Gen Ed & Program Goals

I. General Education Goals

This course will address Outcome 1 (Competency 2) and Outcome 2 (Competency 6) of the General Education goals.

Competency 2: UCM graduates will demonstrate a mastery of intellectual and practical skills by presenting and interacting effectively in public, group, and interpersonal settings.

Students must demonstrate an ability to comprehend, evaluate, and analyze creative works and/or languages and their cultural and historical context. Students will identify and develop both aesthetic values and judgments and recognize and appreciate differences among cultures. Students will have a broad introduction to these areas rather than a narrowly defined study of a particular author, genre, time period, etc.

Competency 6: UCM graduates will demonstrate knowledge of the world in which we live by acquiring knowledge and appreciation of literature, languages, and the arts using the standards of evidence and reasoning appropriate to the humanities and the arts.

Students will be exposed to the fundamentals of the respective language -- including pronunciation, linguistic elements, basic vocabulary, and grammatical patterns -- in order to be able to better comprehend and appreciate the differences between its originating culture and their own culture. Students in all courses will be required to demonstrate their proficiency in the language by writing and speaking in the target language.

The General Education goals will be addressed in this course via the following communicative and culture tasks:

Topics (Vocabulary): Students will write, read about, listen to and speak about indigenous populations in Latin America, informal economies, gender roles, migrant workers, race and ethnicity, borders and boundaries, communities, consumerism, modernization, housing, unemployment, life goals, agrarian life, armed conflicts, and activism.

Language structures: Students will write, read, listen to and speak using pronouns in combination, commands, indefinite and negative expressions and words, the present subjunctive mode, the present perfect verb form, the past perfect verb form, the passive voice, the future tense, the conditional, and the imperfect subjunctive mode.

Culture: Students will compare and contrast cultural customs in the Spanish-speaking world, will identify and describe key geographical and cultural features of several Spanish-speaking countries, including Perú, the Dominican Republic, Chile, Spain, and Colombia.

Program Goals

This course addresses the following goals for the Modern Languages Major:

The graduate with a B.A. in Modern Languages degree will use the knowledge and skills gained in the program to:

Use the target language orally and in writing in a variety of informal and formal situations.

Comprehend a variety of authentic materials in the target language for personal and/or professional use.

Demonstrate knowledge of linguistic elements, pronunciation and intonation, grammar, forms of discourse, and vocabulary to satisfy a variety of everyday tasks.

Engage in socially appropriate forms of communication.

Demonstrate an understanding of the target cultures in their geographical and historical contexts, including perspectives, practices and products.