Green River Community College, Fall 2010

Profesora: Erin Fernández Mommer

Classroom: SMT 133 9:00 & 11 a.m. daily

Office: BI, 25

Phone: (253) 833-9111 ext. 4408

Email:

Office Hours: MT 1:10-2:00 p.m. T, W, Th or by appointment

Department website:

Textbook website:

Required Materials:

  • ¡Arriba!: Comunicacón y cultura (Zayas-Bazán et al., 5th ed.)
  • MySpanishLab with E-Book Access for ¡Arriba!
  • Student Activities Manual (SAM) for ¡Arriba!, 5th ed. (online or paperback)
  • Answer Key to accompany the Student Activities Manual (SAM) (only if you choose the paper version of SAM)

Recommended supplementary materials:

  • Larousse Pocket Dictionary Spanish-English
  • Spinelli, Emily. English Grammar for Students of Spanish. The Olivia and Hill Press, 1990.
  • 501 Spanish Verbs. (Kendris, Chirstopher, 4th Edition, Barron's Educational Series, Inc., 1996).

Websites of Interest:

All websites are included on the interesting links page on the main classroom website: Check the website for additional tools and interesting activities such as Spanish speaking television and radio programs from around the world.

Textbook super site (interactive)

Spanish Grammar Tutorials

Online Dictionaries

Course Description:

  • SPAN&121
  • The first year of the beginning Spanish language sequence consists of 121, 122, and 123. Naturally, Spanish 121 is the introductory quarter of the sequence. No experience with Spanish is necessary to succeed in this introductory sequence of courses. Accordingly, the main goal of the Spanish Department at Green River Community College is to facilitate an intermediate level of communicative competence in Spanish by the end of the introductory set (usually lasting one academic year ).
  • Thefour basic tenants of communication include reading, writing, speaking and listening and are developed in a dynamic second language acquisition environment enhanced by technology. In order to acquire a second language one needs to practice creating output with speaking and writing. In order to reach our fluency goals one must also practice the two aforementioned input mechanisms of listening and reading. Grammar is used as a communicative tool to express meaning as students take part in small group discussions, role-play activities, cultural investigation and presentation. Authentic materials written for native speakers will be used in the class as well as assessment so that students will gain valuable experience in the real Spanish speaking world. Students should expect to be immersed in the language. English will be used at a minimum.
  • Prerequisite (s): No previous background in Spanish or no more than one year of high school Spanish with a “C” average or less. Satisfies a humanities/fine arts/English requirement for AA degree.

Overview:

Spanish 121 is a five credit course consisting of the first class in a three part sequence of introductory Spanish including Spanish 121, 122 and 123. The final goal of this sequence is attaining beginning intermediate communication skills in the target language of Spanish. The four skills of speaking, understanding, reading and writing will be targeted through activities that lend themselves to real time communication in class with your instructor as well as the other students in the classroom. Supportive to this goal, we will be creating a classroom community in which we will be communicating real information with each other in Spanish in order to have a memory of the experience thus increasing our chances of internalizing the structures studied at home. Interestingly, by preparing the grammar and vocabulary lessons as well as speaking only Spanish in the classroom, you will gain those structures by noticing your own output in the second language. Grammar is used to communicate ideas through activities in which the students and the instructor will be actively participating. Activities such as partner conversations, small group activities, presentations and role playing will lend themselves to practice the language. Cultural readings will take place in order to give us a better understanding not only the country of focus but also of written language on a sentence level and eventually at the paragraph level. I have had some students actually suggest books for me to read in Spanish upon completion of the Spanish sequence through the 200 level here at Green River.

The Communicative Approach:

The main approach to learning language in this class is called the communicative approach. Methodologies within this approach model and lend themselves to authentic real time communication and will result in fluency and skill attainment. Classroom interaction should be conducted exclusively in Spanish. Be aware that the two most important factors in the learning of a second language are the motivation to acquire and use the language and the actual time spent applying what you have learned through written or spoken mediums of communication in or outside of class with near native or native speakers.

Communicative Competency and Meaning:

100 level Spanish aims to create intermediate communicative competency (basic communication skills) in the target language through a combination of meaningful interactions (in Spanish) with classmates and the instructor upon completion of the series. Communicative methodology is information-based, that is to say that information will be exchanged in meaningful contexts. Students should also notice the form of grammatical structures used in order to come to an understanding of how the meaning and form of the language interact. Grammar will be carried out through individual homework assignments that are to be completed daily that can be checked against the daily homework key for accuracy (or that can be automatically checked by My Spanish Lab). Your instructor will facilitate community building within the classroom and will create a supportive and friendly environment to practice with classmates.

