Advanced Spanish in Context

The course is based on a teaching philosophy that considers language as an oral/aural means of communication. The study of grammar is not an end in itself, but rather a means to accelerate language learning and make it a more effective process. The dynamic use of language will be the basis of this approach. Through significant grammar practice that combines both formal and communicative approaches, students will develop and integrate the four language skills: listening comprehension, reading comprehension, oral expression and written expression. The course’s content will include five main areas that will be integrated in the proposed activities: 1) Functional content: the communicative elements, enumerating the functions which students should know in order to make effective use of the language; 2) Grammatical content: the grammatical elements, and the communicative functions associated with them, which will allow students to effectively express the communicative functions; 3) Subject content: lexical content, subjects and situations that facilitate the social use of language and transmit a real and current image of Spanish society and of the Spanish-speaking world; 4) Phonetic content: activities which will enable students to practice reading and writing in Spanish, as well as improve pronunciation by listening to differentiation exercises, by repeating sounds, words, and sentences, and by reading targeted texts; 5) Lexical content: exposure to texts representing different socio-linguistic and stylistic registers. (l unit)