SPANISH 102 (SPRING 2010) MRS. LEE


REQUIRED TEXT: Dos Mundos (7th ed.) by Terrell et al., including a book key for the
                                  Quia online Workbook/Lab Manual by same.  [At UND Bookstore these come bundled
                                   together with other items.]  We will cover the Chapters 8-15.

USEFUL:  any Spanish/English and English/Spanish dictionary that includes verb charts
                        (I recommend the Oxford Spanish Dictionary, Langenscheidt Spanish Pocket
                  Dictionary or the University of Chicago Span/Eng, Eng/Span Dictionary all of
                        which are under $15.)

Office and phone #:  Merrifield-307;  777-4664 (voice mail);  777-3813 (main office)

E-mail address:  paulalee2006@yahoo.com  

Office hours:  MWThF 1-2 PM  (or by appointment)  Walk-ins are welcome, but
                        if I am busy, you will have to return another time.


PLEASE NOTE:
This course is an Essential Studies Humanities course, under the category of Communication.
Goal #2 Communication: "Students should be able to write and speak in civic, academic and professional settings with a sense of purpose and audience."  [written communication, oral communication]  We will also practice reading and listening comprehension in Spanish.

 

GOALS FOR S102

  1. To develop some speaking competency in Spanish;
  2. To develop comprehension skills;
  3. To cover through Chapters 8-15 in Dos Mundos;
  4. To understand how difficult it can be to communicate in a foreign language, so we can be patient with foreigners speaking English.

POLICIES

ATTENDANCE POLICY
You are expected to attend class, as most of the practice done in the course occurs there.  If you are absent you are still responsible for all the information presented in the missed class(es).  Three (3) unexcused absences will be ignored for the purpose of your attendance grade, but points will be deducted from the participation grade for subsequent unexcused absences.  It is your responsibility to obtain an excused absence in case of emergency, accident or serious illness.  Contact me or leave me a voice mail message and your phone number, and I will call you back to discuss the situation.  Oversleeping, having to work, attending a wedding in another city, going home for the weekend, leaving early for or returning late from a holiday are NOT excusable reasons for absence from class.  If any graded classwork falls on a day you are absent, you will be given a grade of  "a" (absent, or "minus, zero") for that work; you may come to my office within a few days of being absent to complete that classwork, and whatever grade you earn will be reduced slightly by a "late" designation. 

QUIZ / TEST / EXAM MAKE-UP POLICY
Quizzes may NOT be made up if missed.  Contact me immediately if you think you have an unusual circumstance that caused you to miss the quiz.  Tests and exams may be made up for full credit within one day (Mon. to Fri., including Tues.). Tests taken after the one day, up to a week late will be worth a maximum of 75 points:  25 pts. will be deducted from whatever grade you earn based on 100 points.  After one week, tests taken late will have 40 pts. deducted, and will be worth a maximum of 60 points.  No bonus points (See Grading p. 5) will be available on tests taken after the originally scheduled day.

LATE ASSIGNMENT POLICY
You will be penalized 5 points for each day late any assignments are handed in.  The 5 pts. per day penalty will be ignored on the second draft IF (and only if) the second draft is handed in on the day it is due.  If the second draft is a day late also, the 5 pt. per day penalty will be charged against the second draft.  Being absent on the day an assignment is given, or on the day it is due does not excuse you from this penalty; however, if a completed assignment is dropped off by a friend, if it is put into my mailbox in M-320, or E-mailed to me, on the day it is due, no penalty applies.  ALL ASSIGNMENTS WILL BE POSTED ON THE MAIN PAGE OF THIS WEB SITE, and students who are absent are responsible to follow the Daily Class Plan to see if an assignment is due in the next class.

DISABILITY POLICY
If you have emergency medical information to share with me, if you need special arrangements in case the building must be evacuated, or if you need accommodations in this course because of a disability, please make an appointment with me as soon as possible. (See p.1 for office hours.)  If you plan to request disability accommodations you are expected to register with the Disability Support Services (DSS) office in Room 190 of McCannel Hall, 777 3425.

CELL PHONES
Students are expected to turn OFF and refrain from using all cell phones while in class.  A student who repeatedly gets calls/messages or uses a cell phone will be asked to absent him/herself for the rest of that class.  If a student has an emergency situation in which s/he must receive calls or pages, please check with Mrs. Lee before class to inform her of the situation.

UNCLAIMED STUDENT PAPERS
If you are absent on the day composition, test or homework papers are returned, you should be sure to ask me for your paper. I will bring these papers to class in a file; ask me for the papers either before or after class. [I will not use class time to distribute theses unclaimed papers.]  Any papers left over at the end of the semester will be thrown away.

