THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN
DEPARTAMENT OF SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE
SPN 601D INTRODUCTORY SPANISH
- This document contains important information and represents an agreement between the Department of Spanish and Portuguese and its students.
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1. PURPOSE, GOALS, AND OBJECTIVES OF THE LANGUAGE PROGRAM
The objective of the Spanish language program addresses the basic tenet of a liberal arts education: the development of a critical thinking approach towards the analysis of language in society. This objective is framed in an overall worldwide trend towards political and economical internationalization and an increasingly diverse and multicultural work environment.
The Spanish language program focuses on the development of multilingual literacies through the analysis and use of Spanish as a second language. The program focuses on the development of three major types of competencies (all equally ranked in terms of importance):
(1) linguistic competence (Spanish phonetics / phonology, morphosyntax, lexicon, discourse, etc.)
(2) communication / interactional competence (sociocultural uses of the language, pragmatics, cultural background / perspectives)
(3) metalinguistic competence (language as a conceptual, symbolic system)
2. COURSE DESCRIPTION, GOALS, AND OBJECTIVES
A. SPN 601D is the first course in The University of Texas lower-division Spanish program. The course focuses on developing speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills in Spanish while building vocabulary, learning basic rules and terminology of Spanish grammar, and gaining a better understanding of Hispanic cultures in order to communicate in an accurate, effective, and informed manner within a variety of sociocultural situations.
B. GOALS FOR SPANISH 601D:
By the end of the semester you should be able to do the following:
(a) manage a basic vocabulary and grammatical database to achieve communicational success as detailed below;
(b) analyze and understand spoken Spanish in conversations, lectures, radio advertisements, TV reports, etc;
(c) speak in Spanish to communicate ideas and interact with Spanish speakers;
(d) analyze and understand written Spanish conversations, lectures, radio advertisements, TV reports;
(e) write short compositions, notes, letters, emails, etc in Spanish;
(f) understand some of the cultural values and practices of the Hispanic world
