AP SPANISH LANGUAGE
SYLLABUS
COURSE OVERVIEW
The AP Spanish language course will be conducted in Spanish. Students
will be encouraged throughout the course to practice the target language
consistently with their peers, with their teacher and through an online
language exchange program called Lenguajero. They will use the Spanish
language to have casual conversations with their classmates and also have
formal discussions in class.
The students will broaden their understanding of the Spanish language
through conversations, newspaper, magazine, internet articles and short
stories. They will be able to express themselves orally and in writing by
convincing, arguing , inquiring and describing in a variety of styles, and use
different strategies for different audiences.
The students will make connections between their learning in the classroom
and in other classes, as well as in the global community. They will increase
their knowledge of the Spanish-speaking world through their studies.
The ultimate goal is to communicate in a meaningful and appropriate way in
the target language.
COURSE OUTLINE
Our school will use Espanñol En Vivo ,Triángulo (quinta edición),Nuevas
Vistas Uno, Album, Repaso, and AP Practice (Prentice Hall) in the program.
Repaso provides the students with a thorough grammar review and practice.
Brief explanations will be offered when necessary. The students will work
on these activities at home. The tests that accompany each chapter will be
given as take-home assessments. A strong command of grammar is essential
for communication, but class time will be used mostly for interactions of
peers and for use of authentic materials. Triángulo will provide the students
with great vocabulary building and a wide selection of materials from
authentic sources. These are presented in the same format as the AP exam
and will enhance the students’ practice. The essays provided in this text will
help students to prepare for the exam also. During the first part of the course,
the teacher will edit students’ work and in the second half of the course the
studens will peer-edit each others’ work, make revisions and submit the final
essay for a grade based upon the AP Scoring Guidelines. The multiple
choice listening and reading comprehension sections will also be used as
well as other free-response sample prompts. The use of Triángulo will allow
for increased interaction in the classroom, will encourage language building,
usage and practice with similar items found on the AP Spanish Language
Exam. The AP Practice book from Prentice Hall will be used during the
second half of the course as this material has increasingly difficult readings.
The short stories in the Album provide the students with authors from many
different Spanish-speaking countries. The cd program has native speakers
from the different countries who read segments of the stories. This will
demonstrate differences in pronunciation. This text also has an online
component for students to acquire additional information on each author,
his/her works and country or region. There is an electronic flashcard
program where students will practice thematically related vocabulary,
literary terms and cinematographic expressions. Español En Vivo exposes
students to real language use by native speakers to show the richness and
variation that is found within the Spanish language. The book /dvd show
students samples of national, regional and sociologically based varieties of
Spanish from twenty three Spanish speakers from seven countries. Through
personal accounts students are exposed to topics such as housing and family,
the immigrant experience, and cultural traditions. It is shown in interview
format.
For the semester exam, a shorter, mock AP Spanish Language Exam will be
given using multiple-choice items from past released exams and free
response questions created by the teacher that are similar in type and
difficulty to those found on the AP exam. An oral presentation on free
response speaking will also be a part of the semester exam. For example:
you meet a friend at a local café after classes to discuss plans for college
next year…
Students will also write answers to essay questions about pieces of literature
that they have read during the semester-for example: Pepita Jimenez will be
read outside of class, and discussions will take place in class. Lazarillo de
Tormes will be studied during the second semester.
If the students meet the school criteria for exam exemptions, they will not be
required to take a final exam in June; however, they will be given practice
AP exams to prepare before taking the AP exam in May. All students who
take Spanish AP are required to take the AP exam.
At the end of the first semester students will be asked to create a mini lesson
on their chosen Hispanic country to present to level 2 and level 3 Spanish
classes. They may choose to tell a legend, or create a story about the chosen
country. They will be required to prepare a 10 slide powerpoint/prezzi of
information in the target language.
Also, towards the end of the second semester, they will be asked to write an
original children’s story to present to the other Spanish classes. In this
manner they will be able to practice both writing and speaking skills.
FIRST SEMESTER
UNIT
CHAPTERS FROM
REPASO
CHAPTERS FROM
TRIANGULO
1.
