Spanish 5

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This practical high-intermediate course (B1.1) designed for adult language learners will improve your ability to have sustained conversations about a wide range of topics. Learn the differences between the present subjunctive and indicative and improve your use of complex sentence structures.

You will learn to communicate with more ease and sophistication about everyday topics such as entertainment, the workplace, and personal and social values. Learn to summarize the plots of movies and books, situate events in the future and give advice or make requests with the subjunctive mood. Deepen your understanding of commands and impersonal forms. See the Outline for more details.

Textbook (used for Spanish 5 and 6) purchase required. Available at Klett: print copy or digital version 12-month access. ISBN number for print copy: 978841803226.  

It is important that the textbook or digital access be purchased in time for the first week of class.

Prerequisite: Spanish 4.

Find out if this is the right level for you with these placement tests: Spanish 4 self-placement test, Spanish 5 self-placement test.

Course format

You will practice speaking in 12 weekly online sessions of 1.5 hours led by an experienced instructor with a maximum of 16 participants, using a mix of small and large group conversation activities.

The live online sessions begin one week after the scheduled course start date to allow time to work through the first unit of learning material in preparation for the live conversation practice.

Online course materials work together with the textbook to introduce new grammar and vocabulary, teach pronunciation, listening and reading skills through videos, audio, and interactive exercises. Budget 3-4 hours a week to work through the online asynchronous content.

Course materials become available online on the scheduled course start date and remain accessible for one month after the course ends. The textbook should be purchased as soon as possible.

Want to know more about learning a language online? Read Dr. Julie Dahl's blog post about our online course format.

Sections anticipated for spring 2025 (See Upcoming Dates for open sections and more detail): 

Thursdays, Jan. 23–April 24, 8–9:30 a.m. CT (No virtual conversation session on March 27)

Tuesdays, Feb. 11–May 13, 5:30–7 p.m. CT (No virtual conversation on March 25)

Please see the textbook link under fee and more information.

Course Outline

Below are the main themes and outcomes for each week. Each unit also contains teaching videos, listening activities, reading activities, practical exercises, and cultural information related to the unit theme.

Semana 1: ¿Permitido o prohibido?

• Learn complex structures used to express rules: what is prohibited, permitted or required
• Practice reading signs in Spanish
• Learn new ways to construct impersonal statements
• Review the imperfect past tense, forms and use
• Discuss customs from Argentina

Semana 2: El mundo del trabajo

• Discuss workplace norms and workers’ rights
• Practice using quantifiers correctly
• Study the verb soler in all tenses
• Increase ability to express opinions
• Discuss customs from Colombia

Semana 3: Volver a empezar

• Discuss the challenges of new life phases
• Learn to correctly use verb phrases
• Review the preterite past tense, forms and uses
• Practice narrating past experiences and plans for future changes
• Examine uses and forms of darse cuenta de, irse and costar

Semana 4: La formación profesional y personal

• Discuss professional training and formal education
• Continue discussing past events with desde and hace
• Talk about work experience, past and present
• Listen to real-life interviews with people who have reduced stress and improved quality of life with radical career and life changes

Semana 5: Mañana

• Discuss predictions for the future
• Review the future tense, forms and uses
• Learn to formulate hypotheses
• Study the verbs prever and prevenir

Semana 6: ¿La utopía o la distopia?

• Talk about the future and probability with if clauses
• Deepen understanding of the future tense
• Continue learning to discuss opinions and emotions
• Study the verb suponer
• Discuss how the future is imagined in movies, books and television

Semana 7: Cuéntame

• Discuss film and literary genres
• Distinguish between telling jokes, gossip and chatting
• Review direct and indirect pronouns
• Study the verb mantener
• Learn about emerging professions in Mexico

Semana 8: ¿De qué trata?

• Practice summarizing films and novels
• Grow your ability to tell stories and narrate actions in sequence
• Learn common connectors that express order, cause, consequence and opposition
• Examine techniques for telling stories and jokes with the present tense
• Contrast tratar, tratar de and tratarse de
• Learn about the Colombian television series Yo soy Betty, la fea

Semana 9: Las campañas publicitarias

• Discuss marketing strategies
• Learn about the three moods in Spanish: the indicative, the imperative and the subjunctive
• Study informal affirmative and negative commands
• Practice forming commands with object pronouns
• Contrast the different meanings and uses of dejar
• Learn about famous holiday ad campaigns in Spain

Semana 10: Busque y compare

• Discuss slogans and brand imaging
• Learn to form and use formal affirmative and negative commands
• Practice using double object pronouns in commands
• Learn about the world of online influencers

Semana 11: Los problemas sociales

• Discuss current social challenges
• Learn about writing formal letters
• Practice present subjunctive conjugations
• Study when and how to use the subjunctive form to express requests, demands and to offer recommendations
• Improve your ability to recommend solutions to common social problems

Semana 12: ¡Basta ya!

• Discuss ongoing protests and demonstrations
• Learn more irregular subjunctive forms
• Practice using common expressions with the subjunctive to wish people well
• Practice new uses of the subjunctive with cuando and ojalá
• Discuss indigenous cultures in Peru and in other parts of Latin American

By participating in this class you will earn:

Explanation of Continuing Education Hours