Superior Spanish Language

This course is designed for those students that have had 6 or more semesters of college level Spanish. The overall objective of this level will be substantial vocabulary expansion and attaining a level of communicative competency. At this level, a mixture of the communicative and traditional methods is used. The communicative method is used to further the student?s ability to communicate effectively within society This course has a double emphasis, the first focusing on the mastery of the following skills: description (agreement), narration in the past (preterite vs. imperfect), narration in the future (future tense), comparisons, reacting (subjunctive in noun clauses), hypothesizing (conditional).

The second focus is on the following grammar points which will be studied from a linguistic perspective.

1. subjunctive in adjectival and adverbial clauses

2. the perfect tenses

3. conjecture using future and conditional

4. imperfect subjunctive

5. sequence of tenses

6. passive se and impersonal se

7. present participle vs. conjugated verb vs. infinitive

The communicative aspect of the course will revolve around the discussion of topics such as the following:

-Making a hypothesis and expressing probability.

-Expressing interests and objectives.

-Persuading and convincing others.

-Defending and justifying an opinion or thesis.

-Expressing your personal point of view.

-Summarizing information.

-Expressing doubts, uncertainty, agreement, and rejection.

-Expressing cause and consequence.

-Relating information.

-Expressing irony, humor, anger, and sarcasm.

-Requesting confirmation and asking for clarification.

-Explaining ideas.

There will be daily written and oral assignments, a mid-term exercise, and a final exam.