Granada, Spain - Course Descriptions - Intermediate B Intensive Spanish

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GENERAL AIM
To understand and express oneself in general situations which require an exchange of information and to show personal attitudes about several topics familiar to the learner but not only those related to his/her personal experience.

SPECIFIC AIMS
Listening comprehension: To understand the general meaning and some essential details of conversations between two native speakers on various topics familiar to the learner. To understand advertisements and short news items in the context of social communication.

Oral production: To express oneself through simple linguistic structures and express general opinions on topics familiar to the learner.

Reading comprehension: To understand the general meaning and some essential details of texts on various topics familiar to the learner.

Writing skills: To write simple but pragmatically adequate texts, giving information and expressing personal opinions on topics familiar to the learner.

LIST OF CONTENTS

1. Communicative content:
• Speak about oneself and others: personal identification, likes, experiences, opinions.
• Identify locations geographically. Compare countries. Identify by characteristics.
• Speak about people. Compare customs. Express differences. Collect information from a context.
• Organize a written text of an informational nature.
• Express possession.
• Identify.
• Compare quantities.
• Speak about the past I: Talk about actions with or without relation to the present. Refer to a specific time. Refer to a period of time. Relate two past times.
• Speak about the past II: Talk about habits and their frequency in the present with relation to the past. Describe in the past tense. Count time and indicate limits.
• Speak about the past III: Tell anecdotes and stories. Introduce a perspective into the story.
• Speak about the future: Express degrees of certainty with respect to the future. Relate actions in the future.
• Express conditions of a likely probability.
• Describe and ask for information about itineraries.
• React to news. Express certainty.
• Express opinions and react to other’s opinions. Show agreement and disagreement. Express an attitude on shared information.
• Refer words I: Repeat what has been said. Ask indirect questions.  Make changes of spatial and personal reference. Transmit what has been said.
• Refer words II: Make changes of temporal reference. Check the validity of referred words or their belonging to the past.
• Make enquiries in public services (formal). Indicate advantages and disadvantages.
• Ask for and give advice.
• Describe and identify something of which one has had no experience.
• Make hypotheses. Refer a hypothesis to the present/future and the immediate past. React to a hypothesis. Express surprise.
• Congratulate, give thanks for and react to congratulations, and
thanks. Invite, accept and refuse invitations. Express wishes in specific situations. Give praise to others and react to praise from others.
• Make petitions and react to petitions. Choose the correct register according to the degree of formality of the situation. Make offers and react to offers.

2. Grammatical content

1. Morphology of the Future; temporal and probability uses.
2. Morphology of the Future Perfect: probability.
3. Morphology and basic uses of the conditional.
4. Negative Imperative.
5. Morphology of the present subjunctive.
6. Cuando + present subjunctive.
7. Si + present, + present 7 future.
8. Indirect questions with and without interrogative particle.
9. Mechanisms of identification of ideas: lo de + (infinitive / que + phrase).
10. Morphology and use of the conditional in giving advice.
11. Te aconsejo que + subjunctive.
12. Contrastive use of relative clauses with indicative and subjunctive.
13. Mechanisms of repetition of affirmative phrases and questions Que + (repetition / si / interrogative particle). Changes due to the new communicative situation: possessives, demonstratives, etc,
14. Morphology of the Pluperfect of the Indicative and of the Imperfect Subjunctive.
15. Transformation of the Imperative, the present Indicative and Subjunctive, the Future, the Preterite and the Perfect.
16. Verbs to resume conversations. Vocabulary and related expressions.
17. Creo que + Indicative, / No creo que + subjunctive.
18. Conversational formulas of reaction.
19. Nouns with the subjunctive: es / me parece + adjective + subjunctive, está bien / mal que + subjunctive.
20. Use of the Indicative and subjunctive with explicit hypothesis markers (quizá, tal vez, seguro que ...).
21. !Qué raro que + subjunctive!
22. Vocabulary and expressions to evaluate facts. Conversational sequences.
23. Vocabulary, expressions ad ritual formulas related to social uses of congratulating, thanking, inviting, expressing wishes, praising
and suitable replies.
24. Subjunctive in expressions of wishes for others: Que + subjunctive.
25. Subjunctive in expressions of will and necessity: Quiero que / hace falta que ... + subjunctive. Vocabulary and related formulas.

3. Cultural content of the intermediate level:
- General characteristics of the social behaviour of Spanish people
   - uses of ‘tu’ and ‘usted’.
   - expressive linguistic resources ‘los tacos’ (swear words).
   - norms and rites of daily events: introductions, celebrations, etc.
- The family as the focal point of daily Spanish life:
   - parent-child relationships.
   - marriage relationships.
   - the role of each family member.
- Spanish youth.
- The Dictatorship and the Democracy: general characteristics.
- Political Parties and Trade Unions
- Main problems of the Spanish Democracy.
   - unemployment.
   - terrorism.
- Spain and the European Union.
- Spain and America.
- Spain, a place of cultural fusion: Christians, Jews and Moslems.
- Religion, folklore and superstition. Principal expressions: Holy Week.
- Cultural Spanish artistic expressions:
   - bullfighting.
   - flamenco.
- The Mediterranean diet: olive oil.
- Introduction to Spanish Literature in the Spanish language I.
- Introduction to Spanish art I:
   - painting: Velázquez, Goya and Picasso.
- Introduction to Spanish cinema I:
   - Buñuel
   - Almodóvar.