Beginning Conversation and Culture

* This is a supplemental 16-hour course that must be taken together with a 60-hour Spanish course.

*Each 1-credit Conversation and Culture course offering is subject to enrollment. This course comes at an additional fee to the program cost. Contact the Costa Rica Program Manager for more information.

Beginning Conversation and Culture SPN-100

This course is designed for students studying Spanish as a second language taking the SPN-101 or SPN 102 course. During class, students will develop their oral communicative competency, which will allow them to get along in an effective and efficient way in everyday situations in Costa Rican culture, through knowledge of common expressions, customs and traditions of Costa Rica.

Objectives:

• At the end of the course, the student will have improved his or her oral communicative competency and will have acquired general knowledge about Costa Rican culture.
• The student will be able to communicate applying the cultural knowledge of Costa Rican society learned in the course.

Specific objectives to be completed in order to achieve the aforementioned objectives:

• Describe oneself and others.
• Speak about your own family and the Costa Rican family.
• Describe symbolic places of Costa Rica.
• Express likes, wants and preferences.
• Explain traditional activities in local celebrations.
• Reaffirm the basic vocabulary learned.
• Expand one's vocabulary with expressions and popular sayings of Costa Rica

Content:

1. Morfosintácticos:

• Presente de verbos regulares e irregulares.
• Usos de ser, estar, tener, haber, hacer.
• Verbos especiales: gustar, encantar, molestar, interesar y doler.

2. Léxico-semánticos:

• Adjetivos calificativos.
• La familia.
• Los países latinoamericanos.
• El clima.
• La ropa.
• La comida.
• Los deportes.
• Dichos y expresiones costarricenses (Pura vida, me regala…)

Evaluación:
Participación en clase 25%
Cumplimiento de tareas 25%
Un reporte oral y escrito de una noticia 25%
Una entrevista 15%
Una presentación oral 15%
Total: 100%

Bibliografía Base:
Monturiol, A. e Yglesias, E. (2015). Dígalo en Español, Spanish Survival Book. Costa Rica: Editorial
Universidad Veritas.
Bibliografía sugerida:

Miguel Lourdes, Neus Sans (1992). De dos en dos. Ejercicios interactivos de producción oral. Madrid,
España: Difusión.
Barboza, Gerardo (1999). ¡Hola! ¿Qué tal? San José, Costa Rica: Editorial Ariadna.
Diccionario de la Real Academia Española (1992). Madrid