SP 471- Spanish Through Theater

This course is designed for advanced students. It focuses on all the skills but principally on oral and writing communication. The goals of the course are to broaden oral expression both individually and within groups as well as writing with grammatical precision. Students should also be able to read about the history of theatre, critical works from different periods, genres, movements, and plays from Spanish theatre. Students will complete a final project by performing a Spanish play previously studied in class.

Research has demonstrated that study abroad can enhance every aspect of language ability. One of the most important general findings of this research is, however, that study abroad is most beneficial for the development of abilities related to social interaction. Students who go abroad can learn to do things with words, such as requesting, apologizing, or offering compliments, and they may also learn to interpret situations calling on such speech acts in ways that local people do…In short, and logically, study abroad has been shown to enhance the aspects of communicative competence that are most difficult to foster in classroom settings.