General Aims

By the end of this course, students will be able to:

- Understand without difficulty any conversation between native speakers on specialised topics in standard Spanish.

- Follow a spoken discourse in an academic context on topics relating to their studies (lectures, presentations, and contributions from other students), write up and summarise information taken in note form during a speech.

- Understand the gist of plays, films, songs, poems, and literary texts, as well as material broadcast on radio and television.

- Recognise the basic differences between formal and colloquial language.

- Recognise a speaker's attitudes and moods from such indications as intonation, gesture and rhythm.

- Understand authentic literary texts by both Spanish and Latin-American contemporary authors, with a certain amount of unknown vocabulary.

- Extract the main information from texts relating to their work or studies and any other informative document.

- Take part in conversations, discussions, and debates on general topics, adapting their speech to the required formal or informal register, with an acceptable level of accuracy and using idioms appropriate to their level.

- Give a short, clear, coherent spoken presentation on a subject, using appropriate language.

- Write accurately and explain verbally, with clarity and coherence, events (past, present, and future) relating to their experience.

- Write common standard texts (e.g. CV's, personal letters, reports) using the appropriate register, vocabulary, linking words, and stylistic devices for each type of text.

- Write a report or essay on a specific subject relating to their work or studies, using the appropriate register, vocabulary and style.

- Explain, verbally and in writing, other people's opinions and anecdotes.

- Use monolingual dictionaries and other reference works needed to develop student autonomy in the learning process.

Linguistic functions

Socialising

- Expressing gratitude.

- Asking after someone.

- Giving compliments.

- Offering to do something.

- Encouraging and calming someone down.

- Sympathising with someone.

- Apologising.

Informative (informing, describing, narrating)

- Asking for and giving information on how something works, activities or processes, what needs to be done and how to do it, the time required to do it and in what order or with what frequency it needs to be done.

- Conveying information, orders and instructions from one person to another.

- Narrating any event, experienced or described by other people, using specifying time references ( e.g. order of events, simultaneity, immediacy).

- Describing changes affecting people or things.

- Formulating hypotheses relating to the present, past, or future.

Expressive ( expressing feelings and moods)

- Expressing moods: e.g. happiness, sadness, resignation, pain, pity.

- Reproaching, complaining.

- Showing interest or rejecting.

- Showing likes and sensations: satisfaction, worry, anger, hope,

Evaluative

- Asking for and giving opinions: showing agreement or disagreement with other people's opinions.

- Judging and evaluating.

- Expressing conditions and asking about particular conditions.

Inductive

- Asking for and giving advice.

- Complaining and demanding that something be done.

- Threatening.

- Asking for permission and giving permission with conditions.- Proposing joint activities.

- Expressing plans and intentions.

Metalinguistic

- Asking for permission to speak, allowing someone else to speak, continuing to speak.

- Asking if others have understood what has been said, restating something, specifying, providing examples, clearing up meanings, defining.

- Making an aside and continuing speaking.

- Expressing emphasis.

- Ordering a speech, e.g., introducing a topic, enumerating, arguing, summarising, indicating the conclusion of a topic.

Grammatical content

Determiners

- Structures using the neutral article lo.

Nouns and adjectives

- Converting adjectives to nouns using the neutral article lo (e.g. lo curioso, lo malo). - The structure lo + adjective + relative clause (e.g. lo bueno que es).

Tenses

- Differences between the past indicative tenses.

- Present subjunctive of frequently used regular and irregular verbs: revision and consolidation.

- Preterite perfect and imperfect subjunctive of frequently used regular and irregular verbs: revision and consolidation.

- Preterite imperfect subjunctive of frequently used regular and irregular verbs (e.g. venir, hacer, salir, hablar, decir, haber).

- Verb and particle concordance in expressing probable, improbable, and impossible conditions. Future perfect of frequently used regular and irregular verbs (e.g. venir, hacer, salir, hablar, decir, haber).

- Use of the verb ser to express emphasis.

- Use of the verbs ser and estar to express different meanings: e.g. ser listo /estar listo.

- Constructions with compound infinitives: e.g. «Debe haber sido él».

- Verb patterns:

. estar a punto de + infinitive ( e.g. «Está a punto de llegar» ).

. seguir + gerund.

. llegar a + infinitive (e.g. lo llego a saber...).

. the construction llevar + noun + sin + infinitive ( e.g. «Llevo dos meses sin verlo» ).

. llevar + gerund ( e.g. «Llevo diez horas trabajando» ).

- Expression of accident: e.g. «Se me ha caído de las manos».

- Gerund: expressing conditions.

- Verbs of change: e.g. hacerse, convertirse, quedarse de.

- Special subjunctive constructions (reduplicatives): vaya donde vaya..., pase lo que pase...

- Verbs with prepositions: e.g. empeñarse en, confundirse de/con, acordarse de.

Comparison

- Comparison of superiority (superlative): e.g. «Es el más alto que he visto» / «Es el mayor de los hermanos» / «Lo más interesante de todo es que...».

Adverbs

- Conditional adverb expressions: e.g. como, con tal de que, excepto que, en caso de que, siempre que, siempre y cuando.

- Adverbial phrases of time: e.g. así que, en cuanto, antes de que, hasta que, mientras, mientras tanto

- Adverbial phrases: ojalá + subjunctive.

Pronouns

- Relative pronouns with and without preposition: e.g. que, quien, con el que, por el cual, del que.

Prepositions

- Revision and extension of prepositions and prepositional phrases.

Linking words

- Revision and extension of linking words.

Question words

- Difference between qué and cuál.

Course books

Textbooks

- EQUIPO PRAGMA. Esto funciona E. Edelsa.

- EQUIPO PRAGMA. Esto funciona E (Libro de ejercicios). Edelsa.

Recommended complementary books:

Grammars

- A. GONZÁLEZ, J. R. GUENOT, M. SÁNCHEZ ALFARO. Gramática de español lengua extranjera. Edelsa.