Nature ebooks in Spanish with support materials

Well, this is a neat “discovery” and I didn’t find it through Twitter this time. Actually my younger son showed me the book, Baby Owl’s Rescue by Jennifer Keats Curtis. As we were looking through it I noticed that there were resources and teaching activities on the publisher’s site.

I visited the site and was very pleased to see support materials in both English and Spanish. For example if you visit the Baby Owl’s Rescue page and click on For Creative Minds (en Español), you’ll find Great Horned Owl fun facts, a matching activity, owl life sequencing activity and information about what to do if you find an injured bird.

You’ll also find ebook previews in English and Spanish – look over the books and listen as it is read aloud in either language. You’ll find just part of the text available, but you can listen to the entire book.

From what I gather from the site, the hardcovers and paperbacks are only available in English, but you can purchase ebooks – actually licenses for 1, 3, and 5 years or lifetime - in English or Spanish.

Where to go: 
Sylvan Dell Publishing
Ebooks in Spanish from Sylvan Dell Publishing

Foreign Language Teaching Methods

I picked this up from MisCositas.com’s Facebook page. It’s Foreign Language Teaching Methods from the University of Texas at Austin. From the site:

Foreign Language Teaching Methods focuses on 12 different aspects of language teaching, each taught by a different expert instructor. The site contains video footage from an actual methods course held at the University of Texas at Austin. This flexible resource is designed to be used by foreign language teachers as a component of a classroom methods course, a stand-alone course for independent learners, or as a means of obtaining professional development credits.

Where to go:
Foreign Language Teaching Methods
MisCositas.com Facebook page

Video: Book

I ran across this video this morning. I thought it was amusing.

NY Times: A guide to online educational resources

I found this article link in the latest issue of the ACTFL SmartBrief. It talks about the free educational materials that can be found online and highlights several including YouTube EDU, Connexions, iTunesU among others.

Where to go:
NY TImes: How to Learn Something for Nothing
Connexions
MIT OpenCourseWare
YouTube EDU
Open Culture: Free Language Lessons
iTunesU
OpenCourseWare Consortium
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ACTFL SmartBrief – April 20, 2010

News in Slow Spanish

While wading through my Twitter stream, I saw an interesting tweet by @SECottrell. Her link led me to News in Slow Spanish which is basically what is says. From the site:

News in Slow Spanish is a podcast for those who already possess a basic vocabulary and some knowledge of Spanish grammar. Your host is a native Spanish speaker from Spain. Our section Explorando Latinoamérica is hosted by a native speaker from Latin America. In our program we discuss the Weekly News, grammar, and expressions, and much more in simplified Spanish at a slow pace so that you can understand almost every word and sentence.

There is both free and paid content. The free content includes the audio with a transcription of the introduction (not the entire audio). Several words are highlighted in the transcription which you can hover your mouse over to see a translation in English. The paid content includes grammar lessons, expressions review, pronunciation practice, flashcards, grammar exercises and more depending on the subscription level. You can find a demo episode on the homepage.

Where to go:
News in Slow Spanish
Mis Musicuentos – SECottrell’s blog. (She’s a Spanish teacher.)

Actualidades Revista

One of my favorite blogs now will be publishing a downloadable magazine which will feature printable versions of some of the articles from Actualidades: Blogueando Para Aprender as well as exercises including crossword puzzles, reading comprehension questions and more geared toward high school Spanish language students.

Take a look at the magazine’s masthead:

 
I think this is brilliant. What a wonderful resource this will be for high school/college teachers!

Where to go:
Actualidades Revista – first issue
Actualidades: Blogueando Para Aprender

Giveaway at MisCositas.com Facebook Page

As I was going through my Facebook statuses this morning, an event on the MisCositas.com page caught my attention. They’re asking for suggestions for a new Niko Spanish vocabulary video. The prize is a copy of Languages and Children: Making the Match by Helena Curtain and Carol Ann Dahlberg. All you have to do is post a suggestion or comment between now and April 30, 2010 to be automatically entered.

Where to go:
MisCositas Facebook Page
April Giveaway – Languages and Children: Making the Match
MisCositas.com YouTube Channel
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Free thematic units in Spanish and other languages

I was just reading through my CASLS newsletter that I receive once a week via email, when my mouse stopped in its tracks. Here is the article in its entirety:

K-12 Thematic Units Available for Download

The National K-12 Foreign Language Resource Center is pleased to announce that they have now made available on their website as free Adobe PDF downloads all of their K-12 standards-based thematic units: six in Spanish and three in French, as well as their teacher’s guide to the national Standards for Foreign Language Learning in the 21st Century. Each may still be purchased at cost in paper format.

Additionally, a new publication, A Thematic Unit: Let’s Go to School in Japan! (Jessica Haxhi, Author), is now available for downloading. DVDs of the accompanying five, one-hour Japanese demonstration classes for fifth and sixth grade students also can be purchased.

Access all of these resources at http://wayback.archive-it.org/855/20101103145624/http://nflrc.iastate.edu/pubs/units/unitsList.html 

WOW! As soon as I saw this, I had to share. Enjoy!

(Edited 3/6/2011 - updated link)

Catalog of Spanish Voices

First, let me say again, that I love Twitter. Why? Because that’s how I ran across this site Catálogo de voces hispánicas from the Centro Virtual Cervantes. Thanks to Deborah from @bilingualparent for tweeting it!

You’ll find a list of countries with links to various cities within each country. Once you make a selection, then you’re taken to a page with a video of a person from that area speaking. You’ll also find the linguistic characteristics, a transcription of the video and more information about the location including a map.

I can’t wait to explore this site!

Where to go:
Catálogo de voces hispánicas from the Centro Virtual Cervantes
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Subscribe to my tweets

If you would like to learn about useful Spanish language resources, but don’t really want to join Twitter, you can subscribe to my tweets via RSS.
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