COURSE SYLLABUS: BEGINNER SPANISH II

Location: Buenos Aires, Argentina

Partner Institution: Academia Buenos Aires/ESEADE (transcript issued by ESEADE - Instituto Universitario Escuela Superior de Economía y Administración de Empresa)

Course Title (English): Beginner Spanish II

Course Title (Spanish): Español Básico II

Sessions offered: year-round

Instructional in: Spanish

Classroom Contact Hours*: 45, 60 or 75

College Credit (Semester Credit Hours): 3 credit hours to 5 credit hours

College Credit (Quarter Units): 4 quarter units to 7 quarter units

Prerequisites: none

Course Code: A2

*Classes are 20 contact hours per week. For students needing 3 credits during a 2 week program or 6 credits during a 4 week program they will complete an extra 5 or 10 hours respectively.

Program Overview

Our students in Buenos Aires study at the prestigious Academia Buenos Aires. The institute offers 8 different levels of classes (from “Beginner” to “Advanced”) to meet the special requirements and enhance the learning of each and every student. Learning sessions take place in group classes. Every level has its own communicative, grammatical and pragmatic objectives. On every level, professors use a great variety of learning situations, mixing oral communication and listening comprehension using audio and video, text reading, etc. The Academia de Buenos Aires is partnered with the private university ESEADE (Instituto Universitario Escuela Superior de Economía y Administración de Empresa).  

Every level has one part of its content dedicated to social, cultural and political life in Argentina and to Argentine and Latin-American history.

When our students arrive at the Academia Buenos Aires, the academic supervisor determines their skill levels by means of a short oral and written test. As a result of this test, and taking into account the needs of the student, his or her individual study program is determined.

Course Objectives

General Pragmatic Objectives:

• Revision of the general functions of Level 1 (A1 - Beginner I): greetings, goodbyes and presentations, give and ask personal information, places and events. Describe people and places, etc. Express desires, possibilities, obligations, etc. The interrogative forms in Spanish.
• Relate habitual actions in the present and express contrasts between finished or punctual actions in the past and actions in the present.
• Relate past experiences and events in relation with the present.
• Ask and find out personal information.
• Compare for equality, superiority, and inferiority.
• Describe objects, landscapes and people in the past.
• Contrast in the description (physically and personality) of people in the present and past.
• Express habits and customs in the past.
• Give and receive instructions (specifics uses of the imperative and the Spanish-speaking countries)
• Express and give simple opinions about questions about daily life.
• Express states of excitement and health, pain and sickness.
• Give and ask personal information and over the phone.

Linguistic Content:

• Review the present regular and irregular (morphology and use).
• The use of negative forms in Spanish.
• Complete paradigm of the use and morphology of the simple perfect preterit. Systemization of irregularities (completely irregular verbs and irregular verbs in the third person).
• Contrast between simple perfect preterit and present in adverbial prepositions with “hace”.
• Review of reflexive verbs, transitive verbs and indirect construction verbs.
• Compound perfect preterit: morphology and use. Irregular participles. Connectors and temporal expressions. Aspectual markers of the past (punctual action/ended action - action close to the present - action routine/duration).
• Contrast between simple perfect preterit and compound perfect preterit.
• Comparative system in Spanish. Comparative grade and superlative of the adjective (irregular forms). Superlative structures.
• The form and use of the affirmative imperative of “vos”. Irregularity and placement of pronouns.
• The indirect object of verbs with doble object: pronouns, location, accumulation and double replacement.
• Adjectives and indefinite pronouns.
• Demonstrative pronouns.
• Revision of indirect verbs: parecer and quedar
• The casual “como”
• Some uses of “por” and “para”
• Forms to mark development of an action. Inchoative verbal phrases (empezara a/comezar a + infinitive). Verbal phrases that indicate development or continuity (seguir/continuar + gerund). Verbal phrases that express the end of an action (dejar de/terminar de + infinitive).
• Some verbs with prepositional regiment.
• The contrast between “ser” and “estar” and their uses.
• The regular and irregular imperfect preterit: morphology and use in the description of objects, people and places in the past. Routines in the past.
• The continual imperfect preterit (revision of the morphology and use of the gerund).

Semantic and Socio-cultural Content:

• Revision of the uses of common expressions of river plate Spanish. Some dialectal differences with Spanish of Spain and Latin America.
• The biography: some famous people of Argentina. The interview.
• The human body: pain and sickness.
• In the restaurant.
• Climate and geography. Activities in free time. Schedules.
• Shopping: Clothing and footwear. Colors.
• Experiences, events and trips.
• Crime story.
• Traditional celebrations in Argentina.
• Argentina customs in certain daily situations.

Contact Information:

SOL EDUCATION ABROAD

EMAIL: info@soleducation.com

WEB: www.soleducation.com

PHONE: 512.380.1003

FAX: 512.287.4886

MAIL: 503 Oakland Ave. Austin, TX 78703