PRIDE UNIVERSITY
INTRO TO SPANISH I
WINTER 2012 QUARTER
Days and time: Wednesdays, 2:00 PM – 3:30 PM
Instructor: José R. Carrasquel
e-mail @: profjrcarr@yahoo.com
Instructor’s Bio: José R. Carrasquel was born and grew up in Caracas, Venezuela and then moved to the United States to attend college at the age of 18. He is fully bilingual in Spanish and English and holds both an M.A. in Romance Languages and a Ph.D. in Romance Linguistics. He has been teaching Spanish Language courses at the college level throughout the United States for over twenty years now and has also presented scholarly talks on the History of the Spanish Language in national and international conferences. Currently, he teaches ENGL 101 – English Composition for Walden University, and just as importantly he will be teaching Spanish at Pride University as of the Fall 2011 quarter. Last but not least, he is a great Salsa dancer!
COURSE DESCRIPTION
This introductory course to the Spanish language is the first part of a two-quarter sequence based on a speaking proficiency approach. This approach focuses on the development of listening and speaking comprehension skills through constant exposure to common vocabulary and basic grammar in the form of spoken conversation. Furthermore, this approach fosters communicative interaction for common situations and purposes as described in the ‘Course Objectives’ below. Students do not need to buy a textbook as the instructor will provide the materials necessary for each lesson. Students are encouraged both to buy a Spanish-English dictionary and to take advantage of all the free tutorials in the Learning Spanish website, http://www.studyspanish.com/ .
COURSE PRE-REQUISITES
There are no pre-requisites for this course because this course is geared to those with little to no prior knowledge of and/or exposure to the Spanish language.
COURSE OBJECTIVES
By the end of the course students should be able to:
- introduce themselves, greet people, and say goodbye,
- talk about likes, dislikes, and pastimes,
- order foods and drinks at a restaurant,
- shop for clothes and accessories at a store,
- talk about activities in places and establishments around town,
- describe themselves and others,
- talk about family, and
- use numbers 0-1,000,000 for a variety of purposes.
TENTATIVE COURSE CALENDAR
WEEK 1 Introduction to the course / Greetings, the alphabet, and numbers 0-30
WEEK 2 Ordering foods and drinks at a restaurant / Numbers 0-100
WEEK 3 Talking about food preferences with the verbs ‘preferir’ = ‘to prefer’ and ‘gustar’ ~ ‘to like’
WEEK 4 Talking about pastimes with the verbs ‘preferir’ and ‘gustar’
WEEK 5 Regular verbs to describe daily activities and pastimes in the present tense
WEEK 6 More regular verbs / Buying clothes and accessories at a store / Telling time
WEEK 7 Describing oneself and others / The verbs ‘ser’ = ‘to be’ and ‘tener’ = ‘to have’
WEEK 8 Talking about activities in places and establishments around town /
Days of the week / Numbers 0-1,000,000
WEEK 9 Kinship terms
WEEK 10 Review and fiesta