COURSE INFORMATION

ASSIGNMENTS
Four assignments worth 25 pts. each will be given during the semester.  All assignments will be posted ONLY on the Web Site with a link ("Current Assignment") on the main page; no paper copy of the assignments will be handed out and you should copy each assignment from the Web Site and hand the paper in for correction.  If you prefer you can E-mail your assignments to me at paula_lee@und.nodak.edu. [I prefer that you hand-write assignments, as the act of writing the words becomes part of studying; the same benefit does not seem to come from typing at a keyboard.]  Assignments are designed to practice a particular grammar point, practice verbs, or answer questions in several tenses.

You will be allowed two drafts of these assignments.  When you hand your assignment in the first time, a grade will be recorded. I will indicate, but not correct, your errors.  If you wish to increase your grade on the assignment, you may correct errors by rewriting the whole sentence where any error occurred.  When you hand in the corrected assignment, a second grade will be computed, which will be averaged with your first grade.  The effect of averaging gives you ½ point back for each error that is corrected.  If your "correction" is still wrong, no extra credit is given.  The second draft is NEVER required, but is optional.  Remember: doing a second draft is a good way to learn what you didn't know earlier, and to increase your grade at the same time.  You are encouraged to save all of your assignment sheets to study from for other tests and the Final Exam.

REVIEW EXAM
Three weeks into the semester there will be a Review Exam over the verb tenses and basic vocabulary that appears in Dos Mundos through Chapter 7.  A list of vocabulary words that can be tested will be posted on the Web Site main page under "Vocabulary Review List".  You should look up and study any words that you don't already know.  Such a list will inform those students who did not take S101 here at UND what vocabulary was included in the first part of the text.  We will practice the verb tenses in class, so that you will know how the exam is arranged, and what you will have to know.  The goal of this Review Exam is to "stir up" your memory from when you originally learned the grammar/vocabulary, and to allow you time to learn any important points that you did not learn earlier.  To be able to speak Spanish well, we need to have a good Spanish vocabulary. [See also "Comprehension/Vocabulary Test" for how the vocabulary of current chapters will be handled.]  The exact format will be explained as we approach this test.

QUIZZES
Quizzes will cover grammar and sometimes the answering of questions.  There will be 5 quizzes during the semester, one after Chapters 8, 10, 12, 13, and 15.  The quiz for Chapter 15 is open-book. (See below for more details.)  Quizzes will begin with a short comprehension section (either dictation or answering oral questions), and will also include exercises on  grammar that has been studied in the current chapter.  To do well in quizzes, be in class for comprehension practice, do all of the exercises in the Quia workbook, and any worksheets or assignments. Generally the same or similar material (perhaps in a slightly different form) will be tested.  In most cases quizzes will last about 20-25 minutes.

The quiz for Chapter 15 is open-book.  You will be allowed to use your textbook, your class notes and a dictionary IF (and only if) you bring those materials to class.  You will not be allowed to share materials with another student.  In general an open-book quiz can be more difficult than a closed-book quiz, since you are able to look answers up.  Students who have done the exercises and assignments will not have difficulty, because they will know where to look to check  answers; students who are opening the book for the first or second time will have great difficulty.

QUIA ONLINE WORKBOOK 
I have signed up my class for use of the "Quia" system, meaning that workbook and lab manual exercises will be done over the computer and sent to me for credit.  Information on the access code and other details will be presented in class at the start of the semester. 

You are expected to do the lab exercises as they are assigned, and to listen to the audio exercises for our textbook in the workbook under the Quia system.  STUDY THE VOCABULARY OF THE CHAPTER BEFORE LISTENING TO THE AUDIO EXERCISES!!!  To participate in the Quia online system, rather than buying the paper-copy workbook, you will have to buy a "key" (serial number) to show that you paid a fee, which is usually approximately half the cost of the print workbook.  The computer will keep track for you of which exercises you have done, and will generate a "grade".  These grades from each chapter will contribute to the 70 points for the Homework (Class Participation) grade.  [See further information on Class Participation Grade below.]  To earn the points for Homework you will have to purchase either the Quia Online Workbook "key", or hand in assigned pages from the print version of the Workbook.

SECTION TESTS
Three Section Tests, 50 minutes long, will be given after Chapters 9,  11 and 14.  The first part of each test will be Comprehension.  I will explain what the type of comprehension testing will be before each test. Other parts of the test will cover grammar and vocabulary of the lessons involved, with special emphasis on the grammar of Chapters 9, 11 and 14 (i.e. the chapters after which there was no quiz).  Also you may be expected to answer questions in Spanish and/or to write sentences to describe a drawing on your paper.  More detailed information will be given in class as these tests approach.

