Subject Code/Name: SPAN20020 Intensive Intermediate Spanish This review will also apply to the content of Spanish 3 and Spanish 4Workload: 8 x 2 hour tutorials per week
Assessment: 25% Mid Term exam (grammar exercises, vocab exercises, small composition at the end)
25% Final exam (grammar exercises, vocab exercises, small composition at the end)
2 x 15% written exercises (informal letter)
2 x 10% más ejercicios (exercises you have to complete each night, as well as do an autocorrección)
Lectopia Enabled: No
Past exams available: Nada
Textbook Recommendation: Aula 3 Internacional (2006), a monolingual dictionary may also be helpful as well as a grammar book though Google is sufficient for both as well.
Tutors: Eli Bryer
Eva González García
Alicia Martínez Marco
Sivlia Yang (doesn't teach Spanish 3 nor Spanish 4)
Year & Semester of completion: 2014, summer
Rating: 4 out of 5
Your Mark/Grade: 94 (H1)
Comments: It's all in the title really: intensive. This subject is nothing short of it.
This is a really, really difficult subject. 16 hours of Spanish a week and an absolute shit tonne of homework will leave you stressed, tired and half-dead by the end of the course. Each day you cover a week's work (normal year terms) of content and are expected to do about 4 pages of grammar exercises in addition to, of course, revising the content and doing assignments in between. This is a really large workload and will test even the most diligent of students. So big piece of advice, of course, is that you do need to go to
every class and do need to keep on top of the homework. Try to keep your commitments down as much as possible, particularly during the week.
BUT (and it is a big but), the difficulty of this subject is balanced with good organisation, fantastic tutors and a real sense of achievement after each day.
At the start of semester, you're given a really clear syllabus of the course. What you do does not deviate from that syllabus at all. This is particularly helpful, of course, if you miss a day. What has been covered in class we'll certainly be there. This means that everything sets itself up really nice. You always know what's coming, you always know what to revise. In addition to that, the tutors always post any extra worksheets we've done, along with answers, on the LMS and always post supplementary material about stuff we've learned as well. Perhaps the only thing to fault them on with organisation is that there was no assessment rubric, or really any indication, for the written tasks during the semester. This was a bit of a pain in the arse, as it meant that the first was a lot of guess work. With that said, the marking was very clear and the tutors happily entered into discussions about any marking or any issues we were having with assessment or the content.
The tutors were absolutely brilliant for this subject. They have a very different approach to teaching and very distinct personalities as well, which makes it very interesting. Furthermore, they also come from different parts of the Spanish speaking world, so it's nice to experience a bit of that at home (particularly if you've never had the opportunity to travel like me!). We, in particular, had Eva a lot because Alicia was away for the first few weeks. She's from the Basque country, so she's a wealth of information about Spanish culture. She's also posts un montón of content on the LMS and would have to be the most scarily organised teacher I've had. Eli learned Spanish in Perú, but is a fellow Aussie. She's a brilliant teacher as well and has an incredible knowledge of Latin American culture and the Spanish language. I was constantly surprised by just how much she knew; so that was kind of a nice boost to see someone who started off in a similar place to us speaking Spanish so well. If you've done beginners Spanish, you'll have had Silvia before. She tends to leave the buzzer behind in Intensive, so that's a bit of a change. She is just as she always is, an absolute hoot. Always willing to help and brings so many sheets and resources in that I suspect that she's probably half the reason the Amazón is disappearing! Alicia we only had a few times, but she too was a hoot. She's Valencian, so again a very different accent and culture, and teaches is a very different manner to the others. She was always good for a laugh and was a brilliant teacher, particularly for your speaking. If you wanted to learn to speak Spanish, hers was the class to be in. At the end of the day, it ended up being a group of tutors who complimented each other perfectly with cultural knowledge, accent and style of teaching. Really couldn't have asked for a better group.
Intensive courses are hard, but they are quite a good way to give yourself a bit of space in the uni year. If you're prepared to really put your head down for five weeks, you will be able to get a whole year of underloading. As far as I'm concerned, that's definitely worth it. Moreover, I feel like the Spanish course would have been really slow during the year. Sure, that sounds fantastic (well for me it certainly does!), but at least with this course you're left with an enormous sense of achievement. When you're taking massive leaps in your writing, grammar and speaking each week, you often feel really proud of how you're doing. The classes are also, supposedly, composed of high achieving students. Personally, I don't really think this is the case. What you will get are students that are a hell of a lot more committed than usual, save for a couple who aren't and who will inevitably fail.
Before I wrap up, marks wise this may damage you. I think for the majority of the class it made quite a dent in the marks they'd normally get. Personally, the opposite happened—though I would caution that this is definitely not the norm (perhaps because I'm a little bit weird, hey?). What it will do for your marks during the year probably makes it worth it, as well as the fact that if you're doing a DipLang (I'm not), you can finish with the rest of your Bachelor cohort
Pues, yo creo que eso es todo. Si tenéis preguntas, mandadme un correo electrónico. Por poco me olvido decir que los profes siempre hablan en español, bueno casi todo el tiempo. Cuando hagan este curso, os divertiréis mucho. ¡Os recomiendo que tomen esta clase!