This Spanish modular course is designed to be a self-study/self-evaluation device and is to be used with a correlated set of cassette tapes, which contain the stimuli for the Listening Comprehension component and the Narrative Vocabulary Practice. The Preface of the Student Text contains general information relative to the Spanish (LA) Basic Course as a whole and the way this Workbook fits into the total scheme.
The Key to all exercises contained herein is found at the back portion of the Workbook. Students are encouraged to do all exercises the first time through without reference to the Key. Developing this habit of making honest attempts at understanding or "guessing", when not sure, will pay long range dividends. Even though activities have been specified for each exercise, the student will soon be aware of the variety of things that can be done with each stimulus, whether it be recorded or printed. A news broadcast, for example, might be played repeatedly, almost as background noise, while the student merely absorbs the melody and flow of the language, picking out bits and pieces of meaning here and there. Once familiar with the content, students may wish to try a bit of "simultaneous" translation.
In order to grasp the basic message, a good practice is to always keep in mind the questions, Who was involved? What happened? When? Why? Oral and printed stimuli may be listed, summarized or even rewritten. Throughout this course, the instructor will provide additional activity suggestions for many of the exercises of this Workbook, but self initiative is encouraged. This Workbook also contains ten units of phonology material. This material has been adapted from the
Foreign Service Institute Spanish Programmatic Course. These are self-study materials but the Keys (voicing scripts) oat the back of the Workbook may be used by the teacher for remedial or supplemental classroom exercises.
Spanish also called Castilian (castellano), is a Romance language that originated in Castile, a region in Spain. There are approximately 407 million people speaking Spanish as a native language, making it the second-most-spoken language by number of native speakers after Mandarin. It also has 60 million speakers as a second language, and 20 million students as a foreign language. Spanish is one of the six official languages of the United Nations, and is used as an official language by the European Union and Mercosur. Spanish is the most popular second language learned by native speakers of American English. From the last decades of the 20th century, the study of Spanish as a foreign language has grown significantly, facilitated in part because of the growing population demographics and economies of many Spanish-speaking countries, growing international tourism and the search for less expensive retirement destinations by North Americans and Europeans.
Spanish is spoken in: Spain, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Peru, Venezuela, Chile, Ecuador, Guatemala, Cuba, Bolivia, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Paraguay, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, Panama, Uruguay, Equatorial Guinea
Spanish is also called: Castellano, Castilian, Castillan, Español
