• Spanish Language and Culture

    Overview:

                Spanish Language and Culture (Spanish I) is an introductory level course that has been designed to challenge those highly motivated students who have chosen to develop and master their proficiency in all four Spanish language skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing through an intensive course in Spanish language, offered at the high school level.  This course is conducted completely in Spanish (total immersion).  The teacher may be required to resort to English for some grammatical explanations, but that explanation is immediately summarized in Spanish.  Spanish is the lingua franca of the course.  All students are encouraged, throughout their Spanish studies, to practice the target language consistently with their teachers, peers, and family.  Covered throughout the course are selected artists, authors, and personalities that have played an important part in the Hispanic culture.

                The goal of this course is to prepare the student to understand and to participate actively in conversations and discussions.  Linguistic assessment of function, context, text type, content and mastery, which promote proficiency on the End of Course (EOC) Spanish Language and Culture (level I) assessment, is aligned with The National Foreign Language Standards and district-wide requirements.  The final assessment to determine level of success in the course is through the Spanish Language and Culture (level I) assessment, which requires each student to achieve a grade of 70 or higher (scale of 0 to 100) in order to be considered as successfully completing the course.  The Spanish Language and Culture EOC assessment is given during the month of May of each year, in accordance with the schedule provided by the Maypearl ISD and Maypearl High School.

                Students who enroll will gain a well-developed knowledge of the language and culture of Spanish-speaking people, acquired through the successful participation and completion of the Spanish I course, and should attained a reasonable proficiency in listening comprehension, speaking, reading and writing.  Although the purpose of this course is to prepare you for the Spanish Language and Culture assessment, the format of the class is not limited to mirroring the test.  The course provides ample opportunities to practice with all components of the assessment as we continue to do the types of activities that you’ve come to expect in a Maypearl ISD World Languages classroom: skits, dialogues, articles, short stories, film, TV, conversation, debate, essays, vocabulary practice, presentations, etc.

                The successful student will continue to develop an intermediate to an intermediate-high proficiency in the language by engaging in a variety of communicative activities that focus on developing reading, writing, speaking and listening skills in the language.  In addition, the student will develop cultural awareness of famous Hispanic artists and authors by examining their works and reading short stories written in Spanish.  Spanish lectures are not limited to introductions to authors and/or background information.  The lectures will provide in-depth analysis and synthesis of writing styles and story lines as applicable to the different eras.  Students are expected to contribute to class discussions.  Group activities and presentations are integral parts of the class that add another important dimension to the learning experience.