal and informal situations.
Contents:
- Present subjunctive tense to express actions in the future in subordinate sentences.
- Neutral definite article: lo.
- Conditional conjunction: como.
- Subjunctive tense in subordinate sentences introduced by the conditional conjunction Como.
- Que + present subjunctive tense to express repeated orders.
- Dejar + de + infinitive.
- Seguir + gerund.
- Formation of the present perfect subjunctive tense (forms in -ra).
- Present and imperfect subjunctive tense in the repetition of orders.

Units

Subject 2.

REAL LIFE SITUATION ASSESSMENT

Likes and opinions.
Hypothesis and desires.
Disappointment and annoyance.

2.1 Likes and opinions

To prepare the student to:
- Express likes and hobbies of their own.
- Ask for and give opinions, show agreement or disagreement and to argue in favour or against an idea.
- Agree partially with others.
- Exchange ideas sorting them out, summing them up, reformulating and interrupting the interlocutor correctly.
Contents:
- Resources to organise a particular line of argument: Speech connectors and organizers.
- Concessive conjunction: aunque.
- Present subjunctive tense in a subordinate sentence which takes Aunque in order to give an argument that is not considered crucial.
- Present subjunctive tense in a sentence that begins with No es que...
- Passive voice using the 'to be' verb.
- Subjunctive tense in sentences which begin with No porque...; and in sentences beginning with Aunque... in order to express an argument that is not considered important.
- A letter of opinion. The habitual structure and expressions of common correspondence.
- The summary technique.

2.2 Hypothesis and desires

To prepare the student to:
- Express security, concern and surprise, formulate hypothesis, suppositions and certainties.
- Express interest, prospects and desires which are difficult to fulfil.
- Express shame and pity. Ask for confirmation or guarantee of a supposition with the aim of placating.
Contents:
- Present or preterit subjunctive tense in independent sentences beginning with Ojalá to express realizable or unrealizable desires.
- Imperfect preterit subjunctive tense in completive sentences which are part of principal sentences with the verb in conditional tense.
- Future tense to express hypothesis or conjectures.
- Subjunctive tense in sentences which begin with ¡Qué ganas tengo de que...!, ¡Qué pena/lástima que...!, ¡Cómo me apetece que...!.
- Subjunctive tense in sentences beginning with Es una suerte/Es una pena que... - Formation of the compound future tense.
- Formation of the present perfect subjunctive.
- The use of simple and compound future tense to express proximity, doubt and hesitation.
- The use of the indicative mode in sentences which begin with A lo mejor or Quizás.
- Subjunctive tense in sentences which begin with Es posible, No creo que or Qué raro que.

2.3 Disappointment and annoyance

To prepare the student to:
- o Express disappointment, relief, remorse and with the purpose of quitting.
- Express annoyance.
Contents:
- Concessive conjunction: por mucho/por más que.
- Subjunctive tense in subordinate sentences which begin with Por mucho or Por más que in order to express the irrelevancy of an action or consideration.
- Subjunctive tense in sentences beginning with No puede ser que...; Es indignante que...

Units

Subject 3.

REALITY THROUGH TIME

Past
Future

3.1 The Past tense

To prepare the student to:
- Describe an event while maintaining interest and coherence. Show and maintain interest when listening to the story.
- Maintain the interest and the coherence whilst narrating. Show interest when listening.
- Talk about isolated past actions, simultaneous and uninterrupted. Increase the sensitivity of the student when using the imperfect preterit and the simple past tenses.
Contents:
- Temporal conjunction: mientras.
- Imperfect and simple past tenses in a compound sentence to express simultaneity between actions.
- Estaba + gerund + cuando + simple past to express a past action interrupted by another.
- Estaba a punto de + infinitive + cuando + simple past to express a past action interrupted by another before taking place.
- Casual conjunction: como.
- Consecutive conjunction: así que.
- Temporal conjunction: luego. Causal-conditional conjunction: por si...
- Speech connectors: Pues mira...; Bueno, pues...; Pues nada...
- Indirect style with the verb introductory to simple past and the original verbs in present and present perfect tenses.
- Preterit imperfect tense to express habitual actions or descriptions in the past.
- Resources to talk about frequency in the past. Temporal connectors. Resources used to explain the changes through the time. Cuando to relate actions.

3.2. The future tense

Capacitar al alumno para:
- Talk about future plans and projects subject to different conditions: When expecting a safe situation; when not knowing if the situation is secure; when there exists a difficulty against the plan.
Contents:
- Conditional tense to express a future action in an indirect style with the verb introductive to the simple past tense.
- Simple future tense.
- Conditional adverbial subordinate sentences: Principal verb in future tense + si + present indicative.
- Temporal adverbial subordinate sentences: Principal verb in future tense + cuando + present subjunctive.
- Resources used to bring to mind and talk about a future situation.

Units

Methodology