Congratulations on your decision to take your Spanish skills to the next level! Level 3 is often the level when students begin to feel that they truly know a second language. PAP Spanish 3 reviews and reinforces everything you learned in Spanish 2, including the past tenses, which many students feel they finally master in Spanish 3. This year you will pick up a second "mood" in present tense, the subjunctive mood, which we use to express hopes and desires, and which is indispensable in daily conversation. You will also learn the future tense, which is quite easy.
Vocabulary is thematically grouped, so you will pick up lots of useful vocabulary for talking about relationships, fun and recreation, health and wellbeing, travel and tourism, nature and environmental issues, and science and technology. We also do a super fun unit on Spanish cuisine and you will learn to cook tapas.
I love to integrate "real world" Spanish experiences for my students. It reinforces the fact that you are learning something that will help you navigate the world and adds to your personal skills, no matter what your interests are.
Summer Assignment for those entering PAP Spanish 3
To keep your skills current over the summer, and even expand upon them, you will have a reading assignment to complete over the summer. You will read Vida y muerte en la Mara Salvatrucha, a story about a young Salvadoran man who is raised in a gang in Los Angeles and about what happens to him when he decides he wants to leave the gang. The author is anonymous, and his book is based on many interviews with real-life gang members. It is a gripping tale which we hope will find you turning pages and reading Spanish over the summer. The assignment is just to read and annotate this short book (annotation instructions are on the assignment page). We will discuss the book as part of our beginning-of-the-year activities.
In this unit, we will add to our vocabulary for expressing fun things to do, and we will explore how other cultures use their free time to enjoy themselves and to create community. Grammar focuses on gusta-type verbs and pronouns.
Repaso de los pronombres - Direct Object Pronouns These are the easiest to learn in Spanish because they most resemble how we use direct objects in English. Here are some tutorial and practice sites to reinforce what we are learning in class:
Some verbs which acquire pronouns are not reflexive (they don't describe an action you to yourself or for yourself). Here is a practice with some of those.
Homework answer key - for those who didn't get to check your work (lots of absent chicos on Friday).
TEST REVIEW MATERIALS can be found on Google Classroom. There are blank review sheets, along with answer keys to check your knowledge after you finish the review sheets. Choose the sections you know you need the most practice on - no need to do the sections you are sure you know.
Investigación: LAS DIVERSIONES
LAS DIVERSIONES - ¿Qué hacen en otros países para la diversión? ¿Qué semejanzas o diferencias hay entre nuestra cultura y las culturas hispanas en cuanto a cómo nos divertimos?
Es verdad que por ser todos humanos, tenemos muchos de los mismos gustos. Pero también es verdad que nuestra cultura es un gran determinante de nuestros gustos. Vas a usar el internet, la biblioteca, o tus compañeros hispanos para explorar el tema de las diversiones en las culturas hispanohablantes.
Aquí hay unos puntos de partida:
Aquí están las instrucciones del ensayo, por si acaso pierdes tu copia.
Are you a bit baffled by the past tenses? After this unit, you will be a Wizard of WAS! Level 3 is when I invariably hear students say, "Aaah, NOW I totally get the past tense! Why did it seem so hard last year?" Some things just bear repetition and review, and the past tenses in Spanish is definitely one of those.
Carpeta Project: You will create a comprehensive resource for all you review and learn this semester about the two main past tenses in Spanish. Here is a model you can use as an example.
Read a tutorial on orthographic-changing preterite from StudySpanish.com and then take the quiz at the bottom of the page to see how well you know these.
Lección suplementaria: La comida y cocina española
Photo by José Porras, courtesy of Creative Commons
In this unit, we explore the rich cultural heritage of Spanish food and traditions surrounding food. Special attention will be given to paella and tapas, in all their varieties. We will also look at food traditions from other Spanish-speaking countries in Latin-america. The grammar we will review and expand upon is commands and the use of impersonal se: both of which often used to express commands and instructions (as well as in recipes). We will culminate this unit with a tapas cooking project where we will all get to taste a little bit of this tradition.
Don't forget that if you aren't very confident at cooking yet, you can search for tapas recipes on YouTube and watch how the tapas dish is made before you try it yourself.
LEE Y ESCUCHA - More resources on typical Spanish food. Use these links for your outside reading and listening log!
