Las clases de la Señora Denninger

          ¡¡Bienvenidos a Español AP Lenguaje y Cultura!! This summer will play an important part of your success in this class. I cannot stress enough the importance of surrounding yourself with Spanish over the summer and building up a habit that will be beneficial during the school year leading up to the exam. By continuing to expose yourself to Spanish over the summer, you will help yourself to maintain the Spanish that you learned last year as well as to improve and grow in Spanish proficiency. The AP course, as well as the exam, focuses on the four communication skills: speaking, listening, reading, and writing. We will focus on each of those four skills over the summer to help you to grow in your Spanish skills. Spanish will be the only language spoken in the AP classroom. Be sure to check out the vocabulary links as well!

 

Speaking Tasks:

• You will make one phone call each month and leave a message in Spanish 60 seconds+ for different assignments. These will reflect your learning from the listening and writing exercises below.

• Make sure that you say your name and some sort of greeting

• Three total calls: June, July, August (before school starts)

• Google voice number: 

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Listening Tasks:

• Watch an episode of a TV show or movie in Spanish and then summarize it in a voicemail.

• Listen to a podcast in Spanish and summarize or talk about what you learned it in a voicemail. I recommend listening to it various times so you can get the context and learn new vocabulary. (Podcast button)

 

Reading Tasks:

• You will be reading two chapters of “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” in Spanish and answering questions to be handed in at the beginning of the school year. (Worksheet button)

• There will be a short quiz on this within the first two weeks of school.

• The book is available online (just google "El leon, la bruja y el ropero PDF" and you should find one. The LeLibros link worked for me).

 

Writing/Grammar Tasks:

• You will write two paragraphs about something that happened this summer (to you or in the world) and call me and read it to me. You must use the past tense.

• You will need to practice verb conjugations as well in order to do well in this class. For those of you coming from Honors Spanish 3, some of this is new. Within the first two weeks of school, you will have a quiz on the following:

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1. Present Tense  

2. Preterit Tense 

3. Imperfect Tense 

4. Present Perfect/Pluperfect 

5. Ser vs. Estar

6. Progressive Tenses (Present/Imperfect/Future)  

7. Future and Conditional

8. Present Subjunctive   

9. Commands  (tú, Ud, Uds, Nosotros)

10. Por vs. Para  

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In order to practice this grammar, studyspanish.com and (my fav) spanishdict.com give short lessons and practice. Conjuguemos.com and duolingo.com give great practice as well. I personally have used these sites but have also purchased grammar workbooks such as Practice Makes Perfect: Complete Spanish Grammar on Amazon for $10! Working on these will also help add some new vocabulary. We do not spend very much time on grammar during class, so summer practice is vital.

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Cultural Activity: Choose two or more of these way to practice Spanish and be prepared to share about them in class the first week back to school. What you talk about cannot be one of the voicemail or writing assignments. Feel free to do more than two to practice your Spanish! Click on button for worksheet to document so that you don’t forget.

• Listen to Spanish Music! Find a channel with your favorite latino artist and listen to it often: Shakira, Juanes, Daddy Yankee, Prince Royce, Manuel Turizo, Gypsy Kings, Julieta Venegas, Marc Anthony, David Bisbal, Latin Hits (the 2000s are my favorites).

• When you watch anything, put on Spanish Subtitles!

• Find a great Telenovela to watch (there are a lot of things on Netflix).

• Watch the news in Spanish: Univisión, Telemundo, BBC Mundo, elpais.com, yahoo en español, people en español, etc

• Listen to Podcasts every once and a while (button) 

• Change video game language to Spanish

• Find your favorite book and read it in Spanish! You can find Spanish versions of many popular books to buy online. Keep it simple, like Harry Potter, or something with a lower reading level in English.

• If you travel somewhere where there are Spanish speakers (even within the US), try to have a conversation with someone in Spanish.

• Go to a Spanish mass (they have them here in Pittsburgh too at Sts John and Paul and St Catherine of Siena).

• Read news online in Spanish!

• Follow someone famous on social media in Spanish.

• You can read Oyuki's blog in Spanish! http://okoyuki.com/es/

• Go to Gaucho for a parrillada mixta OR try paella at Mallorca, get some tacos at Edgar's.​​

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Check out what will be on AP exam (button). 

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To do check list:

_____Phone call in June (tv show, podcast, or written paragraph)

_____Phone call in July (tv show, podcast, or written paragraph)

_____Phone call in August before school (tv show, podcast, or written paragraph)

_____”El leon, la bruja, y el ropero” worksheets

_____2 cultural activities to talk about 1st week of school

_____Review grammar

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      We will be utilizing the textbook Temas from Vistas Higher Learning which was created specifically for AP Spanish Language and Culture. Remember that all of these tasks will help you to succeed in AP Spanish!

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¿Preguntas?: tdenninger@northcatholic.org