1,2,3,7,9,10
1. EL HOGAR:
El verbo (presente de indicativo,
aparatos, comida,
ser, estar,gerundio, voz pasiva
herramientas, muebles,
reflexivos
quehaceres, ropa
_____________________________________________________________
2.
4, 5,8
ll. LA SALUD:
Los tiempos del pasado (presente
accidentes, cuerpo
perfecto, pretérito, imperfecto
emergencias,
pluscuamperfecto,
medecina, medicos
3.
6
Los tiempos del futuro
y el condicional
11,12,13,14
el subjuntivo
los mandatos
lll. EL MEDIO AMBIENTE:
al aire libre, animales,
tiempo, topografía
4.
lV. EL TURISMO:
aeropuerto, caminos,
culturas extranjeras,
medios de transporte
_____________________________________________________________
5.
16
V. EL OCIO:
Los substantivos y
arte, ciencia ficción,
los artículos
espectáculos, fiestas, música
sueños, teléfono, television
SECOND SEMESTER
UNIT
CHAPTERS FROM
REPASO
6
19
CHAPTERS FROM
TRIANGULO
Vl. EL DEPORTE:
Los pronombres
7.
actividades, ejercicio
equipo, lugares
Vll. LA EDUCACION
actividades, estudios,
muebles, personas
18, 23
Los posesivos,
los demostrativos,
las palabras interrogativas
y exclamativas
_____________________________________________________________
8.
20, 24
Vlll. EL COMERCIO:
Los pronombres relativos
finanazs, profesiones
Los indefinidos y los negativos
tiendas, trabajos
9.
17, 21
lX. EL PROJIMO:
Los adjetivos, los adverbios
características físicas
Los comparativos y los
emociones, familia
superlativos
personalidad
10.
15, 22
X. DE TODO UN POCO:
Las preposiciones y
avances tecnológicos
las conjunciones
derecho, policía, política,
infinitivos
el futuro
Nuevas Vistas Uno : Cápitulos that enhance activities from Triángulo:
Leyendas is used with El Ocio
Habla Con Animales ---El Medio Ambiente
La Juventud—El Projimo ( from the Español en Vivo, units on La Familia,
el Trabajo y la Rutina y la Education will be included )
SAMPLE CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
At the beginning of the year students listen to thematic songs from Andrea
Boccelli, Josh Groban, Il Divo, Shakira, David de Maria , José Felliciano
and Alejandro Sanz. They are given a copy of the lyrics with missing
words. They listen to the songs twice, and during the second time they are
asked to fill in the missing words. Later, they will be asked to listen to the
music and list verbs. After, they will be asked to name tenses used, and why
do they think the artists’ chose the vocabulary used. This may be in the form
of a short discussion or journal entry.
Students will watch the daily four minute news program called Telediario
from a Spanish news program. After watching the program, students will
write a short summary of the information acquired and this information will
be shared with their classmates. This will be included in their daily journal
.At the end of the week, students will be asked to become the news reporter
and share with others in class. They will also be asked to watch news
programs from the BBC mundo website, or another of their choice at least
once a week outside of class and write a short summary on a Google blog
that will be available to the students.
Students will also watch segments from Bablingua (short programs on life
in Spain purchased by teacher) and listen to podcasts from Voices en
Español on cultural events. They will be asked to summarize information
learned and complete listening and reading comprehension activities.
Nearer the end of the first quarter, they will be asked to compare and
contrast information learned. For example: on Voices en Español there are
three podcasts on differences in pronunciation in three regions of Spain.
Students will be asked to discuss regional differences/similarities.
Students will also listen to the Español En Vivo program and answer
questions on the comparison/contrasting cultures of Spain, South America
and Mexico. This program is done in an interview format. There are
discussions on architecture, family, education, etc. The questions from the
text are prepared at home and then discussed with peers after watching the
segments. There are open ended questions which require students to
research information before returning to class for discussions. When needed,
the segments will be shown several times. After several segments have been
shown, the students will be asked to draw comparisons among the speakers’
experiences, cultural background, pronunciation and general use of the
language. They will also be asked to summarize the segments in a short
paragraph and return to class to share their summaries in a short oral
presentation. Classmates will be asked to add any other pertinent
information, and to ask questions about each others’ summaries. The
students will also play the role of the interviewer and ask a few additional
questions. This will prepare them for their interview of a Native Spanish
speaker (during El Projimo unit)
The students will be given an opportunity to join the Lenguajero online
exchange program with people from around the world. This will allow them
to practice their language skills through a skype type program. People from
Mexico, Spain and Colombia are only a few examples of countries offered
for practice.
