Foreign Language

Introduction to Spanish

In this course, students begin the formal study of Spanish. Topics include letter-sound correspondence; the alphabet; basic punctuation, capitalization, and accentuation; the use of cognates to increase comprehension; the vocabulary of greetings, numbers, telling time, days, months, dates, weather, seasons, activities, question words, people, descriptive words, “tener” expressions, articles,, and subject pronouns; the structure of sentences and questions, regular and irregular verbs in the present indicative, number, gender and person agreement. The skills of understanding, speaking, reading, and writing will be stressed within the context of Spanish speaking cultures.

Spanish 2

This course is designed to strengthen and amplify the linguistic foundation possessed by the native speaker of Spanish whose language skills in Spanish may not yet be at the ninth grade level. The course will concentrate on vocabulary building, reading and studying the literature, art, history, current events, and culture of the Spanish-speaking world. Development of the students’ writing skills is emphasized with journal writing and in-class essays. Reading comprehension will be practiced frequently using a variety of sources including readers, newspapers, literary texts, and Internet sources. This course stresses the use of the Spanish language as a way of understanding the Spanish-speaking world.

Spanish 3

This course is designed for the student who has shown success at prior levels of study of the Spanish language. Students in level three must be willing to work to refine and perfect a command of the spoken Spanish language as well as gain a broader grasp of some of the cultural and literary realities of the Hispanic world. Through short readings, films, slide lectures and music, this course addresses the fundamentals of both New World and Peninsular cultures. It takes an historical approach, based on the notion that no culture or language can be understood without a firm grasp of its’ roots. The key periods of the Hispanic past in Spain and the New World are studied in particular depth. Students are also expected to keep abreast of current events each week. This course will prepare students to take the Advanced Placement Spanish Language and Literature Exams.

AP Spanish Language