This semester-long course provides intense conversational practice in the context of a panoramic approach to current social, psychological, political, bioethical, philosophical, and linguistic issues. Classes are conducted totally in Spanish in a variety of contexts and registers, from informal, colloquial, conversations to formal discussions on diverse topics. Students will be asked to engage thoughtfully with a variety of source material and participate in discussions, debates, and oral presentations. Through different communicative tasks such as elaborating, explaining in detail, hypothesizing, synthesizing, and summarizing students will develop an ability to distinguish main ideas from supporting information, facts and evidence from opinions, both in written texts and oral speech.