The goal of the above activities is to listen for controlled information, take
notes to help with remembering pertinent information and then to share the
overall important details with their classmates and with the teacher.
Later, students will apply these strategies individually when using the audio
sources for both the formal speaking section and the essay on their AP
Exam.
Sources for authentic listening activities:
Telediarios
Rtve.esp
Bablingua
Bablingua.com (purchased programs)
BBC
www.bbcmundo.com
CNN en español
www.cnn.com/español/
Español En Vivo
DVD program Yale University Press
You Tube
www.youtube.com
Nuevas Vistas Uno
-listening program /ancillaries
Lenguajero
www.lenguajero.com/language exchange
BBC Mundo
www.bbcmundo.com
This class will read and discuss the novels Pepita Jiménez and El Libro de
Sigüenza during the first semester. The reading of the novels will be
completed during the course. In class, as well as at home, students will also
read short stories from the reader Album, Cuentos del Mundo Hispanico,
Heinle 2005. There is a cd program to accompany the texts and students will
have the opportunity to listen to people from around the Hispanic world.
Students will begin to develop a familiarity with literary analysis
vocabulary, compare and contrast themes and write critically about
literature. They will learn more advanced vocabulary and discuss themes
found in the texts and write essays comparing works of the authors studied.
Students will analyze the texts by identifying two or three main concrete
details, then paraphrase in writing, in their own words, these details. They
will summarize these orally in small groups to compare with other students,
and help each other assess their comprehension of the texts. This will help
improve their preparation for the essays that will be written every three
weeks.
Up to date articles from the People En Español magazine and from EL Pais
are offered to the students to use as resources, as well as the articles from
CNN en español , from BBC Mundo and from Rtve.esp. They will be asked
to write short summaries on the news articles and present these summaries to
the class.
Lesson Sample:
Unit: Las Familias y las Comunidades
Context: La Estructura de la Famila y Las Tradiciones y los Valores
Essential Questions: ¿ Cómo se desfine la familia en distintas sociedades?
.
¿Cuáles son las diferencias en los papeles que asumen
las communidades y las familias en las diferentes sociedades del mundo?
 Students create a vocabulario list from chapters in these three texts :
Triangulo (El Projimo ) and Nuevas Vistas (La Juventud) and Español
En Vivo( La familia ) . This will be used in their daily journals.
 Students will interview a native speaker, and answer the following, as
well as add several questions that they will create based on the theme
of the family.
 What constitutes a family in different societies? How do the roles that
families and communities assume differ in societies around the world?
What is the notion of an extended family?
 ¿Qué hacen para mantener vivas sus raíces y su lengua. ¿Qué es lo
más difícil de ser hispanohablante en una sociedad angloparlante?
¿Cómo definan los individuos y las sociedades su propia calidad de
vida?
Students would then discuss in the online blog family rules, family
relationships. They could compare and contrast their life with the life of the
native speaker interviewed. They may also be asked to discuss the meaning
of the extended family for Hispanics. They will compare this to their own
family. How is their family a reflection of their identity?
The students will return to class and do a short oral presentation of their
interview. These may be recorded on our Audacity program.
As a continuation to the study of La Vida Contemporánea (Education,
Careers, Travel, Leisure and Lifestyles), these essential questions will be
addressed: How is Contemporary Life influenced by cultural products,
practices and perspectives? What are the Challenges of Contemporary Life?
The following activity will be assigned: Students will find a Spanish
language article from an online magazine, newspaper or blog that identifies
a challenge they face in their own life. This must be a topic of interest to
them and a challenge they will be faced with, or one that they are now
facing. They will write about this in their journals, including a summary of
the content, comparing what they have learned with their own life and what
effect does the content of the article have on them? Students will present
their information to their classmates in a two minute presentation. Other
students must ask two or three questions and express their own opinions on
the subject.
