Intermediate Spanish through Cinema & Multimedia Business & European Studies Program 2016/2017 Year - Barcelona

This intermediate level course builds on your proficiency with the four basic skills (reading, speaking, writing and listening) through a direct exposure to Spanish language and culture and the innovative use of audiovisuals as a vehicle to learn Spanish. This course exposes you to new and more complex grammar and communicative structures so that you will have more opportunities of interacting accurately and expressively with some degree of fluency with the host community. You will also be able to write texts and express opinions on current topics at the intermediate language level as well as to talk about cultural aspects of the Spanish society.

This unique course combines several integrated approaches intended to develop your language skills. Most in-class time is devoted to listening, speaking and practicing Spanish through different activities based on a variety of audiovisual materials, such as short films, documentaries, news, etc. Class activities focus on the use of specific grammatical structures, language functions and vocabulary, and include viewing, recording, interpreting and discussing audiovisuals, writing screenplays, reading reviews, articles, and advertising materials, and producing video and podcast presentations. Lessons also focus on a wide range of contemporary cultural themes through the use of these audiovisual and written materials.

In addition, you will complete an audiovisual project, which will consist of weekly video-recordings talking about your experiences with the Spanish and Catalan cultures and your life in Barcelona. This project will give you the chance to express yourself in Spanish in a variety of contexts, reflect on your experiences in Barcelona, be creative by including video-recorded interviews with locals, images of unique and meaningful places, etc., and keep an audio-visual journal of your study abroad experience. You will receive specific instructions on the use of technologies to complete your multimedia project.

Field studies will require involvement with the local community, which will allow you to rapidly implement your linguistic development in real life. Examples of field studies include language-exchange opportunities, Spanish movie night, recording training sessions with experts in the field, etc.

By the end of the course, you are expected not simply to be able to demonstrate mastery of the grammar and lexical structures studied during the course, but the growing ability to conduct conversations to express personal ideas and opinions, hypothesis in the present and the past, emotions, feelings, interests, desires, and to express agreement and/or disagreement with a well elaborated argument. Finally, you will also have developed competence and skills in audiovisual communication and learned about audiovisual culture in Spain.