Welcome to PAP Spanish 2! You are going to learn so much this year! This year will focus on reviewing and extending the main concepts you learned in Spanish 1. You will also begin learning one of the most important skills in becoming fluent in Spanish: mastering the past tense. The vocabulary you will learn this year will be more thematically-oriented than the vocabulary you learned in level 1, but it will be very common, high-use vocabulary. Topics range from school issues to getting around town to community members and jobs, and childhood vocabulary.
Throughout the year, this page will serve to supplement and reinforce everything we are learning in class. Come back here often for reviews, vocabulary practice, online tutorials of the grammar we are learning, and lots of useful links related to our target topics. Chapters and their resources are listed in chronological order: August at the beginning, May toward the bottom.
Links pertaining to class work year round:
Link to Conjuguemos.com, where some of your vocabulary and conjugation homework will be done
Summer Assignment for those entering PAP Spanish 2
In order to preserve and extend your Spanish skills over the summer, you will be doing a summer assignment - but don't worry! It's easy and fun. Since language skills are just that - a skill you can practice or get rusty on -- and most of us don't have someone at home with whom we can speak Spanish, we ask you to read (and annotate) a book over the summer, answer a few questions, and do a little project related to the book.
Another great way of practicing your Spanish language skills is to download Duolingo on your smart phone and challenge yourself to do a few minutes a day on it. Don't forget there are lots of fun movies and shows in Spanish on Amazon, Hulu, and Netflix.
Repaso de Español 1
Here are some links and resources to help you review the material from Spanish 1:
In this chapter, we will still be reviewing some of the more important concepts of Spanish 1, but we will also be extending this material to include a few tricky things you didn't learn last year.
Here are some links to help you review and expand on some Spanish 1 material:
Practice Quiz - take without using your notes to test how ready you are for the real quiz
Practice Quiz Answer Key - if you discover some problem areas, don't forget you have resources here and on Google Classroom that can help you prepare for the quiz
PowerPoints for adjective practice and question formation are on your Google Classroom. Go there for more practice!
Unidad 1A: La escuela y los materiales
In this unit, we review and extend school vocabulary and the way we express rules. We will also learn more about making negative statements (negation) in Spanish, which can be quite tricky. Stem-changing verbs are also a focus of this review unit.
NEGATION in Spanish is very tricky! Here are a few links to help you learn and practice the formation of negative and affirmative statements in Spanish.
In the next two weeks of October, you will research the Mexican celebration of the Day of the Dead, Día de los Muertos. This celebration occurs near in time to Halloween, but it could not be more different. For this project, you will learn about the historical background of this celebration, the different practices surrounding the two-evening yearly event, the symbols and meanings of the items included in an ofrenda (the commemorative altars so integral to the observance of this day), and you will get your very first try at one of the past tenses we will learn this year. After learning about this important cultural event, you will then make your own ofrendas, integrating what you have learned into a mini-altar to honor a deceased loved one or a famous person. The best of the ofrendas will be displayed in the school library, along with student-produced explanations of the altars and symbols; your research and projects will help educate the rest of the student population about this often-misunderstood cultural event. PROJECT DUE DATE: FRIDAY, OCTOBER 21
The artwork surrounding Día de los Muertos, both professional and folk art, is legendary. It offers insights into what DDLM means to the Mexican culture and also provides an excellent expression of the contrasting themes that underlie this tradition. Here are some sites for sampling this artwork.
Unidad 1B: las actividades extracurriculares y las diversiones
In this chapter, we will pick up some good vocabulary to talk about extracurricular activities and things we do for fun. We will also extend our grammar skills so we can talk about things we LIKE to do (gusta-type verbs) and make comparisons about these. We will also review and expand our knowledge and use of phrasal verbs (verb phrases with infinitives).
In this chapter, we also learn how to make comparisons of equality, inequality, and superlatives. The PowerPoint for this is posted on your Google Classroom, along with note sheets. For additional help, here are some links for tutorials and practice:
In this chapter, we pick an easy way to refer to how long something has been happening - but we don't need the past tense to express this. Here are a few tutorials to remind you:
Unidad 2A: La rutina diaria y los eventos especiales
In this unit we pick up some very useful vocabulary for speaking about our daily routines and how we get ready for different activities. The focus of this chapter is on reflexive verbs, of which there are many in the Spanish language.
EXPRESIONES CON "TENER" & LOS DEMOSTRATIVOS To kick off the new year, but before we launch into the past tenses, let's cover a couple very useful structures in Spanish: how to express feelings (tener expressions) and how to point out what we mean (demonstrative adjectives). Neither concept is difficult, and they are both very frequently used in daily conversations, so let's get started!