The movie El Silencio de Neto will be shown to the class to show the
students the struggles of a young boy in times of political and economic
struggles in his native country. Before the film, they will be given a
vocabulary list to review and a map of Central America to review. During
the film the students will be given comprehension questions to answer and
after the completion of the film, the students will be asked to write a letter
to Neto called Tu Mensaje a Neto—Escríbele una carta a Neto donde te
presentas y le dice qué cosas tienes en común con él y qué cosas haces de
manera diferente. Cuéntale sobre tus mejores amigos y sobre las cosas que
te gusta hacer con ellos.
As a blog assignment, they will be asked to compare and contrast Neto’s life
with their own.
A short oral/essay activity to close this study would be to write /discuss what
Neto’s future life would be.
Students could also make a cartoon summary of the movie, including
conversations among the most important movie characters, including Ani,
Ernesto, and Elena.
Using the essential question ¿Cómo influye el sistema de creencias o la
forma de pensar la persona y la imaginación y la interpretación de la
realidad? ¿Cómo influyen la lengua y la cultura la identidad?
Students will be asked to respond to this by describing dreams they have had
and give an interpretation of their dreams in an online blog discussion with
classmates. They will be asked to discuss the meaning of dreams in general
and answer questions about what dreams represent to people of different
cultures. Discuss premonitions, and feelings of déjà vu. This will lead to a
discussion of taking a siesta –pro/con. ¿Cuáles son los beneficios de dormir
una siesta? ¿Piensas que ayudaría esta práctica en el mundo laboral?
Students will write an opinion column for a newspaper, present to class—
others will ask questions, and give their opinions also.
Every three weeks students will write a formal analytical or persuasive essay
of at least 200 words on a topic of discussion from the text or information
discussed or viewed. The topic will be unannounced and no outside
resources will be used. They will be written in class. These essays will be
evaluated for their content, organization, range and appropriateness of
vocabulary and grammatical accuracy. These essays will be peer-reviewed
and revised according to feedback, and then graded according to the AP
scoring guidelines, which will have been given to the students at the
beginning of the course of study.
For the theme of La Belleza y la Estética the following essential questions
will be used: Perceptions of Beauty /Creativity: How are these established?
How do they influence daily life? How do the arts challenge and reflect
cultural perspectives?
El Ocio chapter in Triangulo ,La Leyenda chapter in Nuevas Vistas Uno
and the chapters on Música and Arte y cultura from Espanol en Vivo will
provide vocabulario for this unit’s journals and blogs. Students will answer
questions such as what is beautiful to them in their online blog and they will
be asked to show each other images of what beauty is to them and explain
why they chose the images they did. They will discuss and write reactions
to each others’ images of beauty. This will lead to the teacher showing the
class images of Velazquez’ work. Students will analyze work in a
discussion of how the images reflect the practices of every day life.
Students may blog the discussion of how Velazquez’ vision of beauty may
be different from their own concept of beauty. Next, students will choose
any other artist from a Spanish speaking country. They will compare their
chosen artist’s work with that of Velazquez. They will discuss similarities
and differences and comment on which they prefer and why.
The students will then take a virtual trip to Museo del Prado in class. After
this they will be asked to write an essay on their favorite works of art and
why they like this type of art.
In their daily journals, they will be asked to write about the following: How
does publicity influence their idea of beauty? What danger does it pose to
adolescents? Are dangers different in Spanish speaking countries?
They may also use their online blog to discuss this, as well as ¿Hace el
hábito al monje? Students would discuss el uniforme,¿ debe ser obligatorio
o no?—what effects would this have on their idea of beauty? Are clothes a
symbol of beauty or of wealth? Students may also choose to write a letter to
our local school board, or to the newspaper discussing the need for
uniformity of dress or not for students/and or for the faculty. They would
present the letters to a peer editor, who would then pose questions and share
his/her own opinion. They may also research where uniforms are worn in
Spain, and in the USA and write a short comparison essay.
For a final activity in this unit students may create an ad for a product that
they use and present this three dimensional ad to the class. They must
convince other students how this product is an enhancement to their life.
Other students will ask questions and express their opinions in this short oral
presentation.
Possible formal writing assignment:
Using two poets, musicians, actors or writers, use three different internet
articles/blogs to discuss their sources of inspiration./ What is their definition
of beauty? If a musician is chosen, a piece of music may be brought to the
class to play for others to see how this influences daily life, or shows their
cultural perspective to the world. The student would give a short explanation
of this to the class, and others would ask questions, and give their own
opinions of the musical sample.
