Spanish Absolute Beginners level 1

Spanish Absolute Beginners level 1
Your Course
This course is designed for students who have no previous knowledge of Spanish. The aim of the course is to develop your ability to understand and respond to spoken Spanish. The language learnt will be that used in authentic situations, such as in restaurants, hotels and shops. Although the emphasis of the course is on conversation, you will also learn basic grammar, so that you can begin to manipulate the language. You will also learn to extract specific information from short texts (for example, menus and tourist information brochures) in so far as these are needed to stimulate realistic oral work. Students will be encouraged to keep a record of new vocabulary and phrases to aid memory.
This course feeds into Beginners Level 2 (summer term 2010) and then Beginners Level 3 (autumn term 2010).
During the Absolute Beginners course students will take short internal assessments in reading Spanish. This will help prepare them for the OCR ASSET languages test that will be taken at the end of the first year of study. The course book is is'Pasos 1', chapters 1-3.
Learning Outcomes
By the end of the course you will have been given the opportunity to:
· Meet and greet people.
· Talk about jobs, nationalities and family
· Order food and drink
· Say where you live and give directions
· Describe places
You will have learnt some basic Spanish grammar, in particular:
· Regular verbs in the present tense
· Articles and personal pronouns
· The negative
· Prepositions and expressions of place
· Asking questions
Your Tutor
Group 1: Maria Dolores Ivorra Molla is from Alicante, Spain and is a native speaker of Spanish and Catalan. She obtained her degree of Civil Engineer in 2001, her Postgraduate Certificate in Education in 2003 and a degree in Translation and Interpreting of Spanish, Catalan, French and English in 2005, from the University of Alicante. After teaching Design and Technology in a secondary school in Alicante for 5 years, and also Catalan language, linguistics and methods of teaching to adults for two years, she moved to Cambridge in 2008. Since then she has been working as a Lecturer (teacher and supervisor) in Spanish and Catalan at Queens' College and at the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages, University of Cambridge.
Group 2: Karina Baruch is a native Spanish speaker from Mxico. She graduated with a degree in Modern Languages from the University of Puebla, Mxico, where she qualified as a foreign language teacher. She taught English in Mxico for 8 years at various levels. She was a Spanish teaching assistant in St. Marys College in Maryland, U.S.A. for 1 year. Shes currently working at Long Road Sixth Form College as a Spanish teaching assistant and at St. Andrews Cambridge as a Spanish tutor.
Group 3: Sarith Liliana Uribe is a native Spanish speaker from Colombia with a degree in Spanish and EFL teaching issued by Universidad de Antioquia. She has more than 5 years experience teaching EFL and Spanish in secondary schools, further education institutions and univeristies, including the University of York. She worked for some years as Education Coordinator for the Pan-American Association.
Group 4: Nuria Murcia is originally from Murcia in Spain. Her love for literature and culture, especially poetry, led to a degree in Hispanic Philology in her homeland and afterwards a Masters in Teaching Spanish as a Foreign language. Soon after this she moved to Cambridge to further her studies and to experience living in another country. She is currently working as a Spanish Lecturer at CRC, where she enjoys connecting with the students and contributing to their learning and fun.
Day and time: Monday 7-9 pm
Start date: 18th January
Number of sessions: 10
Tuition fees: £ 90
Method of payment: Fees for short courses (10 weeks or less) to be paid in full at enrolment and for long courses (12 weeks or more) fees of 50% can be paid at enrolment plus 50% as a cheque. Course places cannot be reserved without receipt of both payments.
Half term:
Please note that there are no classes during half term Monday 15th - Friday 19th February 2010 unless otherwise stated.