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The Spanish language (also known as Castilian) comes to us from Spain. It is the official language of some 20 countries (mostly among the former Spanish colonies of the Western Hemisphere) and it is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Spanish is second only to Mandarin Chinese in the number of native speakers of any one language worldwide, and Mexico has the largest number of Spanish speakers of any one country. Spanish was spoken in parts of what is today the United States a century before the founding of Jamestown in 1607, and descendents of those original Spanish speakers still flourish in the U.S. and converse in that language today.

Spanish is a romance language, meaning that it is derived from the language of the Romans, who introduced Latin to the Iberian Peninsula around 210 BC. Beginning with the precipitous decline of the Roman Empire in the 5th century, Iberian Latin gradually evolved into Spanish. Along the way it was greatly influenced by the Arabic during the Moorish conquest of the 8th century. The language's true literary qualities came into their own during the 16th century and the Golden Age of Spanish literature. This was the era of Miguel de Cervantes and his masterpiece Don Quixote. The language continues to produce great literature, as attested by the many Spanish speakers who have won the Nobel prize for literature, such as Pablo Neruda, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Camilo Jose Cela, and Octavio Paz.

A truly poetic language, Spanish is nonetheless relatively easy for English speakers to acquire. Because of its phonetic qualities, spelling and pronunciation are consistent and fairly easy to learn, unlike in English. Spanish also contains many English cognates, that is, words that are easy to identify because they have similar spellings and the same or similar meaning as in English. Nevertheless, Spanish does present some tricky challenges with regard to grammar and word meaning.

Program Overview:

Instruction in the first two years of Spanish study will address the development of all four language skill areas: speaking, listening comprehension, reading and writing. Communication will be the central focus, and materials will be presented in a contextualized manner which relates language to real world communication needs, as well as to the culture(s) where Spanish is spoken or utilized. When possible, students will be directed to authentic language materials available on the World Wide Web. During the course of study, students will be taught how to study a language, how to prepare for tests, and how to most effectively go about memorizing vocabulary. Students will be required to purchase a textbook as well as some supplementary reading materials, both as yet to be determined.

Classes will be taught in Spanish as much as students are able to understand; English will be limited mostly to conveying an understanding of grammatical concepts or of abstract words or expressions. Students will be directly taught grammatical structures through comparison to English usage. The use of these structures will then be modeled by the teacher and practiced by the students in writing or in real time simulated conversational situations with fellow students during class. Students will participate in activities meant to develop auditory comprehension. Between conversation practice and developing listening comprehension, the goal will be to develop oral communicative competence. Another goal in the first two years will be to develop the rudiments of students' reading comprehension with a view toward preparing them for later study of literature. Once students develop a 400 word vocabulary and have mastered the present tense as well as the use of object pronouns they can then start reading appropriately leveled reading materials.

By the end of the second year of language study students should have attained some mastery of the main grammatical structures in Spanish, as well as an active vocabulary of some 2500 words, give or take. Thereafter (in the third and fourth years) attention will turn toward refining grammatical understanding, extending vocabulary, the further development of writing skills, and a more intense exploration of literature.

Parents and students should not expect their sons and daughters to develop superior levels of proficiency or become fluent speakers of Spanish through this course, even after a full four years of study. That requires a 24/7 "capstone" kind of language experience in a country where Spanish is the main language spoken over the course of at least six months to a year through something like a student exchange program immediately after high school or during college. What parents and students can expect through this course is to lay the necessary foundation so that such an overseas language experience can efficiently and effectively bear fruit. But to better prepare students for such an experience and to further whet their appetite for language study, the possibility is foreseen that Scholars Online students of Spanish and their parents may be able to participate in a week to two week summer-time trip to Spain following the spring semester.