Spanish Civil War – 75th Anniversary

Today, July 18, marks the 75th anniversary of the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. I saw a post by RTVE on Facebook which has an entire section (videos, reports, photographs) about the war.

Many years ago, during a studying abroad trip to Spain, I remember an excursion to Belchite… still remember it like it was yesterday. It’s a town in the province of Zaragoza which was completely destroyed. It was an eerie trip back in time… entire sides of buildings completely gone, large gaping holes in what remained of the cathedral and other structures. Needless to say it left quite an impression.

Where to go:
RTVE.es – La guerra civil
History Channel – Spanish Civil War breaks out
Belchite – Ghostly Reminder of the Spanish Civil War

Active learning

As I mentioned in my previous post, most of my Spanish learning these days is inactive – reading and listening. There’s definitely nothing wrong with either one, but I feel I don’t progress as much as when I write or speak in Spanish on a regular basis.

Since my time is limited, I’ve been trying to figure out a way to work on the skills noted above. While I would love to speak in Spanish face-to-face with a native speaker, I realize I just can’t at this time. On the other hand, I do have access to the wonderful Internet and all its possibilities. One site that came to mind when I started thinking about this post was Lenguajero.com.

Lenguajero.com is an online community for those who are learning English and Spanish. That’s it… English and Spanish. I like this. Nothing wrong with language exchange sites which offer a multitude of languages, but I appreciate the simplicity of just having just these two to choose from.

Here’s the embarrassing part… I’ve been a member for over a year and I haven’t had a conversation through the site. I also haven’t used the text chat app and probably will not too often. On the other hand I have participated in their Writing Club… once. It was a very positive experience though. I chose to write a little something about myself as an introduction to the community. Within days I had feedback from Spanish language speakers which was so helpful.

So, here’s the thing. I’m going to put myself on a schedule of sorts. I’m going to start off by writing again in Spanish at least twice a week and then more frequently. During that time I’m going to also try to set up a conversation schedule with a couple of my Lenguajero “friends.”

I’ll write about my progress here. Wish me luck!

Where to go:
Lenguajero.com

Working, family and now homeschooling

To say that I’ve been busy would be quite an understatement. As I’ve mentioned before I work at a summer camp which pretty much means I have little time for anything else. Luckily, I’ve actually been able to use my Spanish with a camper family from Madrid.

Speaking of which… I noticed the last few times I corresponded with the mother in Spanish, I found it to be a difficult task. I was doubting myself quite a bit and looking up more words than I should.

Family. Unlike some bloggers who write about learning languages, I just can’t pick up and travel to a Spanish-speaking country right now even though I really would like to. I need to work and look after my family. I wake up with the best intentions, but after a day at work, housework, family time, etc., I go to bed without doing anything in Spanish except to read or listen to part of a podcast during my commute to work.

And, that brings me back to this blog and why I started it in the first place over three years ago, but now with a bit of a twist. We’re going to start homeschooling in August. Over the past several years I’ve taught them some Spanish, but more structure will be necessary.

I’m currently searching for a curriculum for each (3rd and 7th grades), but so far, I haven’t been very satisfied with what I have seen. If or when I do find something, I will certainly write about it here. (And yes, I have thought about putting something together on my own.) I will also continue to write about resources for adult-learners.

So, that’s it. Just a quick update from me.

Starting off slow…

I’m the first to admit that my listening comprehension is somewhat lacking. I find myself catching some words here and there and pretty much understanding what’s being said, but there is certainly room for improvement.

For the past several months, I’ve been listening to News in Slow Spanish which I wrote about last year. It’s slow, that’s for sure. In fact, I thought perhaps it would slow me down, but I have discovered that it’s helped my comprehension when listening to Spanish at a “normal” speed.

I compare it to reading a book. When listening to the News in Slow Spanish podcast, I can savor each word, think about its meaning and still pretty much keep up with the podcast. I have found that my vocabulary has increased quite a bit as well as my comprehension when listening to other Spanish language podcasts.

Give it a try! I think you’ll understand after a few episodes.

Where to go:
http://www.newsinslowspanish.com/
Subscribe via iTunes

New link for thematic units

A reader brought to my attention the fact that the link for my post about free thematic units in Spanish and other languages did not work anymore. After a bit of research, I discovered that the pages were archived. The new link is: http://wayback.archive-it.org/855/20101103145624/http://nflrc.iastate.edu/pubs/units/unitsList.html 

I will fix the link on the original post, but since I thought this was such a great resource, I thought it deserved a new post as well. Also, I would highly recommend that you download the material to your computer. I will be doing the same. Thanks again, Molly!

Videos: Adivina la palabra de hoy

You know when you find one great website which then leads to another website and so on? Well, on the Practica Español site, I found a series of videos from the Fundación de la Lengua Española called Adivina. From the site:

"Adivina" es un diccionario básico del español en formato audiovisual con definiciones aportadas por niños españoles. Creado con el fin de fomentar el aprendizaje del idioma con una metodología en la que prima el entretenimiento.

Okay, I’m just going to say it. The videos are cute… useful as well, but cute. I can see this series of videos being used in the classroom or at home. You could also follow the premise of this series as a classroom exercise. Divide your students into two teams and have one person on each team describe a vocabulary word. Whichever team guesses correctly gets a point and so on.

Where to go:
Fundación de la Lengua Española - Adivina

Website: Practica Español

I’m again amazed at the amount and quality of free learning materials that are available to the Spanish language student. In my weekly CASLS (Center for Applied Second Language Studies) email newsletter, I ran across this wonderful resource – Practica Español. From the site:

Dispones de una variedad de contenidos con diferentes temáticas: ESPAÑA, MUNDO, DEPORTES, ENTRETENIMIENTO, VIAJES, SALUD, NEGOCIOS, CULTURA, CIENCIA y GASTRONOMÍA.

Todos los contenidos tienen soporte en TEXTO, SONIDO E IMÁGENES (Video y/o Fotografía). Lo que te permite LEER, ESCUCHAR, PRACTICAR, APRENDER Y PARTICIPAR a través de los ejercicios que te proponemos.

And here’s their video:

Where to go:
Practica Español
Center for Applied Second Language Studies

Video: Lo Importante Que Es Saber Idiomas

Amusing video I found via Facebook. Enjoy.

Utubersidad: Educational Videos in Spanish

As I was reading my Facebook page I ran across an announcement from BBCMundo: “Todos los videos educativos en español que se encuentran en You Tube, agrupados y catalogados... Bienvenidos a la Utubersidad.”

Well, that certainly caught my eye and instantly tweeted it, but then I felt this deserved its own blog post.

So far, there are over 8000 videos available covering a variety of topics from architecture to physics, from oceanography to literature. And they’re available for free.

Where to go:
Utubersidad
BBC Mundo Facebook

More Science in Spanish

Hot off the Twitter presses… um, Twitter stream… well, in any case, I just saw this and wanted to pass it along to you.

From the EarthSky press section:

U.S. Spanish speakers will find more science on both radio and television in the coming three years, thanks to a new National Science Foundation grant, EarthSky announced today. The grant will support EarthSky’s goal of reaching, educating, and inspiring Spanish-speaking audiences in the U.S. with relevant and interesting science content.

What an exciting endeavor! Also, right now you can read articles, watch videos and listen to audio on their Spanish-language site.

Where to go:
More details in press release
EarthSky in Spanish