This course objective is for you, the student, to gain as much proficiency as possible in interpersonal and presentational spoken and written communication, interpretive reading and listening, and culture competency while learning Spanish.
The way this course is taught is essentially backwards which is denoted as ‘Flipped Classroom Method’ (you learn first at home through an online ‘textbook’ called Contraseña, then you reiterate and speak about the lessons in class), and the projects are meant to simulate real conversations. We start by learning the basics (alphabet, numbers, present tense verbs), but it becomes pretty advanced rather quickly for a beginner. We learn idiomatic expressions, verb conjugations, and entire sentences/parts of sentences to be able to talk about which courses we are taking on what day and time, how we are feeling/describing ourselves or somebody else, informal speech versus formal speech, etc.
I learned to be comfortable being uncomfortable. Throwing pride away for the sake of learning (not being worried about embarrassing yourself) is one of the key steps to the learning process and also helps you work better with others/people from different cultures. Talking to someone you do not know is already awkward to a degree, now imagine doing that but not in your native language!
Our most recent project was a group project that I commandeered through a Zoom meeting. Essentially the requirements were to have six questions (3 for each of the two people per group) asking about the person (name, describing themselves or how they feel, etc.), and six more questions describing their coursework. This could be how many courses they are taking, what year they are in the university, which one their favorite is and why, etc. It is considered a roughly two-minute presentation or interview with your partner. I also have recording software that I had to figure out how to use for this project. It helped my soft computer skills a bit. Working through Zoom and making recordings is a good skill to have considering I may need that in the workplace for important meetings.
Above is my first project in this class where I am introducing myself, where I am from, describing things about myself and contact information.