Mexico Contemporaneo Level 3

Course Overview

This course will cover the topics about Mexico today such as politics, religion, identity, society, traditions and customs, as well as newspaper articles. We will focus on conversations, student’s centered as well as writing short essays about various topics. The Mexico Contemporaneo class focuses on 4 skills to improve fluency, accuracy and the ability to communicate in Spanish showing the Mexican’s life. This course will also provide an opportunity, at the student’s skill level, to speak Spanish during class. Students will also work on pronunciation, vocabulary and Spanish idioms to further develop their conversational skills doing short presentations in class about topics related to the course. The goal of this class will be to speak Spanish and improve communication skills through the Mexican culture.

It is important that you made a commitment to speak Spanish during class as much as possible and allow me as a teacher to help you comprehend and communicate in the language. There will be an allotted time each class to exclusively speak Spanish through games, small and class conversations, and informal teacher/student chats.

Mexico Contemporaneo class Learning Goals

1. Engage in oral, listening and written exchanges of learned material to socialize, provide and obtain information.

2. Demonstrate understanding of simple, clearly spoken, and written language presented in mayan legends, games, tons of questions and brief conversations.

3. Present information using familiar words, discrete sentences and phrases.

4. Demonstrate understanding of the mayan culture (what mayans did and do) and how they are respected or not  nowadays, how different people perceives them and in the Hispanic culture.

6. Master common and some specialized vocabulary terms.

7. Listen for meaning in Spanish videos and music and read, write, and speak about them.

Recurring Assessments:

Free-writing or Sketch Journaling: You will be asked to create literature in which you can decide the topic. You will have two option. Free-writing and Sketch journaling. In free-writing you can decide to write fiction or facts related to the course trying to make connections, make comparisons about the mayan culture and your culture. In sketch journaling you will need to drawfirst anything related to the topic covered in class, then write sentences about  it. You will include posting your literature and recording of your voice reading your creation in your Digital Portfolio as a way to record progress during the semester.   

Daily Work: In addition to homework, there will be a variety of activities that will be done in class to improve your speaking skills and understanding of the language.

Work Habits will be graded on a regular basis and after you complete each assignment/update your Digital Portfolio. In order to justly assess all student work, please expect a two week window from the due date of an assignment before a grade is posted onto x2. 

Extra Credit: You may complete Honors assignments for extra credit. The regular revision of work will be also encouraged.

Honors:  Honors in Spanish is an opportunity to challenge yourself and enrich your experience in this class. It is open to all students, but there is commitment involved. Honors students will be expected to lead small-group discussion activities and help to keep a “Solo Español” environment in class. In addition, Honors students will have to: Organize and lead one Mexico Contemporaneo class (Conversational game and follow-up brief group discussion).Help coordinating and organizing Exhibition Night  (June 3) for this class.Complete any other assignment your teacher may find useful to help you expand your Spanish vocabulary.                                           

Looking forward to a fun and successful semester.