Sample:
Unit: La Ciencia y la Tecnología
Essential Questions: ¿Qué impacto tiene el desarollo científico y
tecnológico en nuestras vidas?
¿Qué factores han impulsado el desarrollo y la inovación en la ciencia y la
tecnología?
¿Qué papel cumple la ética en los avances científicos?
Vocabulario from La Salud unit in Triángulo and Habla con los Animales
unit in Nuevas Vistas Uno will be used by students for the following
activities:
Answers to the following will be done in a blog/journal entry:
 ¿Cuáles son los desafios sociales, politicos y del medio ambiente que
enfrentan las sociedades del mundo? ¿Cuáles son los origenes de esos
desafíos? ¿Cuáles son algunas posibles soluciones a esos desafíos?
Students will choose one global challenge that interests them. They will
research and prepare a prezzi /or other multi-media presentation to depict
the problem from at least one Spanish-speaking country and must address
the Essential questions.
Students may also research a health, educational, or societal issue that
has been improved by technology. They would present their findings to
the class using the essential questions as their guide. They will compare
how this has changed life compared to ten years ago. Students may
include graphs, charts, tables, etc to present to the class.
After presentations, students will choose one of the issues and express
their opinion about the subject on the blog. They will provide reasons for
their choice and ask questions about the issue they have chosen. The
person to whom this issue has been addressed will then answer in the
blog.
All student work will be scored on word choices, control of grammar and
improvement in these areas as the semester progresses. All work will be
hand-written and must be legible, which will help the students to prepare for
the written portion of the AP Exam.
All discussions will be done in the target language. Every day the students
will participate in discussions of readings done in and out of class.
Every week, they will also present summaries of current events about
Hispanic countries. Students will research information in newspapers,
magazines and on the internet. At the end of the semester, each student will
present a summary of information and compare that with the USA. They will
present orally first and provide a written summary at the close of the
presentation. The information may come from the Internet, newspapers, or
magazines. This will help to expand and enrich their knowledge and
understanding of the practices, perspectives and products of the Spanish and
Hispanic cultures.
Students will also participate in small group discussions, conversations and
debates on class-related topics. They will create short conversations with
their peers and participate in online discussion on the lenguajero website, as
well as on their Google blog website. The lenguajero site will help with the
informal speaking. They will use the target language to communicate with
the teacher and with peers. These activities will provide an opportunity for
students to integrate their skills and to practice leading both formal and
informal presentations. The oral activities in Triángulo will also be recorded
on the Audacity program and reviewed by the students and the teacher.
The movie, Silencio de Neto will be shown to students during the second
semester. It will be used during the study of Triángulo (política/policía).
This also deals with family and personality (El Projimo)
Segments from the movie Lazarillo de Tormes will also be shown to the
class.
Resources:
Piñar, Pilar, Español en Vivo. New Haven,London, Ct: Yale University
Press, 2005
Gatski, Barbara , McMullan, John. Triángulo: 5th edition. Sandwich,
Massachusetts: Wayside Publishing, 2013.
Gordon,Ronnie L, Stillman, David M. Repaso, Columbus, OH. Glencoe,
McGraw-Hill (no date provided).
Renjilian-Burgy, Joy, Valette, Rebecca M. Album.Cuentos del Mundo
Hispánico. Tercera Edicción. Boston, Ma. Heinle 2005.
Díaz, José M., Leicher-Priets, Margarita, Nissenburg, Gilda AP Spanish:
Preparing for the Language Examination. Boston, Ma. Pearson 2007.
Centeno,Augusto. Corazón de España. New York. Holt, Rinehart and
Winston 1968.
Nuevas Vistas, Uno (and ancillaries) Austin: Holt,Rinehart and Winston.
2006
Materiales (Ministerio de Educación y Ciencea de España)
http://www. sgci.mec.es/usa/materiales
EuroNews http://www.euronews.net
Radio Exterior de España
http://www.rtve.es/ree
www.rtve.esp
www.lenguajero.com
BBC Mundo
Voices en español.com
http://spanish.college.cenage.com/students