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Beginning Spanish 2 (SPAN 1100)

Total Credits: 5
Lecture Credits: 5

Description: This course is a continuation of SPAN 1000 and is also appropriate for the student who has completed one semester of Spanish at other liberal arts institutions or one year of high school Spanish. You will learn the use of past-tense structures and pronoun usage. You will continue to develop listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills necessary to communicate about self, family, and daily life, as well as on abstract concepts such as feelings and emotions. You will also explore cultural aspects of the Spanish-speaking world. This course will prepare you for intermediate-level Spanish courses.

Topical Outline:
1. Listening: Students listen to native speakers, authentic dialogues, contemporary movie excerpts, weather, news media, etc., as a means of introducing and reinforcing grammar, vocabulary, colloquial expressions, and accents
2. Speaking: Students discuss themselves and their own lives, attitudes and values in contrast to their counterparts in the target culture. For example, students compare attitudes toward family, the educational systems, political views and attitudes across America
3. Reading: Students analyze the content of short primary texts such as newspaper articles, television commercials, and poems
4. Writing: Students write short compositions, journal entries, notes, messages, and short descriptions using simple sentences
5. Lexical-Grammatical Topics: saber and conocer, direct object pronouns and the personal a, formal commands, negative and indefinite words, indirect object pronouns, the verb gustar and similarly constructed verbs, regular and irregular preterit, double object pronouns, regular and irregular imperfect, comparatives and superlatives, preterit vs. imperfect, relative pronouns, reciprocal reflexives
6. Culture: Students acquire cultural information for the purpose of understanding and appreciating the products, practices, and perspectives of other cultures. Topics may include: food and mealtimes, new types of tourism in the Spanish-speaking world, important holidays, sports and medicine

Learning Outcomes:
1. Write short compositions on familiar topics, and read and discuss level appropriate, authentic materials. They will demonstrate strong usage of present and emerging usage of the preterite tense (ACTFL Novice mid or above)
2. Participate in paired and group activities to practice self-expression on personal, cultural, and current topics within limits of linguistic ability (ACTFL Novice Mid or above)
3. Demonstrate skill in reading authentic Spanish language text at the Novice High level or better
4. Understand the spoken language at the ACTFL Novice high level or above
5. Demonstrate a developing understanding of history, political science, art, and music of the target culture through the target language by comparing and contrasting cultural behaviors in everyday situations.

Prerequisites:  SPAN 1000 or equivalent, or 1 year of high school Spanish with a grade of 'C' or higher, or Instructor Approval

MnTC: Goal 8: Global Perspectives