Level B1.1

GENERAL AIMS

On completing this course, students should be able to:
— Improve their level of accuracy in pronunciation and intonation in Spanish.
— Use Spanish to interact appropriately in the classroom, recognising the
communication mechanisms in operation there.
— Extract specific information from brief oral messages broadcast in public places.
— Participate appropriately in everyday conversations, both face-to-face and by
telephone.
— Recognise moods from the way in which speakers express themselves and react
appropriately.
— Understand in general terms the information in texts about general subjects.
—Understand and extract specific information from real information documents
(posters, advertisements, informative leaflets, events listings, press articles, etc.).
—Read aloud with a reasonable degree of accuracy texts written by themselves or by
others.
— Narrate, orally or in writing, past, present or future events, organising the information
adequately.
— Write letters, personal notes and postcards in an informal style.
— Develop basic strategies for comprehension and expression: deduce the meaning of
a word from its context, relate words with common roots, etc.
— Take notes and transcribe oral messages.
— Extend knowledge of social and cultural aspect that encourages integration of the
student into their learning environment.
— Consolidate the use of the bilingual dictionary and begin to use a monolingual
dictionary.

LANGUAGE FUNCTIONS
Social function
— Use conventional forms to ask for permission and to ask for a favour.
— Say goodbye.
Informative function
— Describe and identify people or objects that could be in a group.
— Ask someone what sort of mood they are in and tell them what mood you are in.
— Request and give information about public transport (timetables, activities, location,
etc.), travelling inside and out of the city (means of transport, timetables, services,
distances, prices, etc.).
— Talk about projects or future intentions explaining the conditions.
— Formulate hypotheses and suppositions from real or possible events.
— Situate an event or a story in time by ordering the parts (ask and say when
something happened and in what order the events took place).
— Talk about daily activities in the present and past tenses, explaining the
circumstances.
— Transmit information about one person to another.
Expressive function
— Express pleasure and displeasure.
— Expressing surprise.
— Express interest or indifference.
— Offer someone encouragement.
— Express doubt or certainty.
— Express annoyance or irritation.
Evaluative function
— Express tastes and preferences. Compare them with others.
— Expressing agreement or disagreement with someone or about something.
— Express and ask for opinions.
— Accept the opinion or reasoning of others.
Inductive function
— Offer to do something.
— Invite someone to do something. Accepting or refusing an invitation. Make a date
with someone.
— Demand something, order someone to do something. Express prohibition.
— Express an intention to do something and ask someone what they intend doing.
— Ask for and give advice.
— Warn someone of something.
— Ask for, give or deny permission.
— Make a complaint.
Meta-linguistic function
— Take someone's word for something.
— To counter-question and ask something again.
— Enumerate and order the principles of an argument.
— Express certainty about an announcement.

GRAMMATICAL CONTENT
Determinants:
— Indefinite pronouns: revision and consolidation.
— Neuter demonstratives: use and syntax.
— Indefinite pronouns: revision and consolidation.
— Grades of meaning: revision and consolidation.
Nouns and adjectives:
— Gender and number: revision and extension. Special cases: el cava, el idioma…
— use of some adjectives with the verbs 'ser' and 'estar'.
Nouns derived from adjectives: leal/lealtad, etc.
Verbs:
— Verbs with emphatic pronouns: apetecer, doler, molestar, indignar, preocupar…
— Future verb forms: revision and consolidation.
— negative imperative of regular and irregular verbs. Use of 'tu' and 'Usted' in
imperative forms.
— Contrast between the simple past and the indefinite past: revision and consolidation.
— Imperfect tense of regular and irregular verbs: different uses.
— Contrast between the three indicative past tenses (perfect, indefinite and imperfect).
— Frequently used prepositional verbs: quedarse en, llamar desde, quedar con, pasar
por…
— Simple conditional of frequently used regular and irregular verbs.
— Verbal agreements in the expression of a possible or probable condition with the
particle si ("Si tengo dinero…").
— Verbs which use pronominal constructions: caerle bien/mal a alguien, llevarse
bien/mal con alguien
— Present subjunctive of frequently used regular and irregular verbs.
— Time expressions using cuando + indicative/subjunctive.
Adverbs:
— Adverbs of state: así, de esa manera, en absoluto…
— Adverbs of time: aún (no), todavía (no), dentro de, ya.
— Adverbs of doubt: quizá/s, tal vez, a lo mejor, probablemente…
Pronouns:
— Combination of DO and IO pronouns (enclytic and proclytic): dímelo/ no me lo
digas...
— Emphatic pronouns: a mí me..., a ti te...; revision and consolidation.
— Reflexive pronouns: revision and consolidation.
— que: revision and consolidation.
— Interrogative pronouns: contrasting qué/cuál.
Prepositions:
— Revision and extension of propositions and preprepositional elements (en, con, sin,
por, para, desde, a, hasta, hacia, entre...).
— Interrogative particles with prepositions: a quién, por quién, por dónde, desde
dónde, desde cuándo...
Conjunctions:
— Frequently used conjunctions.

GRADING SYSTEM
Our grading system takes into consideration the student's progression through the
course: continuous assessment (30%) - and if the student achieves the course
objectives or not - final exam (70%).
Continuous Assessment:
Class work.
Assignments.
Tests. During the course some of the exercises will be rated: Reading
comprehension, listening comprehension and written expression.
Students will be tested twice during the course: prior to the mid-term and during
the second part of the course. These tests will be conducted as class exercises
and not as partial exams, that is with no prior notification.
Professor's Evaluation
Evaluation of the learning progression, participation in class and attendance.
By the middle of the course, there will be a mid-term report with information from
the first part of the course. These reports will be delivered to students and will be
discussed individually in personal tutorials that will take place during class
hours.

Exam and Certification
The final exam consists of 5 sections. Students must complete at least 50% of each in
order to pass.
Writing 15 points
Speaking 15 points
Reading Comprehension 15 points
Listening Comprehension 15 points
Grammar and Vocabulary 10 points
Total 70 points
The result in the exam (70 points) combined with the continuous assessment (30
points) result in the following grading:
Grading
Fail 0 – 6,49
Pass 6,50 – 7,49
Good 7,50 – 8,99
Excellent* 9,00 – 10,00
*Excellent is reserved to exceptional cases.
Those students who achieve 6.50 or more will get the corresponding certificate
of the level.

TEACHING MATERIAL
Texts books
To be decided.
Recommended complementary reading
To be decided.
Grammar resources
— A. GONZÁLEZ, J. R. CUENOT, M. SÁNCHEZ ALFARO, Gramática de español lengua
extranjera, Ed. Edelsa.
— F. Castro, Uso de la gramática española (nivel elemental), Edelsa.
— Rosario Alonso et. al., Gramática básica del español, Difusión.
— R. Sarmiento, Gramática progresiva, SGEL.
— F. Castro et al., Castro, Aprende gramática y vocabulario 2, SGEL.
— M. Cortés y M. Fontecha, Gramática y recursos comunicativos 2 (B1), Santillana.
Dictionaries
— Diccionario de bolsillo del español actual, SGEL.
— Diccionario de español para extranjeros, Ediciones SM.