elegir Cmo un tema para el informe oral y prepararlo
Paso 1 - Seleccin de tema (semana 8)
Lluvia de ideas: Think about the skills you've practiced throughout the quarter (e.g., description in the present and past) and the broader topics we've studied: people, activities, interests, the university, health and cuisine, climate (see Progress Card for a distilled version of abilities). Choose a topic within the above areas that both interests you academically and has some relevance to the Spanish-speaking world, remembering your limitations (i.e. US foreign policy in Latin America isn't the best topic for a Spanish 1A presentation; you'll have a chance to argue in 2A...). Remember that the point of this informe is to describe and inform. You might want to investigate a culturally relevant topic mentioned either in SQ or in another class of yours e.g. customs, an important cultural figure, art, music, a festival/celebration (Da de los Muertos, claro, is off-limits for obvious reasons). Browse the Internet or hard copies of periodicals for inspiration Or do a keyword search using an authentic search engine in Spanish (see Paso 3 below). You are welcome to try to use the past tense where appropriate, but it isn't necessary; if you do decide to describe an important cultural figure, you can use the historical present.
Paso 2 - Bosquejo inicial (semana 9)
Once your topic has been approved, you'll need to turn in a rough outline by Thursday, Nov 20. The outline for your informe should be in Spanish and give me a clear idea of what content you intend to include and how you're going to organize it; remember that you'll need enough material to talk about for 10-15 minutes. Again, be sure to write the outline (or paragraph, if you prefer) in Spanish.
Paso 3 - optional Portfolio (artculo): 24 de noviembre
To help you prepare your topic, you will need to consult an article or two (print or Internet in Spanish). These sources will be a rich source of vocabulary. Beware of inadvertent plagiarism - do not lift original ideas or phrasing from the article. Use the article as a source of information, but "simplificar, simplificar, simplificar" and summarize it in your own words. What 10 new vocabulary items from the article are absolutely indispensable in order to describe the phenomenon? Once you read the article and understand it, jot down those 10 items on a separate sheet of paper, then put the article away. Practice explaining in Spanish what it says, using this new vocabulary and structures you already know; make a list of useful verbs and other vocab from Lecciones 1-9 to describe your topic. class In we'll practice mini oral summaries in pairs and discuss what makes a good presentation.
Fuentes periodsticos:
Green Library: go past the Info Desk and look to your right; on the low shelves are current international newspapers (Europe is in back, behind the display of recent magazine arrivals). A somewhat scant collection, but you'll find some from Mexico, Argentina, L.A., etc. (Be sure it's Spanish you're reading, and not Portuguese or Italian...;-) For magazines/journals, look to your left after going past the Info Desk; those bookshelves hold all current mags/journals, in alphabetical order. Try Caretas or Tendencias (Peru and El Salvador, respectively: similar to Time); Cromos or Revista Hoy (Colombia and Chile, respectively: similar to Newsweek). Internet: Use an authentic search engine in Spanish to choose a category of interest to you, then follow the links to an article. These work really well: http://mx.yahoo.com (yahoo Mexico); http://ar.yahoo.com (yahoo Argentina) http://es.yahoo.com (yahoo Spain) http://espanol.yahoo.com (yahoo in general Spanish)
Ali MianoSpanish 1A Source: Joan Molitoris, Stanford University
These are all authentic sources that native Spanish-speakers would use. Or if you're interested in a particular geographical region, here are some online newspapers: El Nuevo Da (Puerto Rico): http://www.endi.com/ El pas (Montevideo, Uruguay): http://www.web2mil.com/EL_PAIS/ La nacin (Buenos Aires): http://www.lanacion.com/ El nacional (Caracas, Venezuela): http://www.el-nacional.com/ El tiempo (Bogot, Colombia): http://www.eltiempo.com/ La poca (Santiago de Chile): http://www.reuna.cl/laepoca/ Prensa Libre (Ciudad de Guatemala): http://www.prensalibre.com/ La nacin (Costa Rica): http://www.nacion.co.cr/ El comercio (Ecuador): http://www.elcomercio.com/ La prensa (Honduras): http://www.laprensahn.com/ El diario de hoy (El Salvador): http://www.elsalvador.com/ El siglo (Panam): http://www.elsiglo.com/ El universal (Caracas, Venezuela): http://www.el-universal.com/ El pas (Madrid): http://www.elpais.es/ El mundo (Madrid): http://www.elmundo.es/ El peridico (Barcelona): http://www.elperiodico.es/ La vanguardia (Barcelona): http://www.vanguardia.es/
(OJO! Be sure to consult authentic articles written in Spanish--avoid using on-line translation sites or services such as AltaVista, Babelfish or freetranslation.com to translate articles written in other languages. Machine translation technology currently is no match for the human brain, and such sites provide impressively bad translations.)
Ali MianoSpanish 1A Source: Joan Molitoris, Stanford University