Introduction to the Spanish Language and Hispanic Cultures II Course Descriptor

Course Overview

This course builds on Introduction to the Spanish Language and Hispanic Cultures I. Students develop further their knowledge of the Spanish language and Hispanic cultures through the use of authentic cultural materials and communication-oriented activities. Students will continue in their acquisition from basic to intermediate linguistic skills while reading, writing, speaking and listening, as well as focusing on the development of transcultural competence in topics such as meals, fashion, stages of life, and travel. This course explores linguistic tasks and cultural perspectives related to daily life, as well as a small number of more specialized contexts, in the Spanish-speaking world.

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

Knowledge and Understanding

Subject Specific Skills

Transferable and Employability Skills

Teaching and Learning

Teaching and learning strategies for this course will include: 

A minimum of 36 contact hours, typically to include interactive group teaching, co-curriculars, individual meetings, in-class presentations and exams.

Course information and supplementary materials are available on the College’s Virtual Learning Environment (VLE).

Students will receive individualised developmental feedback on their work for this course.

Students are required to attend and participate in all the formal and timetabled sessions for this course. Students are also expected to manage their directed learning and independent study in support of the course.

Assessment

Formative

Students will be formatively assessed in class through class activities, and during office hours. Formative assessments are ones that do not count towards the final grade but will provide students with developmental feedback.

Summative Assessments

Further information about the assessments can be found in the Course Syllabus.

Feedback

Students will receive feedback in a variety of ways: written (including via email correspondence); oral (within office hours or on an ad hoc basis) and indirectly through class discussion.

Feedback is provided on summative assessment and is made available to the student either via email, the VLE or another appropriate method.

Indicative Reading

Note: Comprehensive and current reading lists for courses are produced annually in the Course Syllabus or other documentation provided to students; the indicative reading list provided below is used as part of the approval/modification process only.

Books 

• Francisco Rosales Varo, Teresa Moreno, Ana Martínez Lara, Pilar Salamanca, Kris Buyse, Matilde Martínez, Núria Murillo and Pablo Garrido, Campus Sur A1-A2 (Libro y cuadernos digitales) (Barcelona: Difusión, 2022). ISBN: NP12217249861

Electronic Resources

The handbook used in the course provides access to an online platform (Campus Difusión) where students will have extra activities for independent learning.

Further Readings

As reference grammar, students are recommended the following one, which is available in the library.

• Miquel López, Lourdes- Ruíz Campillo, J. Plácido- Martínez Gila, Pablo- Castañeda, Alejandro- Ortega Olivares, Jenaro- Alonso Raya, Rosario, Gramática básica del estudiante de español. Nueva edición revisada (Barcelona: Difusión, 2021)

Indicative Topics

Students will study the following topics: 

• Everyday spoken and written Spanish
• Spanish grammar and vocabulary
• Spanish language texts
• Hispanic cultures