SPAN 303: Advanced Spanish Grammar
Reviews all phases of communication skills with practice in understanding, speaking, and writing grammatically correct Spanish. Teaches specific components of Spanish grammar: the Spanish verbal system, the subjunctive, ser versus estar, and other problematic aspects of grammar. For students planning to teach Spanish.
Instructor: Dr. Ovidio Casado-Fuente
Instructor: Dr. Ovidio Casado-Fuente
Course Narrative
This course challenged me to expand my knowledge of the Spanish language beyond what I had learned as native speaker. It represented the first course I had taken at the university level that was focused solely on Spanish Grammar. As a native speaker it presented a particular set of challenges to me because I had to correct many of mannerisms I had grown up with. This course was taught in Spanish and written assignments were required to be submitted in the target language. The course fulfills Major Learning Outcome 1: Language Proficiency and Major Learning Outcome 2: Language and Linguistic Knowledge.
One of the target outcomes of the course focused on learning the differences between prescriptive grammar and descriptive grammar. Since most of my Spanish education had taken place outside of an academic setting this difference in grammar posed a difficult task for me. Towards the end of the course I was able to differentiate between both with more ease. The course also focused on making a distinction between grammatical structures in English to those in Spanish. Some of those included past tense verb conjugations and identifying gender specific nouns.
By taking the approach of teaching the proper grammatical terminology this course helped me understand the reasoning behind the language structures. In addition to bi-weekly worksheet assignments, we were required to write a few essays during the course of the semester. The professor proofread and returned our essays so that we could correct them and identify which aspects of grammar we needed to improve on.
One of the target outcomes of the course focused on learning the differences between prescriptive grammar and descriptive grammar. Since most of my Spanish education had taken place outside of an academic setting this difference in grammar posed a difficult task for me. Towards the end of the course I was able to differentiate between both with more ease. The course also focused on making a distinction between grammatical structures in English to those in Spanish. Some of those included past tense verb conjugations and identifying gender specific nouns.
By taking the approach of teaching the proper grammatical terminology this course helped me understand the reasoning behind the language structures. In addition to bi-weekly worksheet assignments, we were required to write a few essays during the course of the semester. The professor proofread and returned our essays so that we could correct them and identify which aspects of grammar we needed to improve on.
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