This on-site Spanish course focuses on practicing the four language skills—listening, reading, speaking, and writing—with special emphasis on teaching the language for communication purposes.
MAIN OBJECTIVES OF THE COURSE
I. General Objectives
The student will:
- Develop communicative, reading, and listening comprehension skills by using appropriate grammatical structures and vocabulary in real-life contexts.
- Identify and compare cultural elements from Spanish-speaking countries with their own culture.
II. Specific Objectives
- Understand audio and video materials on various everyday topics at an elementary level.
- Exchange information on personal topics and daily activities.
- Analyze simple authentic documents of general interest, such as comic strips, postcards, formal and informal letters, and short articles from magazines, newspapers, and novels.
Write simple formal and informal texts with a minimum length of 110 words, using appropriate grammar and vocabulary in real-life contexts.
TEACHING METHOD
Communicative approach, through activities such as listening exercises, videos, role-playing, interviews, and elementary-level debates; reading aloud; short presentations on general interest topics; pronunciation correction; and the use of digital materials and websites.
COURSE CONTENT
Topics and Subtopics
UNIT 1. GENERAL INFORMATION, APPEARANCE, AND PERSONALITY
1.1 Attributive uses of ser and estar
1.2 Predicative uses of ser and estar and other attributive structures
1.3 Adjectives
UNIT 2. INDIVIDUALS
2.1 Temporality
2.2 Uses of the present tense
2.3 Adverbs
UNIT 3. PLACES
3.1 Uses of the imperfect tense
3.2 Uses of the present perfect and the preterit tense
UNIT 4. TIME
4.1 Temporal values of the subjunctive forms
4.2 Common temporal relationships between the indicative and the subjunctive
4.3 The subjunctive in independent clauses I
4.4 The subjunctive in independent clauses II
UNIT 5. HEALTH AND WELL-BEING
5.1 The subjunctive in complement clauses
5.2 Relative clauses
UNIT 6. VACATIONS
6.1 Uses of the future tense
6.2 Uses of the hypothetical simple future
EVALUATION
A certificate of completion will be granted to students with at least 80% attendance.
BRIEF CURRICULUM SUMMARY OF THE INSTRUCTOR
Iván Romo holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Performing Arts from the University of Guadalajara. He is certified as an English Language Teacher by the University of Cambridge, England, and authorized as an international oral examiner by the same institution. He also holds English teaching certifications from UNAM and the Anglo-Mexican Cultural Institute, where he worked for six years as a teacher and Academic Supervisor.
He has served as Human Resources and Training Coordinator at the Tax Administration Service (SAT), Academic Coordinator at the Language Center of Universidad Latinoamericana, and Coordinator of the Bachelor’s Degree in Interpreting and Translation at Universidad Tecnológica Americana.
He has worked as a Spanish-English and English-Spanish translator and has taught English for over 25 years at various institutions, including the Mexican Football Federation, General Motors, Bancomer, Grupo Financiero Inverlat, DIAGEO, Ernst & Young, Ogilvy Mexico, Universidad Intercontinental, and Universidad Tecnológica Americana.
He has also taught Spanish for foreigners at General Motors and De la Rue México. Currently, he serves as Academic Director and Business English Specialist at Enfoque Inteligente, S.C.
Course of Spanish as a Foreign Language (ELE, in Spanish), specifically Mexican Spanish.
MAIN GOALS OF THE COURSE
General Goals
Students will acquire pragmatic and linguistic tools to be able to manage daily life in Mexico City.
Specific Goals.
Students will develop the following set of abilities: grammar, speaking, writing, listening and reading.
METHOD
During each 4-hour session, students will acquire grammatical abilities, which they will then apply in oral and written exercises, in a communicational way.
SYLLABUS
- Topics
- Grammar.
- Acting exercises where real situations are played, so as students become able to interact in Spanish in their daily lives.
- Listening exercises.
- Writing exercises
- Reading exercises.
- Phonetics.
- Subtopics
- Grammar: self-introduction, present simple, present continuous, past (simple and imperfect), future, difference between “ser” and“estar”, time and place prepositions, usage of “usted” versus usage of “tú”.
- Playing real situations: ordering coffee, ordering lunch at a restaurant, introducing yourself, taking the subway, asking for/giving directions, expressing an emergency, making a reservation by phone, placing a complaint, discussing your hobbies, saying why you are in Mexico and what you like about Mexico, talking about your family.
- Listening exercises: extracts from radio shows (for example, “hora nacional”), ads, songs, news, Mexican movies, Mexican TV shows and dialogues created for learning purposes
- Writing exercises: writing a mail to a friend, writing a review of a hotel or a restaurant
- Reading exercises : newspaper articles,extracts from novels.
- Phonetics: tongue twisters, names of streets, neighbourhoods and districts of Mexico City, names of states and cities of Mexico, exercises to work with phonetic difficulties of Spanish learners such as the voiced alveolar trill (“double rr”).
BRIEF CURRICULAR BIODATA OF THE PROFESSOR
The professor Santiago Negrín De Icaza holds a degree in Translation, Spanish-English, Spanish-French, and a Specialty in Comparative Law. He teaches foreign languages at Universidad Panamericana. He has an international background: he has traveled and lived in 13 countries in Asia, Europe, North America and Latin America. He masters completely the following foreign languages: French, English, Italian and Portuguese. He has, as well, an upper-intermediate level of German and Japanese. He also has a basic knowledge of Polish. Knowing these languages and cultures very well, he can teach in an ideal way Spanish and Mexican culture to foreign students.
EVALUATION
There will be a midterm evaluation as well as a final evaluation. In both exams, all linguistic abilities will be evaluated (grammar, writing, speaking, reading and listening).
A certificate will be handled, with the requirement of an attendance of 80%.
Spanish Lessons in Mexico City
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