Spanish II (offered every year)

WHY STUDY SPANISH?

Few skills are as important in our world as the ability to communicate. Knowledge of Spanish allows you to communicate with 350 million people in 21 countries—including our own! In fact, if you speak Spanish and English, you can communicate with over 70% of the world’s population!

We learn a language because we want to connect with people—be it in our churches, on mission trips, in our jobs, in our daily life—so we want to start getting to know Spanish-speaking people: what they eat, what they believe, how they live! Qué bueno, ¿no?

course summary

In Spanish II we will continue to immerse ourselves in the Spanish language and cultures, through story-telling (a continuation of the TPRS methodology from Spanish I), acting, reading, writing, music, literature, educational games, and other interdisciplinary activities. Students will learn to conjugate verbs in various forms of the past, present, and future tenses, while growing in confidence and ease of expression.  Throughout the year, students will progress towards their goal of fluency, with increased opportunities to speak and interact with native speakers.

Major topics covered

• Verb conjugations including the regular and irregular present, preterit, imperfect, present progressive, imperfect progressive, future, conditional, and present subjunctive

• All pronouns

• Affirmative and negative words

• Comparisons including “as much as/as many as”

• -talking about how long something has been going on
  -discussing short- and long-form possessive adjectives and pronouns

• Vocabulary including, but not limited to, extra curricular activities, locations in town and errands related to those locations, such as mailing a letter, cashing a check, putting gas in the car, and going to the doctor, driving and directions, cooking, and illness and injury.

• Por vs. para

• Preterit vs. imperfect

• Comprensive overview of commands, including

  • affirmative and negative tú, Ud, Uds., and nosotros commands

  • irregular affirmative tú commands

  • irregular negative tú, and affirmative/negative Ud., Uds., and nosotros commands

  • introduction to commands involving reflexive pronouns

• the impersonal “se”

Major skills acquired

• Students continue to learn topical vocabulary lists to help them become conversant in a wide variety of subjects.

• Students will learn and practice grammar including a variety of verb tenses, pronouns, and other grammatical features of the Spanish language.

• Students will gain verbal fluency as they have opportunities to speak to one another and to native speakers.

• Students will complete a “reference guide project” during which students research and identify their own learning styles and customize the reference guide (which includes the major points of the language they have learned so far) to match not only their learning style, but also self-identified areas of challenge in their language development. Additionally, students seek to come up with creative, customized ideas for tackling those growth areas.

• Students will interview a native Spanish speaker about their lives, after which they will write a 1.5-2 page paper and give a presentation to the class about their subject, all in Spanish.

• Students will read and discuss a brief novel in Spanish.

• Students will continue to see the connection between language and culture, and will gain appreciation for the food, music, and culture of Spanish-speaking countries.

TextBooks

Forthcoming! Spanish II will be using new books in the 2021/2022 academic year.

Prerequisites and Placement Exam

Spanish II is offered to students who have successfully completed one year of Spanish at New Hope or who have passed the placement exam, below.

Parents, please download and proctor this placement exam for your child, then you can return it directly to Mrs. Range. You can scan it and email it to her, or mail it to New Hope.

Nueva Esperanza

The “Nueva Esperanza” (New Hope) chapter of National Spanish Honor Society, or “Sociedad Honoraria Hispánica!” Sociedad Honoraria Hispánica (SHH) is an honor society for high school students enrolled in Spanish and/or Portuguese, sponsored by the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese (AATSP). At present there are over 2,000 national and international chapters.

The purpose of the society is to recognize high achievement of high school students in the Spanish and Portuguese languages and to promote a continuing interest in Hispanic and Portuguese studies. For more information (and even and informative video!) visit the SHH website at www.sociedadhonorariahispanica.org.

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