Lengua e historiala enseñanza de la historia contemporánea española en las clases de español como lengua extranjera

Resum

The principle objective for this thesis is to demonstrate that the teaching of history for students of Spanish as a foreign language can and should be something more than merely an accompaniment to a language class. In this thesis a history class for students of Spanish as a foreign language is defended within an integrative framework that pulls together the study of the Spanish language and culture. In order to accomplish this, a new methodology for the teaching of history was created that serves to combine the study of history and language within the same didactic unit. This thesis is a work of methodology put into practice through forty units of contemporary Spanish history that will help the professor to explain history while the necessary linguistic elements are practiced Each didactic unit was developed by documenting contemporary Spanish history and extracting from each chapter of history the most fundamental elements that should be taken to the classroom. In order to specify the type of methodology to be used in the contemporary Spanish history classroom for students of Spanish as a foreign language, it was necessary to analyze firstly the existing methodology for the teaching of Spanish as a foreign language. From this analysis, conclusions were made over what contributions could be taken from this methodology for a history class for students of Spanish as a foreign language. Secondly, the same was done with the methodology applied to teaching history to native speakers of Spanish. The reason for turning to these two methodologies which are in principle so disparate was the inexistence of an appropriate methodology. After analyzing both, conclusions were made as to what type of methodology should be applied in the history classroom for students of Spanish as a foreign language. This new methodology was born from two different fields and adapts itself to the type of study that is discussed in this thesis. The lack of support of an appropriate methodology was shown in an analysis realized on the cultural materials for students of Spanish as a foreign language. Said materials were shown to be insufficient to successfully fulfill the primary objectives of this subject. With all of this in mind, these didactic units, to the extent that was possible, were developed with attention to the historic contents explained and the interrelation between history and language. It was necessary to create an integrative body of history, vocabulary, grammar and written and oral skills in such a way so as that none of these areas was diminished in intensity. This has been one of the principal challenges of this investigation upon creating integrative units within the framework of hour-long sessions with the greatest possible number of topics covered. These units seek to lose neither rigor nor effectiveness in the teaching, but rather, on the contrary, they seek to give the student an extra stimulus with a methodology created to meet much higher standards of density and utility than those seen in other methodologies.