News in Slow (Latin American) Spanish

Because I was going on a long car trip last week, I started to look for new podcasts to put on my iPod Touch. That's when I found News in Slow Latin American Spanish. As you know, there is News in Slow Spanish which has been around for a while now. (For instance they're on episode number 224. The Latin American version is just on number three.)

There are six sections:

1) Flashcards
2) News Stories
3) Grammar
4) Expressions
5) Pronunciations
6) Quizzes

You can access the audio for sections 2, 3, and 4 from the site or download them via iTunes or another similar program. (I use the Downcast app on my iPod Touch.) You can also download the flashcards in pdf format from the site. The full transcripts, and the pronunciation and quizzes sections are accessible by subscription only.

They also offer educational discounts (individual licenses, individual floating licenses, and language lab licenses).

By the way, the same folks also offer News in Slow Italian, Chinese (suspended but there are 20 episodes available), and French.

Summer Proficiency Pack for Middle Schoolers

Run, don't walk to Maris Hawkins' blog post Made It Monday: Summer Proficiency Pack. It's for middle schoolers, but please, go look anyway even if you're not teaching at that level or just learning on your own at home.

She has put together a wonderful packet for her students so that their language skills do not dwindle over the summer. She based it on the most recent #langchat on Twitter: Keep Students Motivated with 9 Summer Language Learning Activities. You'll find links to recipe sites, YouTube videos, news video sites, and more.

In her post, she also mentions that Zachary Jones has put together an ebook, Summer Spanish 2013. It costs $5.00 and I imagine it's worth every penny.