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  The Intermediate Course at a Small Community College: Teaching Spanish 103 and 104 as a Combined Class
Domenico Maceri
Allan Hancock College Abstract: This report describes a program at a small community college which combines two levels of intermediate classes in response to insufficient enrollment in each. It treats scheduling, curriculum, texts, activities, and laboratory use. A further challenge is serving both native speakers and non-native speakers in such a course. Key Words: intermediate Spanish, community colleges, native speakers, combined classes Teaching intermediate Spanish, even in the best of circumstances, presents a number of problems. Among them are the students' uneven preparation in Spanish, the presence of native and non-native speakers in the class, and the multiplicity of goals -speaking, understanding, reading, and writing, as well as culture (Altabé 1141). Those of us who teach intermediate Spanish at a community college face an additional challenge -the uneven preparation of students with regard to basic skills. However, if the community college is a small one, yet another problem emerges: not enough students for the class. At Allan Hancock College, for example, Spanish 103 attracts only about ten students a semester. Although we offer six or seven sections of Spanish 10188, only three or four students from that course eventually progress to Spanish 103. The other six or seven who enroll in our intermediate Spanish course are either native speakers or have had the prerequisites in high school. All in all, from the administration's point of view, the numbers do not justify offering a course. At Allan Hancock College the solution for many years has been to teach intermediate Spanish as a combined class, Spanish 103 and 104 together, thus reaching a total initial enrollment of about twenty students. Having some students with two semesters of Spanish and some with three, as well as native speakers, obviously increases the aforementioned problems. Necessity, however, is the mother of invention. Being forced to choose between teaching Spanish 103 and 104 together or not teaching them at all encourages one to seek imaginative solutions. What follows is a description of how a combined class of Spanish 103 and 104 has functioned successfully in this small community college. The intermediate Spanish courses at Alan Hancock Community college are typical of those in many other schools. They include reviewing the grammatical structures presented in 101 and 102, readings to increase vocabulary, discussions and speeches to improve speaking ability, the study of Hispanic culture, writing compositions and, in Spanish 104, a short research paper. Each course meets for five hours per week and awards four units of semester credit. In planning the combined class, the initial consideration was to split the courses down the middle -two and a half hours with one group and two and a half with the other. This solution would not have been satisfactory, since students' attendance is required and also because it would not be possible to cover all the material thoroughly in half the normal time. A better solution was necessary. Some activities of the 103 and 104 classes, such as discussion,
speeches, and cultural readings, overlap and can therefore take place
simultaneously in the same classroom. Students prepare the written component
-compositions
The following schedule proved adequate for the five hours that the students and instructors met each week: one hour of Spanish 103 grammar (while students in 104 go to the language laboratory); one hour of Spanish 104 grammar (while students in 103 go to the laboratory); the other three hours the instructor meets with both 103 and 104 students to deal with discussions, cultural readings and speeches89. Because of the structuring of the course with separation of grammar for each level, it was necessary to choose textbooks that allowed for such division. The grammar text, En breve, is very traditional but has the advantage of being strictly a grammar review without the readings or dialogues that many other intermediate texts include. This makes it possible to use the first part of the text for the Spanish 103 review and the second part for 104. Subjects for review in Spanish 103 include gender and number of nouns, direct and indirect object pronouns, the indicative mood and its tenses, both simple and compound. Spanish 104 covers all the tenses of the subjunctive, the conditional, passive construction, relative pronouns, interrogatives, and diminutives and augmentatives. The non-native students usually have little difficulty with the grammatical component. Their preparation in the previous course is usually strong in this area and, in reality, the class is designed with them in mind. Thus, in the grammatical part they do well, since it consists to a large extent of concepts they have studied. The students who come directly from high school have in general as strong a preparation as those who have completed the prerequisite at Hancock. Separating the grammatical material for each class solved the problem for the traditional 103 and 104 students. However, for the native speakers -about six to eight students- the situation is quite different, since their background does not coincide with the traditional content of the intermediate courses. Native speakers in Spanish 103 and 104 at Allan Hancock fall into several categories of uneven preparation. Some were born in the United States and learned Spanish from their parents but have had little or no formal education in Spanish. Some have had a good education in English and in general can do quite well. Unfortunately, others lack basic skills in English, have weak study habits, and often drop out because they find the class too difficult90. Still another group of native-speakers, those who are from Mexico, have an uneven preparation and therefore differ in their ability to deal with the grammatical component. While the instructor teaches the grammar for Spanish 103, students in 104 go to the language laboratory. There, they listen to tapes, watch videos, and then write short reports on what they have done, which they hand in for correction. The extra writing -a short composition a week and other written assignments- benefits them considerably. They work independently in the laboratory, although an attendant is available if they have questions. Not all students benefit equally from the laboratory experience, but one aspect they all like is that they can work in the laboratory anytime it is open, which gives them some flexibility in their schedule. The other three hours, the instructor meets with the students from both courses for reading, and all students do the same work. The text, Visiones de Latinoamérica, contains readings about different topics of Hispanic culture, such as women's liberation, religion, movies, and family. Students read the first half of the book one semester, the second half the other. The reading takes place in class after students have completed vocabulary assignments at home. Since this part of the classwork is done together, teaching
native speakers and non-natives at the same time requires special strategies.
Since the language of the class is exclusively Spanish, non-natives find
discussions quite difficult, and the native speakers have a tendency to
dominate the conversation. It has proved helpful to address questions to the
non-natives and summarize what native speakers have said in more basic Spanish
to help the
Another combined activity is the presentation of speeches by students, beginning in the first week of classes with an autobiography of about a minute that gives students the opportunity to get to know each other. It is wise to start with the non-native speakers first since beginning with the native speakers tends to intimidate the non-natives. Students prepare outside of class several other speeches on cultural topics of their choice. They must not read the speeches and must prepare a word list ahead of time if they use specialized vocabulary to give the rest of the class some idea of the topic and the vocabulary necessary to understand the speeches. Even native speakers need to acquire specialized and literary vocabulary. Grading of the speeches is based on the evidence of preparation, delivery, and interest generated, and each student receives a brief written evaluation and a letter grade, taking into account whether they are natives or non-natives. The composition component in 103 and 104 overlaps partially. In 103, students write three compositions outside and one during their final exam. Students in 104 write two compositions on specific topics and at about the middle of the semester begin working on a research paper on a cultural topic of their choice91. The non-natives tend to make more grammatical and spelling mistakes than native students do but often are more adept at structuring their compositions. We teach a diverse student body. Some of our students are highly motivated Spanish majors who will soon transfer to a university to continue their studies. Others are professionals in the community, such as nurses, social workers, and psychologists who have Spanish-speaking clients and use the language daily in their jobs. Teaching Spanish 103 and 104 together is not the ideal pedagogical situation and is even more complicated when the class includes native and non-native speakers, but it can work successfully, particularly when students are enthusiastic about Spanish. WORKS CITED
Altabé, David. «The Intermediate Year: ¿A dónde vamos?» Hispania 73 (1990): 1141-44. Phillips, Robert. Visiones de Latinoamérica, 2nd ed. New York: Harper & Row, 1981. Resnick, Seymour. En breve, 2nd ed. Orlando: Holt, Rinehart, Winston, 1990.
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