Advanced Spanish: Conversation

DESCRIPTION AND GOALS
The main goal of the course is to provide students with the necessary skills to develop their oral skills in Spanish at the advanced level, both in formal and informal situations, by focusing on organization techniques of oral speech. Students will also improve their interaction skills in conversation, and will be offered the appropriate tools to carry out oral expositions about current topics successfully.

PREREQUISITES

Students need to have previously achieved an intermediate level of Spanish.

CONTENT

• WEEKS 1-2

Relating brief, everyday anecdotes/jokes

 Functional goals: Describing. Narrating in the past. Reporting a conversation. Keeping audience’s interest.

• WEEKS 3-5

Formal face-to-face conversations: simple administrative procedures such as service requests, claims...

Brief formal telephone conversations: reservations, appointment making, information requests...

Functional contents: Establishing contact. Identifying options.

Asking for advice. Asking for clarification. Expressing preferences.

• WEEKS 6-8

Interviews: academic, medical, for a job. 

Functional contents: Introducing oneself. Providing accurate information. Adapting registers. Asking for follow-up information.

• WEEKS 9-12

Presentations about common topics.

Functional contents: Introducing a topic. Organizing the discourse. Capturing audience’s interest. Giving examples. Asking questions. Quoting others. Giving credit. Concluding.

• WEEKS 13-15

Debates about general topics

Functional contents: Expressing one’s opinion by providing arguments for or against something. Expressing agreement, partial agreement, and disagreement. Functional contents: Clarifying or adding information. Giving reasons. Trying to convince someone of something.

METHODOLOGY
Students will be able to improve their oral competence through exercises and activities pertaining to the main oral text genres to be worked on (above). Those activities will help them to prepare interviews, telephone conversations, debates… collaboratively with their peers, and also individually in the case of presentations about topics related to Spanish society and culture.

Students will also participate in a cultural project with local students that will require them to meet those students regularly in order to prepare a presentation of a cultural topic.

ASSESSMENT
The final grade will be calculated according to the following grade breakdown:

• Participation: 10%
• Oral activities in class: 40%
• Presentations: 50%