Milestone 1 Overview

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From the course by University of California, Davis

Spanish Vocabulary Project

9 ratings

University of California, Davis

Spanish Vocabulary Project

9 ratings

Course 5 of 5 in the Specialization Learn Spanish: Basic Spanish Vocabulary

In this course, we'll imagine that you are applying for an all-expenses paid, educational trip to a Spanish-speaking nation of your choice. You'll introduce yourself to a host family that you'll be staying with, research the rich culture and history of the place you intend to visit and compare it with your own country, and plan out an itinerary of places you plan to see, and things you plan to do and experience while visiting. In addition, you'll summarize the key points of your written report in an oral presentation. This course is challenging and is meant to test everything you've learned in the Spanish Vocabulary specialization. It will provide you an excellent way in which to test what you know and what you still need to work on in your Spanish learning journey.

From the lesson

Milestone 1: Introducing Yourself to Your Host Family (1st Draft)

The first milestone is all about introducing yourself to the family you'll be staying with. You'll want to reflect on the material learned in the earlier courses of the specialization, particularly Course 1: Meeting People, and prepare a written introduction to your host family. In this module, you'll turn in a first draft of your introduction for feedback and review from a peer before you turn in the final draft in the next module.

Milestone 1 Overview4:13

Meet the Instructors

Dr. Robert Blake
Professor & Director
UC Consortium for Lanuage Learning & Teaching (UCCLLT)

[MUSIC]

Hola, welcome to this first milestone of your report.

For this initial section, you want to tell your host family about yourself,

whether it's truth or fiction.

You can be as creative as you want to be.

Describe your host family or talk about a significant other or

another member of your family coming on the trip with you.

You can do this in any form you like, a formal report,

an application, or even just a letter.

The form isn't important.

The goal here is for you to practice sharing information about yourself and

in turn asking questions of others in written form.

To complete this section, you'll want to think back to the topic areas we've

already covered earlier in the specialization.

In particular, those topics we covered in the first two courses where you learned to

talk about your family, your friends, daily routines, and

what you like to do for fun.

You want to remember how to make polite requests, how to use formal and informal

terms when addressing people, and how to begin and end a conversation in Spanish.

And also how to suggest politely by using the subjunctive forms.

The linking verb ser/estar will be very handy along with nouns and

adjectives that are associated with you and those around you.

Remember, everything has to agree in Spanish in person and number.

For example, soy un hombre alto, soy una mujer alta.

You can also describe your likes, your dislikes,

your preferences using those gustar type verbs.

Talk about what climate you typically like to live in and

what foods you like to eat and how you like to spend your free time.

All these things might be closely related to the country

that you've selected to travel to.

You also want your host family to explain about their life, their country, and

their culture.

You want to learn what traits or

values you share in common with your host family and what differences exist.

After all, you want to make sure this is a good fit for

the time that you're going to spend in their country, right?

To get you started, I've included some videos and

information for review from earlier courses that should help remind you of

some key items to recall in order to succeed in this milestone.

But for a more in depth review, feel free to go back to the full courses and review.

Finally, for this section of the report, we're going to be assessing

your control of the present and the past tenses, the use of indirect object

pronouns with gustar-type verbs, and the use of the passive se.

And also the use of appropriate vocabulary to express the topics we've discussed.

The instructions include a list of specific requirements

that form the basis of your assessment, in other words,

what you need to include in this section of the report.

Read them carefully and include everything that is asked in some way or

the other in order to get full credit on your assignment.

This milestone is presented over two weeks.

You have an opportunity to hand in an earlier draft for

review without formal grading during the first week.

That way you can some feedback from your fellow learners before handing in your

final draft in the second week, which is required for the peer review.

When it's your turn to give feedback, please remember that people in this course

will be at all different levels in their Spanish writing ability.

This is meant to be a safe place for learning.

So make sure you give positive constructive feedback in a professional

and helpful manner.

Okay, now that you know what to do for your report,

let's have some fun planning this trip.

Let your imagination run wild.

Use as much Spanish as you like trying out new structures and words.

Vamos a ello.

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