The Spanish department aims to provide a meaningful language learning experience for all students who opt to study our subject, be it with a view to carrying on their language career at university, with a view to using Spanish as the humanities subject for their law degree or whether it is to be used as their language to make an OE more meaningful. As the fourth largest language in the world after Mandarin, Hindi and English and with 550 million native speakers the department believes that that alone is reason enough to study Spanish.

All junior students must take a language in Form 3 and in its first years Spanish proved to be a popular alternative to French or Japanese with numbers continuing to grow. All Form 3 students follow the same syllabus in Term 1 and at the end of this term there is an examination and the students are streamed according to their results. Then, two separate courses are run in Form 3 after reclassification in Term 1. There will be two more exams – one at the end of Term 2 and one at the end of Term 4 which hopefully will provide all students with the opportunity to achieve to the best of their ability.

We have fully embraced AGS’s dual pathway policy and senior students can opt for either NCEA levels 2 or 3. Alternatively, they can choose IGCSE, AS or A2 exams.

We continue to teach the students not only Spanish for exams but encourage them to get to know the culture of some of the countries where the language is spoken. The highlight of 2012 will be the Tour to Argentina. Fourteen boys accompanied by two members of staff will travel for 10 days taking in the sights of Buenos Aires and the Iguazu waterfalls.

We have also employed a Spanish Language Assistant for 2011 who will have a substantial role to play in teaching the boys about the customs of Spain. 
 

Staff:

	Classes Taught	Responsibilities	Years of Experiance
Ms Michelle McNeill	F3, F4, A2	HOD (TiC NCEA)	14 years teaching in UK, Argentina and NZ
Ms Rita Barnao	F3, F4, IGCSE, AS		14 years teaching in UK and NZ
Ms Dani Taylor	F3, F4, IGCSE, NCEA Level 2 & 3
Mr Brian O'Neill	F3		23 years teaching in Ireland, Spain and NZ
Mr Dale Johnson	F3		19 years teaching in USA and NZ

Assistant 2012: Almudena Blazque Z Andrada