AP Spanish Language and Culture
Description
The AP Spanish Language course is offered to qualified students who have completed the previous courses in the
language sequence (or an equivalent immersion experience). This course emphasizes communication and
comprehension of authentic Spanish language readings and speakers. Students will improve their proficiency
through a variety of means, including exclusive use of Spanish in the classroom, challenging readings, listening
comprehension activities, grammar review and AP practice tests. All students will take the AP Spanish Language
exam at the end of the school year.
Goals
The goals of the AP Spanish Language course are several. We aim to prepare students for the AP Spanish
Language examination given in May, and to increase proficiency in the four categories of linguistic comprehension:
reading, writing, listening and speaking. Students also learn to recognize cultural inferences in authentic reading,
listening and viewing selections. Finally, in line with other academic disciplines, this course stresses making
inferences and predictions using linguistic and cultural clues and using language effectively to summarize as well as
communicate.
The materials we use to fulfill the linguistic and analytical objectives stated above also lead students to a greater
cultural understanding of Spanish speaking regions, which should be considered a third objective of this course,
and an integral component of any language course.
Assessment
Quarter grades will be determined in a traditional fashion in this course. Frequent and enthusiastic participation in
class is a daily requirement, as is preparation of homework assignments. The breakdown of the quarter grade is
roughly as follows:
Participation: 25%
Homework/weekly vocabulary quizzes: 25-40% (40% 1st quarter, decreasing in percentage as the year progresses)
Tests and papers: 30%
AP test preparation exercises: 5-20% (5% 1st quarter, increasing in percentage as the year progresses)
The small class size allows for peer evaluation. This is valuable for both the student evaluating and the student
being evaluated; they learn to give and accept constructive criticism, they become more discerning of their
classmates’ work as well as their own, and they are inspired to bring their best work into the classroom. However,
peer evaluations will not be included in the students’ quarter grades.
Finally, the AP test preparation exercises will be an important part of our classwork. These exercises reinforce
linguistic lessons as well as critical skills, such as editing. The marks on these assignments will be a combination of
an effort grade and a quantitative grade (solely quantitative scores can be low depending on the type of exercise).