FINAL EXAM
The Final Exam will cover the whole course.  The Comprehension part (40 points) may include 10 multiple choice questions, and some definitions in Spanish (you will have to identify  the vocabulary word that I define); the Grammar part (160 points) will be multiple choice, in which you will have to choose the correct grammatical form.  Practice will be done in class to prepare for this exam.

CLASS PARTICIPATION GRADE
There are two components in the 150-point class participation grade:  80 pts. for attendance, and 70 pts. for class recitation of assigned exercises, and including any homework handed in.
1- Attendance  (See Attendance Policy at the top of page 1.)
2a- Class recitation is answering assigned material from your text.
      Several times per chapter I will have you prepare answers to questions or other exercises in the
      textbook.  Occasionally I will have students define vocabulary words studied for homework.
      Students will be called on in class to recite or write their answers.  I will make a judgment of the
      appropriateness or correctness of each answer, and will keep a record of these scores over the
      whole semester.  Generally this is used to give students credit for being prepared for daily class.
      The main reason you would not earn a higher participation grade in homework and recitation
      is if you just refuse to answer, if you answer in English when I ask for Spanish, or if you
      otherwise show me you are unprepared for class.  EVERY-DAY PRACTICE IS NOT
      EVALUATED.  "PRACTICE" ERRORS ARE NOT HELD AGAINST YOU;  I WILL
      INFORM YOU WHEN ANSWERING IS FOR RECITATION AND WHEN IT IS
      JUST PRACTICE.
2b- Homework handed in is based on the exercises in your textbook or workbook.  From time to time I
     will assign an exercise to see if you did in fact understand a grammar point.  You are expected
     to do assigned exercises in the workbook and to correct your answers, and then to do the exercise
     I assign and to hand the paper in the next day.
For both recitation and homework, I will use letter grades O(utstanding), E(xcellent), G(ood), F(air) and
P(oor) or - (minus) for grades.
 

GRADING

This is a "total points" course.  The points you earn as the course goes forward are added together at the end.  Your point total, expressed as a percent of the total points available (see below) in the course, determines your final grade.
 
Graded Activity
Points
  Review Exam .     . 
  3 Assignments @ 25 points each .     .
  5 Quizzes @ 25 points each  .     .
  3 Section Tests  .     . 
  Final Exam  .     . 
  Participation (attendance, recitation)  .     .
100
  75
125
300
200
150
Total points = 
950

Final grade equivalents:
   A = 92% or 874 - 950 points;  B = 83% or 788 - 873;  C = 74% or 703 - 787;
   D = 65% or 618 - 702;  F = <65% or <618 points

Some bonus points on cultural material will be included on each Comprehension / Vocabulary Test.  Cultural information will be presented in class from time to time, and/or through the "Culture" link on the main page of this Web Site.  A right answer can increase your score, but a wrong answer will not lower your grade.  The cultural information will not be drilled in class; it will be your responsibility to review your notes.
 

"GOOD-FAITH EFFORT"
In general I will use the rule of the "good-faith effort".  AS LONG AS I CAN UNDERSTAND YOUR IDEA, WHAT YOU SAY WILL BE COUNTED IN A POSITIVE WAY.
 

MY EXPECTATIONS
Many times students have asked me "What do I have to do to get an 'A' in this course?"  The easy answer is "Study hard and do excellent work", but that is rather vague.  There are, however, some concrete expectations that I have, and I believe these will help any student improve his/her grade:
1) TAKE NOTES IN CLASS.
If the material is important enough for me to write out on a transparency, the material is "important".  It always amazes me how few students take notes.  When I've asked a student about this lack of note taking, I am usually told "I absorb more if I just listen."  Maybe so, but you need to have definite material to study for tests (rather than "the whole chapter"), and the record of what was covered in class shows you that definite material.  I include hints for both vocabulary and grammar.
2) COME TO CLASS PREPARED TO CONCENTRATE AND TO PARTICIPATE.
Language learning is a dynamic process, NOT a passive one.  Constantly ask yourself "Why?"  Ask me why words and verbs and phrases are they way they are.  Be an active learner.
3) STUDY SOME EVERY DAY-- EVEN ON WEEKENDS.
Humans learn by repetition.  Psychological studies show that the amount of time one studies foreign language is not as important as the number of different times the material is studied.  So, in theory, it is better to study three different times a day for ½ hour each, than it is to study straight through for two hours.  The reason for this is that the brain can only absorb a certain amount of information at a time; by increasing the number of times you study (thus increasing the repetition), you increase the amount the brain can grasp and retain.
4) DO NOT WAIT UNTIL THE END OF THE COURSE TO ASK FOR HELP.
Deal with any problems or weakness with grammar or vocabulary early in the course.