Every subtopic of DP Spanish ab initio, ready to teach.

Nine lessons across three topics — La alimentación, La educación y el trabajo, and La vida personal — introduce learners to the language of everyday identity: eating habits, nutritional choices, and food culture in Spanish-speaking communities; school life, career aspirations, and work-life balance; and daily routines, family relationships, and self-description. The key concepts of Communication, Culture, and Identity frame how language choices construct and convey personal meaning.

Skills & assessment. Lessons build the thematic vocabulary and communicative functions needed to describe people, habits, and environments, while structured tasks prepare learners to produce and respond to texts — written and oral — that draw on this theme in the ab initio assessments.

Nine lessons across three topics — El tiempo libre y el ocio, Las celebraciones y los eventos, and Las vacaciones y los viajes — develop the language of experience: entertainment, sport, and socialising; festivals, commemorations, and personal milestones; and holiday destinations, tourist experiences, and travel logistics in Spanish-speaking contexts. The key concepts of Communication, Culture, and Context (Contexto) run through the unit.

Skills & assessment. Learners practise narrating, describing, and evaluating experiences in both written and spoken formats, building the range of vocabulary and text-type awareness needed to respond to this theme in Papers 1 and 2 and the individual oral.

Nine lessons across three topics — El entretenimiento y los medios de comunicación, La expresión artística y cultural, and La tecnología — explore how human creativity and technological development shape daily life: the press, advertising, and social media; literature, music, visual arts, and cultural heritage; and the advantages, challenges, and educational applications of modern technology. Communication and Culture are the central key concepts throughout.

Skills & assessment. Lessons develop the vocabulary and analytical language needed to discuss media, arts, and technology, with tasks that practise opinion expression, register awareness, and the text-type conventions frequently encountered in this theme across the ab initio written papers.

Nine lessons across three topics — La salud y el bienestar, Las normas y los valores sociales, and Las relaciones sociales y la comunidad — address the structures and values that shape social life: healthcare systems, healthy lifestyles, and wellbeing; gender roles, human rights, and social justice; and friendship, family responsibilities, volunteering, and civic participation. Communication and Culture are foregrounded, with particular attention to how language mediates social meaning.

Skills & assessment. Learners build the thematic vocabulary and communicative strategies to engage with social topics in writing and speech, preparing for the evaluative and discursive demands of this theme in the ab initio assessments.

Nine lessons across three topics — El medio ambiente, Los entornos físicos y urbanos, and Los problemas globales — address pressing global themes: conservation, pollution, and climate change; the geography, climate, and urban–rural contrasts of the Spanish-speaking world; and migration, poverty, inequality, and international cooperation. Communication and Context (Contexto) frame the unit's inquiry.

Skills & assessment. Lessons develop the thematic vocabulary and argumentative language needed to engage with global issues, with tasks that practise the text types and communicative functions central to this theme in the ab initio written papers and oral assessment.

Nine lessons across three topics — El vocabulario temático, Las estructuras gramaticales, and Las funciones comunicativas de la lengua — provide systematic language support: high-frequency vocabulary, idiomatic expressions, and thematic word sets; nouns, adjectives, pronouns, prepositions, and the key verb tenses (present, preterite, imperfect, and future); and the functional language for describing, expressing opinions, making requests, and expressing obligation. The key concepts of Communication and Meaning (Significado) are central.

Skills & assessment. Each lesson builds transferable language knowledge that supports performance across all five themes, with structured practice aligned to the accuracy and range expected in the ab initio written papers and oral assessment.

Nine lessons across three topics — La comprensión de lectura, Los textos orales y audiovisuales, and Los tipos de texto escritos — develop text-level skills: identifying main ideas, implied meaning, purpose, audience, and context in written texts; understanding features of spoken language and interpreting dialogues, interviews, and audiovisual materials; and applying the conventions, register, and structural features of the text types required at ab initio — blog, email, letter, article, and poster. Communication is the key concept throughout.

Skills & assessment. Lessons are closely aligned to the demands of Papers 1 and 2, building the comprehension strategies and productive text-type skills assessed directly in the written examination.

Ten lessons across five topics — El contexto, El propósito, El receptor, El significado, and La variante — examine each key concept in turn: how situational and cultural context shapes meaning; how purpose determines vocabulary, structure, and tone; how audience awareness guides language choices; how word choice and structure create literal and implied meaning; and how register and regional variation reflect context, relationship, and communicative intent. Each topic is grounded in authentic examples from Spanish-language communication.

Skills & assessment. The unit builds the analytical and reflective language competence that underpins performance across all ab initio assessments, equipping learners to discuss how and why language works as it does — in texts, conversations, and their own production.