Pasaporte is a conversation-based review text designed for advanced beginning students who need a refresher course before enrolling in second-year Spanish. Courses for this population of students have always presented a myriad of challenges to instructors. In addition to dealing with the disparate knowledge base of students at this level and the time lapse since the last Spanish course taken, instructors are faced with teaching a year’s worth of material in one semester. With so many grammar points to cover, instructors often feel compelled to give short shrift to communicative activities and culture. This rapid treatment of so many linguistic structures leaves students with little opportunity to practice, recycle, and synthesize basic grammar and vocabulary or for communicative activities set in an authentic cultural context.

As we formulated the scope and sequence for Pasaporte, we considered what intermediate students should be able to do when they begin second-year Spanish. Ideally, we would like them to be able to describe and compare people and places; narrate in the present, past and future; talk about likes and dislikes; react and recommend; and begin to recognize how a hypothesis is expressed. With these goals in mind, we determined that the communicative functions would be presented in the context of a Global Opportunities Fair that encourages discussion about real-life opportunities such as study abroad, internships, cultural exchanges, and volunteer work in which the Spanish language would be an obvious asset.

Click the links on the left-hand side of the screen to learn more about this exciting and innovative new program written specifically for advanced beginners of Spanish!