You will find the introductory PPt on Tener Expressions on your Google classroom page. Go there to review as needed. In case you miss the classroom presentation, here is a video tutorial to complement the PPt Presentation:
With this unit, we begin our foray into the past tense, beginning with the Preterite. Don't panic! We will baby-step our way through the material in a measured and systematic way, so that you will grasp each piece of the puzzle before we go on to the next. But we begin with shopping vocabulary! Quizlet for 2B shopping vocabulary - this is also posted to Google Classroom
First Steps for speaking about past events: regular preterite verbs and a few of the most common irregular preterite verbs. Here are a few links to help you learn and practice these new verb forms:
A little step more: Spell-changing verbs in the preterite - these are verbs that end in -CAR, -GAR, or -ZAR and they require us to change the way they look (spelling) in order to keep the say they sound consistent throughout the conjugations.
Alcázar de Sevilla - Creative Commons photo by Sandra Villaure,
Arab influence in Spain and the Spanish Language Our cultural connection in this chapter will be to explore the profound influence the Moors had on Spanish history, architecture, and language. Since this chapter deals with shopping and related vocabulary, you should know that many of the words we use in commerce come to us from the Arabic, including almacén, tarifa, alquilar, cifra, quiosco, aduana and banco. Download the pdf to see a few more. We will watch a short documentary in class. Take notes, since there will be a few questions of a general nature on the unit test. If you are absent, you will need to watch the film at home.
LOS DEMOSTRATIVOS Which one? This one? or that one over there? Demonstrative adjectives help make our meaning clear. If you missed the lesson in class or just want to review, here are a few tutorials and practice sites.
Unidad 3A: El pueblo, los quehaceres, y las encomiendas
Creative Commons photo by Nicolas Henderson
In this unit, we broaden our vocabulary for being able to speak about things we have to do - chores and errands, places we need to go to - places in the town, and people we need to see - professions and professionals. In the mean time, we continue to expand on and practice the past tense.
THE TEST ON THIS UNIT ALSO CONTAINS ITEMS ON REGULAR PRETERITE. Use the links from Unit 2B (directly above) to review and practice these verb forms.
Unidad 4A: ¿Cómo eras de pequeño?
Creative Commons image by Lucélia Ribeiro
In this chapter we are introduced to the imperfect tense: probably the easiest tense in the Spanish language! Yay! It is used to speak about the past in generalities, or to describe what something was like, or to tell about repeated or on-going events in the past. To play with this tense, we will use memories and events from childhood, along with fun vocabulary dealing with toys, recess, play, etc..
PAST TENSE Mini-resource FLIP BOOK Now that we have had exposure to the forms of both the preterite and the imperfect in the past couple chapters, it's time to start pulling everything together and start "walking with both feet", using the tenses as they are meant: side by side.
In order to have all our information in one handy-dandy place, we will put together a flipbook of the forms, both regular and irregular, and the uses of these two past tenses. If you miss a day in class and need to make up some pages, here are some photos to help you. (Some photos open upside down, but if you download them, they are right-side up.)
For this project, you will be integrating everything you have learned about the forms and uses of the preterite and imperfect past tenses. This would be a good project for your Spanish portfolio! Download project description, rubric, and demo here.
Free use image from Wikimedia Commons
Novelette: «El viaje perdido»
El Viaje Perdido, by Blaine Ray, offers an excellent chance to reinforce everything we are learning about the forms and uses of the Preterite and Imperfect past tenses. Here are the resource sheets for each chapter. The quizzes for this novelette will come largely from the worksheets, so do a thorough job answering the questions. Each worksheet contains some practice with preterite and imperfect based on that chapter.
We will be practicing forms and uses of the preterite and imperfect based on the movie "SUGAR". Use your flipbook to double-check your work.
Final Exam - Spring Semester
Study Strategy: Use the links and resources posted here to review all the material from this semester. Start at the semester break in this page and work your way down. Here are copies of the handouts to help review vocabulary and some of the concepts besides preterite and imperfect:
What should I study for the final? What vocab do I need to know? Here is the review we handed out in class. It has all the page references for the grammar we have studied this semester, along with the vocabulary from the textbook, the stories we told, and the novel we read (El viaje perdido).
Final Exam word cloud - the words used most in the final exam. Do you know them all?
CC animated gif from WikiMedia
¡BUEN TRABAJO! LLEGASTE AL FINAL DEL SEMESTRE!
You learned a LOT this semester, especially by tripling what you could say in Spanish by adding two new tenses to your tool box: the preterite and the imperfect. Don't worry if you didn't get everything perfectly: it takes a while to acquire a second language, but you are well on your way!
I'm proud of the hard work we've all done together. I hope YOU are proud of what you can say and understand in Spanish!
There is a summer assignment for those entering PAP Spanish III, but I guarantee it is easy to do and it won't keep you from HAVING A GREAT SUMMER!
I'll miss my eager, enthusiastic PAP 2 students, but I look forward to seeing you next year!