Spanish Intermediate and Advanced

This course can be applied to the UBC Certificate in Spanish, Practical and Business or taken as a standalone course.

At the Intermediate and Advanced level, you should be able to understand most common and non-technical speech in Spanish, and be able to hold a fairly fluent conversation on a variety of topics.

In this course, focus on improving your conversational fluency by acquiring more complex grammatical structures and sentence formation. Possible grammar topics, based on student needs, may include the advanced level verb tenses (conditional, future anterior, and introduction to subjunctive,) or use of relative pronouns. Increase your language spontaneity through interesting conversational exercises such as debates, presentations, cultural discussions, and small group work using Spanish articles, poetry, websites and more.

Explore Spanish language and culture in an enjoyable, interactive environment, guided by an experienced, native-speaking instructor. Between classes, you can practise your skills using online resources chosen by your instructor.

Course outline

This is not a prescriptive list. Exact course outlines are determined by the instructor to best meet the needs of each class. It is meant to serve as a guideline and suggest what may be covered at this level. It is often necessary to repeat levels in order to become completely comfortable with the skills at each stage with a different teacher and style.

Communicative objectives

• describe people or things in the past
• talk about what one used to do
• tell what one must do
• make polite requests
• use more complex ways of expressing your ideas and opinions
• express long term future actions
• express hypotheses
• make indirect commands
• express uncertainty
• participate in more complex discussions on a variety of topics
• be able to read short articles

Linguistic objectives

• review of pretérito (use and formation)
• more irregular verbs in pretérito
• imperfect
• imperative
• conditional
• comparison of imperfecto and pretérito
• simple future
• review of all tenses
• present subjunctive
• indirect object pronouns
• past subjunctive

Expected Effort

You can expect to spend about three hours per week attending live, virtual classes and completing course work on your own time. Expect double this amount during the intensive summer term.

Textbook

This course does not require the purchase of a textbook. Course materials are provided by the instructor.

Course Format

This course is offered online and/or in-person. See Available Sessions for details on the course format.

Our online conversational courses offer a virtual classroom experience where you can see and interact with your teacher and classmates over Zoom. Log in at a set time to participate in individual, pair and group work, ask questions and receive feedback from your instructor.

Outside of class time, access course materials online at your own pace for up to three weeks after the course ends.

In-person classes are offered at UBC Robson Square in downtown Vancouver. 

Learn more about online learning at Extended Learning.

How am I assessed?

This is a non-credit course without letter or numerical grades. You receive verbal feedback on your conversation and grammar skills from your instructor during class. Written homework is typically corrected in class. Some lesson modules may include quizzes.

Record of completion

A record of completion will be emailed to students who participate and satisfy the course requirements within two weeks of the course end date. Course completion means 80% attendance and/or 80% completion of mandatory assignments.

Technology requirements

For all languages classes, you’ll need access to the internet, a personal email account and an up-to-date web browser.

For online classes, you will also need a video camera and a microphone on your device.

The day before your course starts, you will receive an email with instructions on how to access the course.