Homework:

Homework consistency and persistence are two major factors leading to the acquisition of a foreign language. Learning a second language is a process. Applying what you have learned by preparing the lessons on the day that they are due is essential to do well in introductory Spanish class. You will be given activities and grammar tutorials the day before we work on them in class in order to use class to practice the language. I will reserve the first 5 minutes of class for questions from the homework from the night before. The text ¡Arriba! comes with access to its supplementary interactive super site called My Spanish Lab.

Homework assignments will come from My Spanish Lab, the textbook and occasionally from in class activities for daily credit. The super site has a robust cadre of grammar tutorials in English to help you to prepare for the class. The My Spanish Lab also includes pre and post tests to prepare you for the chapter exams. The workbook includes audio CDs with audio files that will allow you to get experience with the many different accents and dialects of the Spanish speaking world.

Focus:

Many of the activities in the ¡Arriba! series are designed for you to learn how to understand written and spoken Spanish. Especially when you listen to your instructor speak, focus on what you understand and let the unfamiliar language pass you by without getting upset or tuning out. You will get used to hearing and experiencing the world in Spanish in your first introductory course. Try to make connections and let the context and Spanish-English cognates (words that sound and look the same in two languages) help you with comprehension. When you hear a word you don't understand, don't let it interrupt your concentration. Simply write the word down in your vocabulary notebook and look it up outside of class time. Your instructor will create a friendly and supportive environment and will help you use the dialogues and other activities in the textbook as models for the conversations that you will have with other students in pairs and small groups and in class activities.

Keeping the class thinking in Spanish:

The basic building block of understanding and speaking a new language is learning the words in the language. Language is simply made up of words and combinations of words that contain different meanings when used in different orders and contexts. Tenses, prepositions, pronouns, nouns, verbs etc… make up what we know as vocabulary. In the case of language acquisition, the notion of a particular lexical item (vocabulary word) is usually explained through using other lexical items to pinpoint the exact object. Thus, it is possible through the vocabulary that you already know in Spanish to deduce the meaning of a particular word by using exclusively Spanish to communicate its meaning. Your instructor has given you a <common classroom expressions> handout in order to help you and your class to maintain conversations in Spanish. We will be focused on only using Spanish in the classroom to communicate anything and everything possible including, but not limited to culture, grammar, thoughts, and experiences. We will rely almost completely on our competence in Spanish to communicate accurate and complete messages.

Vocabulary:

Each chapter in the book introduces a set of vocabulary related to the theme of the chapter located in the back of the chapter in the glossary and throughout the chapter. Be prepared with this vocabulary before coming to class when starting a lesson. As a result of outside grammar, vocabulary, and listening activities, you will be able to learn and practice new words in context in class with your classmates and instructor. Vocabulary learning should be seen as a daily activity that involves time outside of class. You might want to keep a vocabulary notebook that you can use for reviewing new words, returning frequently to your list from earlier chapters so you will not forget words you learned previously.

Grammar:

The grammar explanations in ¡Arriba! as well as in the super site are introduced throughout the chapter. These grammatical points are explained in English to help you do the exercises and activities and so that you clearly understand the grammatical purpose of each activity, as well as its communicative function before using it in class. You will be expected to study grammar outside of class. Class time will be used to clarify doubts and practice the language. When there is a homework assignment from My Spanish Lab, you need to be sure to do all of the grammar exercises to electronically turn them in before class beginsdaily.

Reading:

Each chapter has a reading section/s written in Spanish that you will pre-read before coming to class. Make sure to let the unfamiliar language pass you by on the first reading with the final goal of overall comprehension of the text. The second or third times you read through the selection then it is a good idea to look up any words that you might be curious about. In addition to reading, each chapter of the textbook has a “Observaciones” section that includes a short reading section as well as a video (found on My Spanish Lab) reality show designed to aid in your comprehension in a real time context.

Culture:

Culture is seen as a way to understand the context of a language. Each chapter of the text includes a section on culture in which we will learn about the country and theme in focus. The My Spanish Lab videos feature native speakers from the particular countries identified in each chapter. We will learn about the geography, food, economy, sport as well as the political dynamics of each of the 20 Spanish speaking countries as well as the United States.

