Mis Clases

I realized that I still have yet to write about my classes that I am taking here. I am taking five classes at the CLM (Center of Modern Languages) and three that are required by Central (these three are all taught by José). My five classes at the CLM are: History of Spain, Introduction to Spanish Business, POE (Production, Oral, and Writing…in Spanish “writing” is escribiendo, hence the “E”), Grammar, and History of Arte in Spain. My three classes with José are: Phonetics, Granada Seminar, and Tutorials. I will explain in the following paragraphs (briefly) what I am learning in each class.

History of Spain In History of Spain we have been learning about the history of Spain (who’d have thunk it??). We started off at the beginning learning about the earlier years (pre-historic periods, etc.) and have slowly moved our way forward. We are currently learning about the Spanish Civil War, which took place right before World War II, the circumstances leading up to the war, and Spain’s role in World War II. I am enjoying learning about this part in history because it is still incredibly relevant today due to the fact that Franco’s dictatorship did not end till the 70s.

Introduction the Spanish Business This class is both very boring and fun at the same time. It is boring because the professor assigns us exercises to work on during class, we do them in like 15 minutes, but in total he gives us about 30 minutes to do them, so we end up talking to each other for the rest of the time. This is the fun part. I enjoy talking with my classmates, especially my friend, Paul. It is also fun because the professor worked in England for a year or two and he knows how to speak English, even though he pretends that he doesn’t know in order to make us speak to him in Spanish. He says phrases like, “The party is over”, and “You’re fired” (mind you, they are all in a British accent) and in the context of class they are very funny. He uses “The party is over” when class is done for the day and “You’re fired” when someone says a wrong answer. Also, for some reason he thinks my name is Susana. Every time he says that I look at him and tell him that my name is not Susana and then he remembers that my name is Roseanna and calls me it. Weird….

In class we have learned about how to write a good resume, how interviews normally occur, INCOterms (International Commerce terms), and different type of positions in various businesses. It is all fairly interesting/easy, but overall I am glad I am taking the class because I am learning a lot of knew vocabulary about business.

POE This is my writing class and it is basically a joke. We don’t have a set curriculm for the class; it is basically up to the professor to decide what we do in the class. Each class in the CLM does something a little different. For my class the professor gives us different “temas” or themes, they are put together in a packet and we go over the material. We have done themes on traveling, emotions, friendships, our futures, etc. I always feel like the packets are chosen at random because I don’t see any structure to it. We have also had to write three essays, one about our “guiri” (foreign) experience; we had had to do two presentations as well. Also, in this class we enjoy getting our professor off topic and asking her questions about her life. It’s a great time waster. 

Grammar This class actually has structure to it. Obviously since it is a grammar class we learn about Spanish grammar. It has been very useful to me in improving my Spanish. The professor is also very good about making a lot of the exercises we do in class to practice fun and useful in helping us learn the material. We have had to do a few writing assignments for this class, but not many.

History of Art in Spain This is one of my harder classes because there is a lot of material to study for the tests. For the midterm and final he gives us a list of 24 pieces of artwork that we have to know information about. On the tests he then chooses 6 of the pieces from that list and we have to write about them. It is a pain in the butt to compile all the info into one place and study it, but once I have it down its ok.

Even though the class is harder material-wise I really enjoy the professor. His name is Salvador Gallego and on the first day of class he gave us a synapsis of his life, which none of the other professors did. He also tells us jokes almost every day in class or he sings opera music to us. He is a very good singer. Overall he makes the class enjoyable to go to. We also got to take three excursions during class to the Arab baths, the Cathedral, and the Royal Chapel.

Phonetics Phonetics is a class required by Central College for all students in the Language & Culture or Hispanic Studies programs. I am in the Language & Culture program. Like I said Phonetics is taught by José and basically we have been learning about Spanish phonetics, otherwise known as how to pronounce various words and sounds. It has been very helpful to me because I was not pronouncing everything correctly, but now I am doing a lot better, even though I am still not perfect at it.

Granada Seminar In this class we learn about different subjects each week; the subject always varies each week. This class is required by everyone in my program and it is used to teach us more about the Spanish culture. We have learned about a ton of different subjects like: bull-fighting, wine tasting, olive oil tasting, politics, tapas, types of fiestas, and many more. We learned about the subjects for bull-fighting, wine tasting, and olive oil tasting the class before we took an excursion to those things. Overall this class was very helpful to me to help me learn more about the culture in Spain.

Tutorials Tutorials is a class set up to be an extra help to us for what we are learning in our Grammar and POE classes. If we have any questions about what we are learning in those classes we can ask them in the Tutorials class. José is really good at re-explaining what we are learning in a way that we can understand more thouroughly. If we don’t have any questions we go over colloquial phrases, some of which a really fun to hear because of the way they translate into English.