Hone your language skills on a journey through the Spanish speaking world

On this four-week course from The Open University, you’ll discover the geographical diversity of the Worlds of Spanish and explore their fascinating landscapes.

You’ll learn to describe places, including locations, main features, climate, their environmental surroundings, atmosphere, and social traits. You’ll be encouraged to apply your newly learnt knowledge to share a description of your favourite place with other learners, friends, and family.

Discover what makes places unique

You’ll analyse the distinctive characteristics that define how we perceive different cities and urban life across the Worlds of Spanish and draw comparisons between them. You’ll also consider different elements of their infrastructure, like transport networks and sustainability.

Using linguistic structures like the relative superlative, you’ll be able to express why you think cities excel and share your thoughts about them using appropriate verbs.

Explore the influence of economic migration on the Spanish language

Rural-urban migration continues to mark the rapid growth of cities and gradual depopulation of rural areas especially in Spain and Latin America. You’ll be able to interpret facts and figures in Spanish using percentages, indefinite pronouns, and collective nouns to help you understand the evolution of rural-urban migration and current economic trends and initiatives.

Plan your future adventures

After learning about the geographic diversity of the Worlds of Spanish, you’ll be ready to explore different options for a travel adventure of your choice.

You’ll have the skills to consider where you’d like to visit, and research and share your plans using the future tense, prepositions of place, and the structures you learnt throughout this course.

What topics will you cover?

The geographical diversity of the Worlds of Spanish
Urban landscapes and infrastructure
Rural–urban migration
Talking about travelling and making plans
New grammar structures and vocabulary related to the topics discussed

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Learning on this course

On every step of the course you can meet other learners, share your ideas and join in with active discussions in the comments.

What will you achieve?

By the end of the course, you‘ll be able to...

Apply knowledge and understanding of different countries and cultures in the Worlds of Spanish to discuss issues of tourism and migration
Produce spoken and written Spanish communication, describing geographical locations, climates and peoples, drawing comparisons between cities and expressing likes and dislikes
Explain facts and figures and summarise conclusions

Who is the course for?

This course is designed for those with a good basic knowledge of Spanish (fully at Level A2 of the Common European Framework of Reference), who would like to improve their competence in the language and deepen their understanding of different cultures.

Who will you learn with?

Eva Estrany

Ms Eva Estrany MA DPSI is an Associate Lecturer at the Open University and a member of the Chartered Institute of Linguists. She has been designing and teaching Spanish courses for over twenty years.

María Soledad Montañez

With a strong background in Gender and Latin American Studies, Soledad works at the intersections of language, creativity and community engagement with multilingual communities in the UK.

Who developed the course?

The Open University

As the UK’s largest university, The Open University (OU) supports thousands of students to achieve their goals and ambitions via supported distance learning, helping to fit learning around professional and personal life commitments.

Established
1969
Location
Milton Keynes, UK
World ranking
Top 510Source: Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2020

About this ExpertTrack

Take your Spanish language skills to the next level as you journey through the Worlds of Spanish, with The Open University

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Pay $39 per month to keep learning online
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Only pay while you’re learning; the subscription will cancel automatically when you finish
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Earn digital course certificates and a final award that you can share online, with potential employers, and your professional network
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Join the conversation by reading, @ing, liking, bookmarking, and replying to comments from others

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