UCL CENTRE FOR LANGUAGES
& INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION
Course Units 2014‐2015 Spanish for Professional Purposes II
Prerequisite for entry
Successful completion of Spanish Current Affairs and Culture (Social, Historical and Political) at the UCL CLIE, or equivalent qualifications/experience.
Course duration
20 x 2‐hour classes.
Self‐Study
80 hours in total.
Course codes
LCSP6007, LCSPG007, LCSPM007.
Aims and Objectives
The course is designed for very advanced level students requiring the language for professional purposes. It comprises knowledge and understanding both of the structure of the language and its use in professional environments, such as presentations, meetings and conferences. The course covers career development in the target language countries, business culture and conventions, negotiating and interacting, reading specialist texts (i.e. in the student’s main degree subject e.g. engineering), note taking and debates as well as other related topics. These areas will be related back to the student’s degree subject. The course will enhance knowledge and use of linguistically complex structures (a variety of styles and registers from a range of authentic material). Various transferable skills will also be further developed.
Functions
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expressing specialised opinions, critical topic‐related comments;
debating, commenting, negotiating;
suggesting, accepting, refusing;
describing, organisations, institutions;
defining specialised, professional concepts;
composing written pieces of information for professional purposes;
conducting presentations on complex professional topics;
summarising professional information from English to Spanish (and vice versa);
note‐taking.
Course Content
Main topics/themes to be covered
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employment in business and industry;
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job applications and interviews;
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conducting meetings;
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business cultures;
project management.
Skills
Reading reading for gist, scanning for specific information in professional sources;
in‐depth analysis of professional topics in relevant publications.
Writing
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CVs and formal business letters; 
note‐taking from presentations;
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writing up presentations.
Listening
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radio, TV, audio‐ and video‐tapes;
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presentations;
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professional debates.
Speaking
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formal and informal discussions, debates, round table;
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presentations.
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Linguistic Structures
Discourse Strategies
analysing/comparing various professional sources (different text types, styles and registers);
preparing oral contributions for different audiences;
spoken versus written professional communication.
Main Aspects of These Strategies
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structuring (logical structures);
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linking devices (lexical, grammatical);
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stylistic levels and their usage;
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professional vocabulary.
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Learning Resources 
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Nueva gramática de la lengua española, manual (Espasa Libros) – optional – ISBN: 9788467032819
The Oxford Spanish Dictionary, New Second Edition (OUP) – ISBN: 9780199543403
Materials for the course will be drawn from:
Authentic written material from various sources to be advised by tutor;
Authentic audio and audio‐visual material.
In addition there is a wide range of language learning materials available for self‐study in the Self‐Access Centre.