Spanish Acquisition Beginners

Unit 2: ¿Cuáles son tus gustos? (What Do You Usually Like to Do?)

In this unit, students learn to describe themselves and express how others look like, their physical and personal characteristics. They learn about different types of Hispanic music and have been able to express their likes and dislikes about a variety of music genres. They will be able to describe their daily routines and how it changes on the weekends or when they are on holidays. They have recently completed a group video project of a famous Hispanic Carnival celebrated in different Hispanic countries in the month of February. Students take part in small group projects while practising their listening, speaking, reading and writing skills.

Students have the opportunity to practise their language skills (reading, listening, writing and speaking), reviewing the conjugation of regular present tense verbs while also introducing the conjugation of irregular verbs in present tense and the reflexive verbs to talk about their routine and about time. Furthermore, students learn how to talk about what they like, using verbs such as “Gustar”, which have different meanings in Spanish and a complex type of conjugation.

As part of the outcome for this unit, students take part in different speaking and writing projects where they need to describe the personality and appearance of famous personalities. They also need to reflect on what kind of Hispanic music they like and why. They produce an assignment in which they need to guess the character of one of their classmates just by listening to three of their favourite songs. Students also complete a video blog about their daily routine during three days, what they like about it and what they would change.

Unit 3: ¿Cómo elegir a dónde vas? (How To Choose Where To Go?)

Students will learn about fantastic new places using authentic resources and role-play scenarios. They will be able to list what they need to take on their trip, talk about the weather, learn how to book a hotel and buy a train ticket in Spanish. The outcome of this unit is for the students to take part in different speaking and writing projects where the main one will be participating in a tourist fair (FITUR) where they will be representing a Hispanic country and they will need to promote it.

Course AO rubric

A course highlight:

Writing: For this project students create a poster describing the appearance and the personal characteristics of popular personalities.

Speaking: In this group video project about Festivals, Customs and Traditions, students need to write a script and create a video describing what happens during this celebration in Canary Islands in Spain and Barranquilla in Colombia.

Spanish Acquisition Continuation

Unit 2: ¿Cómo ha cambiado la vida? (How Has Life Changed?)

In this unit, students are exploring how lifestyles, communication and technology have changed over time. They have described their favourite things when they were younger, how they used to look and how they have changed using the Imperfect tense. Also describe what their parents used to do when they were young. We have experienced traditional Spanish games that are popular in schools and outdoors. Soon, we will focus on the topic of fashion. They will take part in a fashion show and a clothes market. They will describe their personal style in detail, express their likes and dislikes, and reflect on Spanish fast fashion and its effect on the environment. We will discuss beauty standards according to different cultures and learn about Spanish influencers and fashion designers. Aside from this, we continue to send and receive letters from our pen-pals in Spain and we have recently done a group video project presenting famous Hispanic Carnivals celebrated in different countries in the month of February. Students will take part in a mixture of individual and small group projects while practising their listening, speaking, reading and writing skills. They will share their knowledge by producing written work such as blog posts and speeches.

The outcome of this unit will be for students to take part in a speaking role-play project about different aspects of fashion and write a letter to our pen-pals describing experiences in the past by using the Imperfect tense and Present Perfect.

Unit 3: Mi bienestar (My Wellbeing)

Students will learn about healthy and unhealthy lifestyles, actions we can do to stay healthy such as taking part in sports, diets such as veganism and how food production affects the environment. They will learn about Hispanic cuisines and famous chefs.

As part of the unit Plaza, where students were able to compare and contrast the games they play now and before the “technological era”. A fun and authentic way to experience the use of imperfect tense in a classroom/school environment.

Speaking: acting as tourists in a Spanish speaking country or interviewing a famous Hispanic personality. In these photos the students went to Spain and Colombia where they described their adventures during the famous personality.

Writing: We have created a project where we connect students from a school in Spain with our students at UWCSEA. They will be able to share experiences about all the topics that they will be studying in G9 and G10. There will be different ways to communicate with their “pen pals” through videos, emails, postcards and letters. In this photo, our students were excited to receive correspondence from their new friends in Spain.

Economics for Social Change

Unit 3: Improving People’s lives

In this unit, students will explore how we measure the standards of living within a country and how there are differences in the living standards between different groups in a country. Students will then explore how governments and societies can improve the living standards for everyone in society through achieving SDG’s 3, 4, 6 and 7. Students will also have the opportunity to investigate what barriers countries face when trying to improve people’s lives.

Course AO rubric