TR 12:00PM-1:15PM Professor: Esperanza Román Mendoza Telephone: 993-1232 E-mail: eromanme

Department of Modern and Classical Languages George Mason University Office: Thompson 235A Office hours: TR 2:00-3:00PM and by appointment

• Course Description
• Objectives
• Materials
• Attendance
• Assessment
• Tentative program

SPAN 300, a decisive course to begin studying Spanish at an advanced level, has been designed for students who have completed two years of instruction in Spanish (or can demonstrate an equivalent level of proficiency) and plan to continue studying the language.

• To develop reading skills in Spanish so that students can understand all different kinds of texts and interact with other readers about their content.
• To learn how to use different types of reference material, such as dictionaries and encyclopaedias, in both printed and digital formats.
• To incorporate the reading abilities learned during the course into class discussions, daily conversations, and creative endeavors.

• The Oxford Spanish Dictionary. New International Edition. Spanish-English/English-Spanish. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996 (Please do not purchase any other dictionary).
• Long, Villar & Meuser. Hacia la literatura. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1998.
• Selection of readings prepared for the course.
• E-mail account and experience in using it. If you are not familiarized with e-mail, UCIS and the university libraries offer free workshops on how to use PINE and other Internet-related applications.

You must be exposed to Spanish and use Spanish in order to learn it, so you really want to be in class and benefit from it. Class discussions, presentations and activities provide the kind of interaction in Spanish that you cannot get at home. For this reason, there is no substitution for attendance. You are expected to attend all classes and be on time.

If you arrive late you are being disruptive and you may also miss some important information given at the beginning which cannot be repeated every time a student is late. Make sure you get the phone number of at least two classmates:

Name________________________ Phone_____________

Name________________________ Phone_____________

You are responsible for all material covered in class. Keep in mind that irregular attendance will severely affect your learning process and, consequently, your final grade in this course.

If you have to miss a class, you have to notify your instructor ahead of time (either by e-mail or a written notice left in mail box). In case of an emergency, you are expected to let your instructor know about it as soon as possible.

The progress made by students in this class will be evaluated by the following criteria:

Participation means active involvement in the class. Students are encouraged to contribute in class discussions and are expected to speak only Spanish.

The participation grade includes:

1. your contribution in Spanish in regular class sessions, in group activities and in electronic discussions;
2. the grades of all collected assignments;
3. your cooperation and leadership in group, and pair work, and
4. your respect and attitude towards your peers and the class.

In order for you to actively participate in class, you need to read the material assigned for each class and do the activities assigned by the instructor. Assignments will be collected regularly. Homework submitted for a grade has to be typed double-spaced. Late assignments will not be collected.

There will be two written tests in this course: a midterm and a final exam. These exams will evaluate the students’ ability to interact with a text using the strategies discussed in class. The midterm exam will be administered on Thursday, March 5^th, 1998. The final exam will be administered on Tuesday, May 12^th at 4:30 am.

Students will submit a paper on a semantic field assigned by the instructor. The first draft of the paper is due on Tuesday, March 3^th. The final version will be posted on the WWW in class on Tuesday, March 17^th. More details on the paper in class.

The group presentations will be based on a selection of texts. There will be two separate grades for the presentations: the first one will be based on the oral performance of each student. The second grade will be based on the content presented by the group. More details in class.

5. Portfolio

Students will compile a portfolio in which they will include all their homework, the materials used for the presentations, and a collection of different kinds of texts according to the text taxonomy seen during the course. More details in class.