Section outline

  • Spanish Workshop Summer 2025

    Welcome to VUB Spanish! 

    This workshop is designed to prepare you for an introductory college Spanish class. We only have 12 hours (plus tutoring hours if you choose to use them), but we have the opportunity to build a very useful foundation for further study. Language classes have the reputation of being difficult and boring. (Some of them are, trust me. Currents and Trends in 16th Century French Literature? Far, far worse than it sounds.) But this class is NOT that class! It was created to give you an advantage in beginning college study. Even if you are not taking a foreign language, this workshop will be valuable in teaching you how to prepare for a class - online or in person - with very detailed content, how to organize yourself, how to feel comfortable with uncertainty and things outside your expertise, and the value of persisting.  

    I have included videos from the Language Tutor to provide very good explanations of many concepts we will cover. They are not longer than about 10 minutes and are worth your time. Be sure to check them out.

    Every challenge, every stumble is an opportunity to learn and grow. We are a species that truly does learn best from our mistakes. Embrace the process and step into the challenge! Trust me, it will be worth it.

    Welcome to class!

    • Announcements Forum

      General news and announcements

    • Syllabus Spanish Workshop Summer 2025 File PDF

      The syllabus provides a general overview of the class.  It explains my intentions when planning this workshop, based on my experience teaching college Spanish.  

  • July 7th - Introduction

    Let's get started!  We will go over the following items:

    • Syllabus
    • Expectations for the class - yours and mine
    • Study Guide 1 - a comprehensive guide covering most elements we will cover in the workshop.  We will refer back to it.
    • The alphabet and basic Spanish pronunciation
    • Accents and diacritical marks - what they do and what they mean
    • Polite greetings and simple questions
    • Formal and informal address
    Activities: 5

  • July 8 - 10

    Let's move on to some basic vocabulary and understanding the gender (masculine or feminine) and the number (singular or plural) of nouns.  This is a concept that feels odd to us, but you will keep number and gender in mind when you use nouns and then when you describe them with adjectives!

    We'll cover:

    • gender of nouns and learn a basic noun vocabulary
    • Spanish definite articles (the) and indefinite articles (a, an, some)
    • the basics of adjectives and agreement
    • Subject pronouns (I, you, he, she, we, they) and subject - verb agreement (ugh! everyone hates this!)
    • the two Spanish verbs for to be:  ser and estar, and the difference between them (you'll love these!)
    • two more really useful Spanish: ir (to go) and tener (to have, to be - yes, another way to express how you are!)
    • an introduction to cognates (words in Spanish that are so similar to English you understand them - something easier)

     

    Activities: 11

  • July 14 - 15

    Now we're rolling!  Every new thing you learn will fit into the framework of the basics of Spanish that we're building.  This topic covers skills we need to make polite conversation...and understand time, days, the date, and some new verbs.  It's a lot but all so useful.

    We'll cover:

    • numbers - primarily from 0-100
    • days of the week
    • months of the year
    • telling the date
    • telling time
    • a review of ser, estar, tener, and ir
    • adverbs!!
    • a first look at -ar verbs 
    Activities: 12

  • July 16 - 17

    It was bound to happen...we have arrived at learning about verbs.  Everyone struggles with verbs but they allow you to express yourself beyond pointing and looking perplexed sad

    I'll make this as manageable as possible, but it will require memorization on your part.  I'll look for online resources to help you practice verb conjugation, but it is as simple as practicing them aloud.  

    We'll cover:

    • more adverbs
    • conjugating regular -ar, -er, and -ir verbs and adding new verbs to your vocabulary (this is likely to most challenging part of learning a Spanish, but it moves you from caveman Spanish to actually conversational Spanish! Wow!!)
    • negating verbs (the more negatives the better - I have never done nothing neither.  Beautiful. 
    • asking simple questions with our new verbs
    • new vocabulary with tener and hacer
    Activities: 10

  • Dicho y Hecho Chapters 1 - 3

    You will find the three chapters we are using from the textbook Dicho y Hecho for handy reference.

    Activities: 3