Writing:

Writing is seen as a way to practice the material you are studying and to consolidate what you are learning. Each test will have a short writing or question and answer section, based on material in the textbook or class activities. Using the grammar from the chapter, I normally include a written question/full answer section to target the writing competency outcome. In addition to the occasional in-class writing activities, there will also be three assigned compositions (see composition due dates for final hand in deadlinesin the Calendario Tentativo).

Student Activities Manual (SAM):

Each chapter of the student activities manual (SAM) has a set of exercises to be done in conjunction with the audio tapes or CDs for each chapter; the due date for each assignment in the student activities manual is indicated in the calendar. The student activities manual consists of 10% of your entire grade. Many of the audio exercises are designed to be self-corrected by checking your accuracy on the My Spanish Lab site.

The most productive way to study a foreign language is to spend an hour or more each day, rather than to cram before a test or when homework assignments are due. Attending class is simply not enough if you expect to perform well in Spanish 101. If you study every day, learning new material and reviewing material from previous chapters, you will remember more of what you have studied. This is crucial to foreign language learning, since you are constantly building on what you already know. The homework assignment for each class includes pages to be studied and/or assignments to be written.

Final group project:

At the end of the quarter you will chose a topic either from your cultural investigations or from your own particular interests that involves the Spanish speaking world. The final project is designed to be a group effort uniting different aspects of one topic to see the bigger picture. Your group may have up to three members investigating the same topic and each member breaking it down into subtopics. For example, you might be interested in presenting the different regions of Mexico. Your other group members then would investigate either the northern, middle or southern regions by identifying typical dances, foods, dialectal differences or other interesting diversities. You must keep the presentation to a minimum of 4 minutes per group member and a maximum of 6 minutes.

In order to aid your presentation you might want to consider creating:

  • a PowerPoint slideshow
  • a sequence of music or video clips (totaling no longer than a minute combined)
  • note cards for cues
  • poster board with images
  • regional dishes
  • a skit acting out a political drama

Your presentation must be composed in Spanish and must be written in your own words. Copying and pasting from the internet or other sources does constitute plagiarism and will not be tolerated in this class. Make sure to turn in references on the day of the presentation. If plagiarism is determined, the student will earn an 0 for the presentation grade as a first step. Preferably, simple and concise sentences written so that your classmates can understand using the skills that we have learned in class will gain many points on the project. You will be graded on your spoken language, written language on materials as well as your visual aids, creativity, organization and preparation. Your topic must be approved by the instructor so it is a good idea to make sure to pass it my be as soon as you have an idea for a project as well as group members interested in presenting on the same.

The presentations at the end of the quarter are a class favorite as well as my favorite day of the quarter. It is a time when we can all see the improvement and interests of our classmates as well as improve our own knowledge of the Spanish speaking world. There has not been a presentation day yet where I have not learned something new. Be prepared to teach the class something that they did not know. It is impossible to know everything about the world and especially the Spanish speaking world with its 400 million members, so take this as a community building exercise, have fun with it and make sure to be very clear and accurate with your messages.

Technology:

Students will need access to a computer to complete course work. As explained earlier, the textbook comes with a series of supplements that require a computer to access the textbook website for exercises and cultural information, as well as the Spanish department’s website, and the links provided by the instructor on this syllabus and course calendar. All written assignments should be typed using double space as a format (so that the instructor can write corrections in the margins).

Plagiarism:

Please note that any work done outside of the class is expected to be yourown work, without the help of others. Refer to the GRCC student manual on Plagiarism. When you turn in a paper with your name on it, the name serves as a contractual agreement with me (the instructor) that it is your own work and not that of another person or entity. If it is obvious that the student didn’t do an assignment individually as instructed, but either copied from the web, a book, or got too much help from someone else, the student will not receive credit for that assignment. The student who is caught in any form of cheating will receive an administrative withdrawal from the course. Cheating is defined here as: Copying from another student’s test paper, allowing another student to copy from a test paper, collaborating during a test with any person by receiving information without authority, using the course textbook or other material such as a notebook brought to a class meeting but not authorized for use during a test, using specifically prepared materials during a test (e.g., notes, formula lists, notes written on student’s clothing etc.); using a translator (electronic or human) to write your essays.