¡Bienvenidos al Departamento de español en Washington! Welcome to Washington's Spanish Department!

Our department offers a range of classes from introductory to advanced. Our ultimate goals are for students to be able to communicate in Spanish and for them to gain knowledge of Spanish-speaking cultures.

We have 4 classes in Spanish.

Spanish 1, Spanish 2, and one  Spanish 3 and 4 class that is taught together

Native Spanish speakers are invited to take the Spanish 3/4 class where I will evaluate their needs and help them devellop their reading , writing , speaking and listening skills as needed. It can also be taken by students that have well develloped skills in all of these catagories

We went to Costa Rica in 2017 and the the plan is to do this every 3 years . It is done during spring break 

We have also done a trip to Concordia language camp .

Both of these were done by students who were interested in advancing their Spanish sklls and we did fundraisers to help defray the costs.

In classes we learn vocubalary by eating cultural foods and practicing the use of the language in asking for and eating everyday American food as well. 

A little about Señor Courtney

I am a native Minnesotan but I have lived over 6 years in Spain and Latin America. My wife is Colombian and we speak Spanish at home.

I have lived 1 year in Spain, 3 years in Peru and 2 years in Ecuador.

I have had the privilege of visiting all Spanish speaking countries in the Americas except Belize. In 1995 I drove my car from Minnesota to Chile. I spent 1 college year in Spain and I have revisited this country on several occasion since then.

A little bit about my Spanish classes: I do not use a text book but I have checked textbooks on several occasions to verify that I am covering all pertinent materials offered in those texts. 

By the end of

Spanish 1  students will have received:

around 50 verbs and be able to give symols for all of them

 topics such as numbers, alphabet, reading outloud comfortably with correct pronunciation, weather, time, verb- to go, using "ing" , using common expressions with the verb "TENER", everyday salutations, clothing and colors (along with an intro to articles) , body parts (me duele) and develop  listening skills by listening to popular Spanish songs

Spanish 2

In this class we work more seriously with conjugation in present , past and the imperfect tense ( were doing, used to do)

we work with indirect and direct objects and with the demonstrations pronouns of this , that these and those and we look at reflexive verbs

we also continue to work on verb development and songs. 

we begin reading in this class as well and we use the story that we read to begin writing in Spanish more seriously than in Spanish 1. This story is also used as a listening tool for the students toward the end of the year

Spanish3/4

we further the students speaking and writing skills in Spanish 3/4. For native Spanish speakers

I try to focus on bettering their reading and writing skills and / or grammar if needed. If they do not speak Spanish ( but are Hispanic) then they should begin Spanish in Spanish 1. 

Other grammar topics are using commands, using the subjuntive , conditional and future tenses as well

We alternate years in this class with presentational projects on Spanish speaking countries and Mexican states and having the teacher teach an immersion style science class during 1 month of the school year.