All our courses from beginning to the most advanced are made up of small groups ranging from 1 to 6 students which provides an ideal learning atmosphere. The smaller the group the faster and more effective the learning since there is a dramatic fall in individual achievement and speed of learning as the size of the group increases above 6 students. As such IMAC limits group sizes to no more than 6 individuals.

The Spanish language immersion program at IMAC offers 6 levels which fall into three categories: beginner, intermediate, and advanced.

Beginning Level

The IMAC Spanish language immersion program has the following three objectives:

• The first is to facilitate the non-Spanish speaking student to develop enough proficiency to communicate in real life situations.
• The second is to build upon the basic foundation of linguistic skills developed in the first level and to generate over all fluency and proficiency in the four basic skills. Verb conjugation and grammar are more fully developed at this level. Students will also be exposed to many more real life situations utilizing a functional approach to language instruction.
• Fluency and linguistic proficiency in all areas of language learning will be developed with the goal of mastery during the final level of our Spanish language program. Students are provided with a wide variety of functional situations as well as the opportunity to participate in many everyday topics to stimulate the learner to participate in Spanish for communication.

Intermediate

Objectives of the Program

An integrated four-skills approach, prepares intermediate students to use Spanish in real-life situations by emphasizing oral communication and by developing the other basic language skills. To meet these goals, the program has been designed with the following objectives in mind:

• To reinforce and expand the vocabulary base acquired by students in first year Spanish. Practical, high-frequency vocabulary presented in culturally authentic contexts takes students beyond the basic survival skills acquired in introductory classes and sets the stage for extended discourse.
• To review fundamental grammar structures and to foster the mastery of concepts not fully acquired in an introductory course of the first year of study. The presentation of most structures expands on the morphological and syntactical elements normally presented in beginning Spanish.
• To strengthen students' communicative competency by providing ongoing opportunities for oral practice in realistic contexts (debates, role-plays, and problem-solving situations) that lend themselves to more sophisticated discourse strategies, for example circumlocution and paraphrasing.
• To broaden students' knowledge of the geography of the Hispanic world and to increase their familiarity with contemporary Hispanic culture and their ability to make cross-cultural comparisons.
• To develop students' ability to read and understand authentic texts from the Spanish-speaking world and to articulate their observations, reactions, and opinions.
• To develop listening comprehension skills by exposing students to natural language as spoken by native speakers from a variety of Hispanic countries in real-life contexts.
• To improve writing skills by providing ongoing practice in contexts that reinforce the vocabulary and structures taught in the text.

Advanced

This course combines advanced composition in Spanish and beginning literary analysis. Each chapter in the textbook features a selection by a modern author and contains explanations and activities for vocabulary development, comprehension, interpretation, style, translation and free composition. All chapters also provide a thorough and systematic review of important grammar topics that pose difficulties and thereby negatively affect the expression of students’ thoughts and ideas when they write in Spanish. Materials are organized to allow for considerable flexibility as to how they are assigned and used.

This course has been designed to consolidate the language skills acquired in introductory-level courses and to build communicative skills and cultural competency, it emphasizes the natural use of practical, high-frequency language for communication, and offers a comprehensive review of first/second-year grammar structures, while developing students’ reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills and increasing their awareness of Hispanic culture.