Another way of giving instructions: the impersonal se ¿Se puede hacer la paella en el microondas? ¿Cómo se sirve la paella? These are examples of the "impersonal se". It's another way of giving instructions, but it isn't a command. It can be used to describe a step, for example. It can also be used to draw attention to an action done or the manner it is done, without mentioning who is doing the action. Here is a Kaplan tutorial on the uses of impersonal se.
Pura diversión: Mandatos en canciones -- Aquí hay unos enlaces a las canciones que hemos escuchado en clase.
¿De qué me sirve la vida? - por Camila. In the video production of this song, Camila unites his suffering of rejection to the suffering of others who are rejected. Throughout the video, people hold up signs with statements, commands, and encouragements. Here is a handout with these signs. Translate as part of class discussion and homework.
Unidad 4: La salud y el bienestar
Stock image from Creative Commons, by Igor Goncharenko
In this chapter, we will add to our vocabulary for giving commands, and we will learn lots of health- and wellness-related words. We will also use this vocabulary to bridge to our new tense (actually a mood) we are learning: the present subjunctive, as it is used to give advice, recommendations, and express wishes for others. Lots of good stuff!
Drill - Drill - Drill! If practice makes perfect, you can do that at the Conjuguemos website. Just type in the subjunctive form of the verb given, and get immediate feedback on whether you've got it right. The more you practice, the better you get!
Present Subjunctive in Song: Since the subjunctive is for expressing wishes, desires, doubts, etc, they make great lyrics for songs! Here are some of the songs we will hear in this unit:
Expressing wishes in Spanish with Ojalá - here is a website that explains the history of the word Ojalá, with a link to a recent version of the classic song «Ojalá que llueva café»
Que te besen - a cool song wishing you all kinds of good things (and lots of subjunctive with wishes) by Aterciopelados. See lyrics here.
Using subjunctive to express desires and expectations. Listen as Ricardo tells Kelly what his family expects of him when he gets back from being away at college. Fill in the blanks as you listen to their conversation.
Outside listening practice on health and wellbeing:
Secretos de un curandero - in many Latin-American countries without easy access to modern medicine, the local medicine man is their source of health care and advice. Learn more about this practice with this article. Includes audio, script to support your understanding, and a video about real-life curanderos.
In this chapter, we will extend what we know about the subjunctive to include travel recommendations and adjectival clauses. We will add some valuable travel vocabulary, and review concepts we already know pertaining to comparisons and negation.
Listen as Ben and Marina discuss traveling in Spain (from Notes In Spanish). Go here and scroll down to Podcast 45. Answer the questions on your worksheet as you listen.
Consejos para hacer una maleta. Some of it is pretty fast, but try and see how much you understand! Remember that you don't have to understand every word in order to get the gist. This young lady also has a Madrid accent and is a good opportunity for you to hear the vosotros form used.
Repaso de las comparaciones y los superlativos - You had a good foundation in comparisons of equality and inequality last year, including superlatives as well. Here are some links to help you review and practice these concepts.
Repaso de los negativos y afirmativos - This chapter provides a review of negative and affirmative statements. The use of negation often triggers the subjunctive, so it is important to understand these structures. Here are some useful links for review and practice:
In this project, you (in groups or individually) will plan a trip to a Spanish-speaking country, researching things to see and do there, including its culture, food, art, music, geography and opportunities for ecotourism and service projects. You will have an opportunity to revisit all the concepts we have learned this year, including the subjunctive mood, imperative mood, and the past tenses of preterite and imperfect. You will be given lots of time in class to work on this, but you should expect to do some work at home. Here are the handouts:
Here are a few useful links to review for the final exam - besides the ones above on this webpage. A good study strategy is to start at the semester break above, and then move down the page, clicking on tutorials, practices, Quizlets, etc. (NOTE for 2017: this year we did not get to some of this material [block scheduling!] so don't worry about past participles links here.)
¡Llegaste al final de tu tercer año de español y todavía estás vivo! :) Estoy bromeando ... estoy muy agradecida por ser tu maestra este año y por todo lo que has aprendido. Aprecio todo el buen trabajo y esfuerzo que has hecho este año. Fue un año buenísimo para mí en Español 3. Espero que te hayas divertido también.
Espero que continúes estudiando este bello idioma y ojalá que tengas una oportunidad de viajar a un país hispanohablante (como en tu proyecto final).
Si decides no ir al nivel 4 el año que viene, ¡no olvides de venir a visitarme de vez en cuando! Con cariño, Sra. G.