Spanish I Course Overview

Taught by: Juan Amigo

[ASIJ Home] [High School Home] [Academic] [Modern Language Dept.]

Primary goal:  To communicate in Spanish.

• To acquire the four language skills -listening, speaking, reading and writing- for functional use.
• To become acquainted with the culture of the Spanish speaking world.

Evaluation procedures

A marking period grade is a combination of evaluation on the following areas: 

•  A quiz is given each time a uniform portion of material, or a specific skill has been fully explained, practiced and developed. An evaluation is also made at the end of each chapter and upon completion of a set of three chapters.
•  Whenever possible, an equal number of tests is given for each evaluation area and averaged together with any samples of written or oral work produced by the student. A different amount of points is assigned to each evaluated material depending on its characteristics.

Homework policy

• Homework is regarded as essential for class.
•  About 30 minutes of homework is expected for every class session.
•  Daily homework is assigned as a follow up of the lesson or as preparation for the following class.  Each completed homework receives 10 points while undone or clearly hasty, careless homework receives 0 points.  Partial credit is given only when there is evidence that the student has done his best but could not complete the task because of lack of understanding of the subject.
•  Participation in school sports, clubs or activities is not regarded as a valid excuse for failing to produce homework. Students who repeatedly fail to do their homework are assigned to the FLRC in order to ensure completion of assignments.

Work presentation

•  A three hole binder is needed for keeping the workbook and the tape manual sheets in good condition until the end of the school year.  Class notes and other homework assignments may be kept on a different notebook or section provided it only contains Spanish related material.

• In general, students will produce their work in handwriting.  Occasionally typed assignments will be requested for special papers or projects.

•  As stated above, hasty, sloppy work will not receive credit.

Making up work after an absence

Students who missed classes must, without failure, contact their teacher on the first day of their return to school .  A meeting or some kind of makeup work will be arranged at that time.  A reasonable amount of time for the completion of the task will be given to the student.

     Students who missed tests due to an excused absence have a maximum of four days to take that test at the Resource Center.  After the fourth day the test will be graded 20% down for each day delayed.  However, if the absence was unusually long and the student needs prolonged makeup work to catch up with the class, a deadline will be set by the student and the teacher together.  Again after the deadline the test will be graded 20% down for each day delayed.  Finally, students repeatedly missing test days will be reported to the principal's office and the reason for their absence will be examined very closely.  A doctor's signature may be required depending on the case.

Late assignments

Students are well advised to contact their teacher if they foresee that reasonable circumstances will prevent them from meeting a deadline.  However, deadlines are usually established together by both the teacher and the class at the time of giving an assignment and therefore, as a general rule, late work is not admitted.

Extra credit

      Extra credit may be either given to students who volunteer to participate in projects that would translate into some kind of benefit for the class as a whole (v.g.: making of materials) or to those who, out of pure interest in the subject, produce an amount of work well beyond the requirements and expectations set on a given task. Extra credit is not an option for students who having wasted class time or neglected attention to the subject want to improve their grade in the last stages of the quarter.

Extra help

            Students experiencing major difficulties with writing, reading or oral skills will be called individually by the teacher and assigned to the Resource Center, required to complete specific remedial  assignments or asked to take extra tapes home in order to improve their listening ability. 

Teaching style

1.  Classes consist of a warm-up, a topic clearly stated by the teacher at the beginning of the session, oral practice with choral and individual repetition, free response questions, and written work that summarizes the day's topic.

2.  Students are requested to participate actively in class since this is a critical factor in language learning.

3.  All material is presented in conversational form, imitated, repeated, recombined in different ways and applied to similar situations.

4.  All material is presented with emphasis on comprehension rather than memorization.

5.  The material is presented through a broad variety of activities in order to ensure that the student will not be bored by dull, repetitious drills.

6.  Writing ability is developed through short sentence practice leading gradually to longer and more complex structures.

7.  Aural comprehension is emphasized as to develop the hearing skills necessary for communication. Tapes present speakers from different Spanish speaking countries.  Listening activities train the students not to rely solely on printed materials, but rather to listen carefully to what they hear.

8.  Oral expression is first achieved through practice of controlled conversation leading gradually to more free patterns and delivery of short speeches.

9.       Much of the practice -be it in the form of questions, situational, or role playing- is personalized and it is designed to get students to respond from their personal experience.

Use of technology:

1.  The course is supported with a broad range of multimedia and audiovisual materials:          Laser disk with bar coded sequences, multi-system video machine, tape recorder with adjustable speed, tapes, videos, overhead transparencies, slides, picture posters, flash cards.

2.   Computer support:  Microsoft Word.

3.   CD-ROM support for regular lessons (mainly used program for reinforcement and review purposes)

Projects and special assignments

1.      Short term assignments include compositions, computer assisted instruction, projects involving some elaborate presentation such as poster making or brief oral reports.

2.      FLRC assignments are part of the course and they may include computer assisted instruction as well as listening to tapes and reading Spanish materials.