Spanish Level 4 Plus

Prerequisite for entry

Successful completion of Spanish level 4 at UCL CLIE or for learners who have a good command of the language and its main grammatical structures or have recently achieved a good grade at A-Level.

Term duration

10 x 2-hour classes

Progression

After 20 hours students may progress to level 5

Aims and Objectives

The aim of the course is to enable students who have an advanced knowledge of Spanish to acquire a better fluency in the language. Students will be able to follow discussions and debates on current issues as well as communicate in all situations using complex and linguistically more accurate structures. Cultural awareness will be further developed.

Functions

• Talking about hypothetical facts and situations in the present.
• Expressing probability about the present.
• Expressing prediction, hypothesis, possibilities and certainty.
• Giving advices and suggestions.
• Expressing opinions and interacting in any kind of debate.
• Expressing agreement and disagreement.
• Presenting facts and ideas clearly and efficiently.
• Presenting facts and ideas in a cohesive and effective way.
• Composing written pieces about current affairs and about topics related to Hispanic culture.
• Improving reading and listening skills using authentic material.
• Expressing the cause of an action or event.
• Expressing the result or consequence of an action or event.
• Expressing the purpose of an action or event.
• Expressing, supporting and/or questioning different points of view you may agree or disagree with.
• Expressing conditions and settlement of issues.
• Suggesting, accepting, and refusing.
• Expressing opinions, debating and commenting.

Course Content 

Main topics/themes to be covered:

Topics will be chosen by the tutor in order to cover grammar aspects, and they will be related both to Spain and Spanish speaking Latin American countries. The course may include some of the following topics:

• Myths and Legends.
• Psychology and Science.
• Current affairs: cultural, political and social issues.
• Newspapers and TV programmes.
• Media and new technologies.
• Working life: work and studies.
• Tourism and Travel.
• History and Traditions.
• Arts (music, literature, cinema, arts, cultural heritage).

Grammar

• Future tense for the expression of probability in the present: estará enfermo.
• Probability: tal vez, probablemente, etc.
• Verb “creer”: creer algo / creerse algo / creer en algo
• Revision and further use of past tenses: Present Perfect, Preterite Tense, Imperfect, Pluperfect and Continuous.
• Use of the passive voice: la revolución fue liderada por el comandante.
• Sentences with “se” + verb conjugated in 3rd person: se vende piso.
• Anticipation of the direct object pronoun: el tratado lo firmó el presidente.
• Use of conditional tenses.
• Use of cohesion and connection in sentences: en primer lugar; por un lado/por otro lado; y además, etc.
• Forms and usage of the present subjunctive tense.
• - creo que + indicative, no creo que + subjunctive
• - es una tontería / impensable + infinitive / que + subjunctive
• Opinion: me parece que…, creo que...
• Expressing conditions: solo si / siempre que / con la condición de que…

Learning Resources

• Course Book: Aula Internacional 3 (student’s Book). Difusión. ISBN: 978-84-15640-11-0. Chapters: 12
• Aula Internacional 4 (student’s Book). Difusión. ISBN: 978- 84-15846- 80 -2. Chapters: 1 and 2
• Online platform campus.difusion.com (materials to be used in class, as homework and for self-study; details will be provided in class). For this online platform, students will need to open their own account and then, for full access, purchase a premium account for a year access.
• We recommend you to acquire your book (Aula Internacional 4), or the platform, or both through the European Bookshop.
• In addition, there is a range of language learning materials for self-study in the Self-Access Centre (SAC): https://resources.clie.ucl.ac.uk/home/sac/spanish

Additional Material

• Authentic written material from various sources such as El País, El Mundo, etc.
• Authentic audio and audio-visual material (www.rtve.es)
• Spanish and Latin American films.
• Articles, pieces of news, videos, and documentaries extracted from Internet.