Spanish 90 Advanced (B2.2)

LEVEL B2.2

INTRODUCTION

To succeed at this level student must demonstrate their capacity for linguistic activity that allows them to cover the following objectives in all the basic skills with a sufficient level of communicational effectiveness:

Speaking
— Use a broad knowledge of the formal aspects of language to achieve a high degree of precision and appropriateness, both in comprehension and expression.
— Understand overall meaning (capture the main ideas) and gain a deeper understanding of theatre plays, films, songs, TV programmes as well as messages or news in the media.
— Understand spoken messages face to face or without the presence of the speaker and when ambient noise, speed and pronunciation are unmodified.
— Understand the attitudes, moods and intentions of the people speaking, and the relationship between them.
— Respond immediately and appropriately in different circumstances.
— Produce more extensive texts with diverse objectives and functions, organising the ideas and information coherently and comprehensively, showing precision of expression and a command of the different registers.
— Show a certain command of the use and social conventions of the language and the different registers.
— Write clear, detailed descriptions and presentations on a wide range of topics including those in their specialist area, highlighting the most significant aspects to support them.
— Use a broad vocabulary, including idiomatic expressions as well as a variety of connectors and textual markers.
— Make correct use of the most usual phonemes and suprasegmental features of oral expression.
— Take part in debates and discussions on topics of general interest or news with sufficient fluency and spontaneity, showing good capacity for arguing a case.
— Use linguistic and learning strategies to reflect on and correct the main shortfalls in expression and comprehension.
— Understand and use expressions and idioms used frequently in formal and informal registers.

Writing
— Use broad knowledge of the formal aspects of language to achieve a high degree of precision and appropriateness, both in comprehension and expression.
— Understand the main ideas and extract specific information from different types of texts (informative, literary, etc.) showing an appreciation of the differences in style and rhetorical figures.
— Identify the function and typology of a text or document, as well as the intention of the author or emitter.
— Read and understand a broad range of extensive non-specialist texts.
— Produce more extensive texts with more diverse functions, organising the ideas coherently and comprehensively, showing precision of expression and a certain command of the different registers.
— Show a certain command of the use and social conventions of the language and its different registers.
— Make use of a broad vocabulary including idiomatic expressions as well as a variety of connectors and textual markers.
— Use the resources and materials at available with ease and efficiency to increase knowledge and resolve doubts.
— Use linguistic and learning strategies to reflect on and correct errors and shortcomings in expression and comprehension.
— Understand and use frequent expressions, idioms and saying in both formal and informal registers.

Speaking-writing activities
— Read written texts aloud with correct pronunciation.
— Take notes from long presentations (conferences, talks, classes, speeches...) in standard language.
— Write reports from spoken or written information from notes taken previously, in standard language.
— Synthesise or summarise the information from an exhibitive text, oral or written, in standard language.

LANGUAGE FUNCTIONS

In this course the functions encountered in the five previous courses are reviewed, consolidated, looked at in more depth and enriched with nuances and more precision.

Social function
— Use the appropriate register for every communicative situation.
Informative function
— Give and ask for information on any subject: request and give confirmation of specific dates, express conformity and unconformity, etc.
— Talk about facts and events making precise time references.
— Explain hypothetical situations referring to the present and the past.
— Define words and concepts.

Expressive function
— Express any kind of feeling or mood.
— Express rights, obligations and prohibitions.

Evaluative function
— Express attitudes: express opinions and points of view; ask others for their opinions with cohesive and well-organised personal reasons, justification or arguments.
— Evaluate things or ideas using comparisons and expressive figures.
— Evaluate actions and their consequences.
— Talk about own abilities and the abilities of others.

Inductive function
— Explain proposals and plans of action.
— Propose projects to be carried out jointly.
— Ask for permission and give it with conditions.

Meta-linguistic function
— Structure the discourse: open and close oral and written discourse; emphasise, summarise, appropriately structure the sentence and discourse (dialogue, written text, etc.)
— Ensure and resume communication: ask for an offer to repeat, confirm or clarify things; express doubts; use strategies for ensuring efficient and fluent communication.
— Ask for and give clarification on formal and grammatical aspects of Spanish.
— Alluding to a subject (in a formal register).

GRAMMATICAL CONTENT

In this course the grammatical functions encountered in the five previous courses are reviewed, consolidated, looked at in more depth and enriched with nuances and more precision.

Determinants
— Structures using the neuter article lo.
— Reflecting on the presence/absence of the article.

Nouns and adjectives
— Substantives and adjectives: special cases (individual and collective nouns, etc.).
— Word formation: prefixes, suffixes, compounds, origins, cultism, borrowed language, etc.
— Position of the adjective.

Verbs
— Uses and contrasts of the different indicative/subjunctive tenses.
— Composite conditional.
— Special use of the conditional: future in the past.
— Comparative hypothetical structures: como si + subjunctive.
— Pronominal verbs (ocurrírsele…).
— Colloquial use of the imperfect tense.
— Constructions using the infinitive: ―De saber que...‖/ ―De haberlo sabido...‖.
— Prepositional verbs: contribuir a, servir para…
— Composite gerund.
— Impersonal verbs.
— Uses of the passive voice.

Adverbs
— Adverbs ending in –mente: discursive organisers (indudablemente).
— Adverbial conditional expressions: con tal de que, excepto que, salvo que, en caso de que…
— Adverbial phrases: ojalá + subjunctive.

Pronouns
— Consolidation of relative pronouns with or without prepositions (con el que...).
— Use of the neuter pronoun lo.
— Pronominal constructions: venirle a la memoria…

Prepositions
— Prepositional expressions: a propósito de, con relación a…

Conjunctions
— Consolidation of the use of conjunctions introducing subordinated clauses.

Spelling
— Use of punctuation marks.
— Rules for accents.

Standard language and its use
— Ambits and characteristics of written and spoken language.

Registers
— Characteristics of the registers in use in communications channels.
— Some characteristics of colloquial/formal registers.