Congratulations on your decision to take your Spanish skills to the next level! Level 4 PAP offers an opportunity to expand and extend your skills acquired at level 3 - whether in an on-level class or a PAP class - but without the rigors of an AP class. For juniors, it can provide a bridge to the AP class. For seniors, this class will preserve and extend your skills and help prepare you to gain college credit when you take a CLEP test upon entering a university.
Vocabulary is thematically grouped, so you will pick up lots of useful vocabulary for daily conversation. As this course serves as a bridge to AP, our readings and discussions will also include some of the major themes of that curriculum, such as beauty and aesthetics, family relationships, cultural customs in the Spanish-speaking world, global challenges, and science and technology.
Grammar content for this level will review previous concepts such as the past tenses and the subjunctive, but will add a couple useful tenses for daily conversation. You will be happy to know you have learned the most important tenses already, so grammar is not a major focus of this course. Instead, we focus on improving your proficiency and communication skills.
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.
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 Los ojos de Carmen, a story about a young photographer on a trip to Ecuador to find the perfect photo to capture the essence of the country. It is a short book easily read in a couple days, but in order to support your skills (and not tax them!) plan on reading it over a couple weeks. 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.
If you have any questions, please send me an email at [email protected]. I check my email every few days throughout the summer, and will be glad to answer any questions you have about this assignment or the upcoming year.
To help you explore the events and themes of «Los ojos de Carmen», and to help you prepare for the reading quiz and the vocabulary quiz, here are two resources:
Videos del Mercado de Otavalo: (también están en tu Google Classroom)
Explorando a Ecuador: expand your knowledge of Ecuador with a little research into topics of your choosing.
Mujeres de MAPEL - In «Los ojos de Carmen», Carmen and other young women work in a flower factory that requires long hours and working 6 days a week (often 7 days a week close to Valentine's Day). But women have fewer choices for work in many Latinamerican nations. What can you do when there are few choices and, like Carmen's family, have to be the sole support for your family? What if you had an idea for making money, but no money to make your idea happen? What if no bank would lend you money? What could you do? The women of MAPEL came up with an answer: an economic cooperative for entrepreneurial women. Listen to the two videos below and note your answers on the companion sheet.
Video companion sheet (Remember that you can use YouTube settings to slow down the playback speed on the fast parts.)
Comparación de Dos Héroes - Vamos a examinar la vida de dos figuras históricas, Ernesto (Che) Guevara y César Chávez. Como culminación de nuestra unidad de héroes hispanos, vas a contestar unas preguntas de los dos puntos de enfoque que hemos examinado. Aquí hay algunos enlaces para informar tu punto de vista y apoyar tus argumentos.
Posdata: Los derechos humanos y civiles en Latinoamérica
Free use image (modifications allowed) from Pixabay. Text modified to Spanish.
Acabamos de estudiar dos figuras importantes en la historia de Latinoamérica: César Chávez y Ernesto (Che) Guevara. Ambos usaron sus vidas como reacción a las injusticias que vieron a su alrededor. ¿Todavía hay injusticias en Sudamérica? ¿Tienen sus derechos intactos los obreros migrantes? ¿Qué derechos tiene la persona ordinaria en cualquier país? ¿Qué son los derechos humanos? ¿Cómo difieren de los derechos civiles?
Usa los siguientes enlaces y tus recursos en Internet para buscar las respuestas a las preguntas que te da tu maestra.
Los países hispanos tienen tradiciones navideñas que son variadas, coloridas, y de profundo significado. Para tu último proyecto este año vas a leer sobre estas tradiciones. Entonces, escogerás una tradición que te guste, y harás un cartel que incluye lo siguiente:
Una descripción (en español) de la tradición, su origen (si lo encuentras), y su significado. Por supuesto, incluye el país o la comunidad.
También incluye la descripción en inglés (vamos a poner los carteles en el pasillo para que los estudiantes de la escuela puedan leerlos y conocer las bellas tradiciones navideñas).
Incluye fotos de las celebraciones o tradiciones. Si es posible, imprímelas en color.
Si hay comidas especiales relacionadas con la tradición, incluye una descripción y una foto de estas también.
Tu presentación es parte de la nota, así que por favor usa mucho color y alegría en tu cartel. :)
Aquí hay unos enlaces que sirven como punto de partida.
After the present tense and the two past tenses, the verb forms used most commonly are those of the Present Subjunctive. This verb form is not a tense (which tells when something happened), but instead it is a MOOD, which reveals the attitude or opinion of the speaker. You know one other mood: the imperative, used to give someone a command.
In level 3, you learned the basic uses for the present subjunctive, to express Wishes, Emotions, Impersonal statements, Requests and Recommendations, Doubt, Denial or Disbelief, and finally, statements that begin with Ojalá.
In level 4, you will learn that the subjunctive is used for much more than just WEIRDO-type statements. Here are some helpful links as we review and expand upon our present subjunctive knowledge.
Links for reviewing and practicing the forms and concepts related to the Present Subjunctive: