Our goals for the capítulo preliminar are that the students will have successfully learned to:
- Greet people and say goodbye
- Introduce themselves and others
- Ask and say how to spell names
- Say where they are from
- Exchange phone numbers
- Say what day of the week it is
- Describe the weather
- Respond to classroom instructions
The exam will test all four skills ~ listening comprehension, reading, writing and speaking. There will be a listening section at the beginning of the exam with our audio program. I will play through it twice. Next is a vocabulary section where students will be writing sentences, completing a cloze passage (filling in the blanks of a dialogue), choosing expressions that fit a situation, describing weather, and giving class instructions. There is a true/false and short answer reading section. That is followed by a speaking section. For the speaking part of the exam, students will go out in the hall individually and respond to basic questions in Spanish. Finally, there is a writing section of five sentences based on prompts.
As you can see, the exam is very thorough. We usually break up the exams into sections over two class periods so that the students will not be rushed.
In order to be prepared for the exam, it is important that the students know their vocabulary list well, and that they are able to spell the words correctly. Accent marks do count.
We have covered quite a bit of ground with this first unit. I always want to remind the students that even the best designed tests can only show aspects of what they have learned. If they study and miss something, they have not failed: it has just shown us both an area where they need more practice. We have had several quizzes at this point, and I feel confident that they will be able to do well on this test. I hope that as they realize how much they are able to communicate, that they will be proud of the effort that they have put into the course and excited about their progress. As always, feel free to email me at any time!
¡Buena suerte!
