Distance Learning
University of Washington
Educational Outreach
Spanish 101-102-103
Instructor: Rita Wirkala, PhD
E-mail: ritaw@u.washington.edu
These courses
teach Spanish using the "Destinos" system of videotapes, audiotapes
and textbooks that allow you to hear Spanish and experience the cultural
diversity of Hispanic countries. They expose students to a living model
of contemporary speech throughout the Hispanic world as it introduces
students to the cultures of different regions.
At the same
time, the series will engage Spanish students in the plot of the telenovela,
the highly popular Hispanic soap opera. Destinos tells the story
of the search for an old man's secret past. The entire series consists
of fifty-two half-hour episodes. In "Elementary Spanish" you
will experience the first eighteen episodes of the series. Spanish 102
will take you through Episode 36, and you will find out how the story
ends as you work with the last sixteen episodes (through Episode 52) in
Spanish 103.
As students
follow the story, they will also be learning to understand Spanish in
context. In each episodio ("episode") students will listen to
Spanish spoken at a slow, deliberate pace, intended to be comprehensible,
as an off-screen narrator explains the action, and as Raquel Rodríguez
(a character in the story) reviews the story at the end of each episode.
Students will also hear the language at a normal, more rapid rate, as
the characters converse with one another. Students will also have the
opportunity to see some sentences in Spanish on-screen as they are spoken
aloud.
