Very interesting and stimulating course. I didn’t think I’d want to keep going but I signed up for span2.

Hola: I thought you'd want some up to date info about this unit in case you're considering it. 💃 In a Sem of span1401 you learn the basic vocabulary, phrases and grammar to get by in easy conversations in Spain or a Spanish-speaking country. It's a relatively easy unit with a bit of useful repetition and assessments that teach you while you learn. They are all online,many are multiple choice and via LMS and there's no final exam. The focus is on getting you to learn and consolidate new phrases you will find useful when speaking to Spaniards/Spanish speakers. Half of the hours are face to face and the other half is remote so you can learn relatively flexibly. Student athletes, workers and commuters have been asking for this in your feedback, so we listened! Face to face lectures had 5% attendance in 2017-8, so they have been flipped for years and a few different modalities have been tested and trialled. voiceovers on grammar notes are being tested for 2023. If you have questions on the grammar or culture, you can ask them to the lecturer after class (she spends an extra 30 minutes in class after each tutorial) or via email. Try are more than happy to help. If you miss a lesson the tutorial slides have everything you need and the lecturers are available to help you if you have follow-up questions. The unit and lecturers have won many awards and prizes, and the unit's been on the UWA Guild Guide of best Unit's for a long time as a student favourite. Check the current COURSE GUIDE as this unit has changed over the semesters (no book in tutorials, new grammar book the lecturers are writing...) (Just FYI some of the info shared below by ex students is no longer accurate.) Write to the coordinator if you're interested in taking it or are sitting on the fence. Chances are you won't regret it. ☺️

All of the tests are open book, so it’s not too difficult to do well on them if you’ve kept up with the work. However, I was behind 4 weeks at one point (due to mental health reasons) and I managed to catch up and achieve a distinction. If you want to better solidify your understanding in Spanish I would highly recommend doing the suggested amount of practice per week. The online tutorials were more useful to me in terms of actually learning Spanish than the in person ones as they were more in depth and productive; the only con is that you can’t ask questions straight away if you get confused. Only a few of the culture lectures were actually interesting and some of them dragged on for literally hours; seemed a bit of a waste of time to watch them all through properly when you can google majority of the answers (on the culture tests). All of the teaching staff are kind, approachable and passionate, and answered any questions you had to the best of their knowledge. Overall, it was a fun unit to do and if you’re willing to consistently put in the work, a D or HD is pretty achievable.

Honestly the best unit this year. Great organisation, good level of stuff to study per hour and per week, lots of feedback (I got feedback on 3 compositions and feedback on my video with my partner), coordinator answered emails instantly and was always available to meet with me after our Zoom tut, good tutorials and I liked online podcasts for the grammar. Engaging way to present material. Grazias Anna, Raquel, Maccarena, you've helped on so many levels, even with the announcements the film recommendatipns and words of encouragement. Who is here to learn and not just to get an easy HD, loves your work and will follow you! 👏

The unit content is well organised on LMS, however the lectures are probably about 3 years old and uploaded to a YouTube link. The reasoning behind this is that Anna believes people don't come to lectures so there is no need to have live lectures. I think that is complete rubbish. Almost every unit in the university has live lectures and yes, some students do not attend but that is their own fault for not taking responsibility for their own learning. The tutorials were 2 hrs, once a week. I also believe this is not sufficient for learning a language at a beginner level. There needs to be at least 1 hr classes, 3 times a week and mainly focused on conversation practice. I basically paid $835 for content I probably could have streamed on YouTube for free or put that towards a tutor and learnt way more than I did in this course. Also, the culture lectures were overly saturated with content and very boring. Having done this unit partly on campus and then online because of COVID made it even harder to learn the language especially when there was no zoom tutorials for us to practice speaking. Would highly recommend doing the Spanish classes offered by North Metropolitan Tafe instead if you enjoy learning/want to learn a new language.

I really like this unit so far. The UC and the tutors are really helpful and answer all my questions in class and emails. The lms is well organised too, divided into type of lesson and week, makes it easy to find stuff. People saying it's a difficult unit must have really put in zero effort and not contact the teachers. They are there for you and can help. They really go out of their way to assist. It's a language, so you have to study, but if you do and commit to it, it looks like an easy unit. No EXAMS either!

I like the tutorials and the grammar videos. Good way of saving time and use it better in class in the tutorials. I have no time to attend lectures at uni anyway. There's a PDF with all student questions and answers collected and that was something I referred to all semester. Teachers are all very committed. I met with the unit coordinator 3/4 times and she was enthusiastic and very helpful. She encouraged me to continue with my Spanish and I think I will take span 1402 this year. Got 98/100 in the unit and would recommend!

Loved this unit! Taught by very passionate unit coord and tutors. Made appointments and they helped with my study! Mix of online and in-class tutoring made it easy to follow. Would recommend!

Worst...mistake...of...my...life

All classes and lectures in this unit are insanely boring. The most irritating bit by far is the culture content. Why the hell do we have to recall specific dates in Spain's history??? The (multi-choice) test isn't very straight forward at all and actually requires at least a few pages of notes. The other tests are ridiculously easy. There isn't really much study required but I feel like the classes could be used more effectively because the difference between the worst and best students seems to be huge. You either struggle and don't understand any of the material or you just blitz through with no issue. The exam is stupidly hard compared to the tests. The role-play thing is alright though. Raquel doesn't really seem to know how to speak English...