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

Don Quijote en YouTube de la mano de la RAE

A global reading of Don Quijote on YouTube. The old and new coming together…

Here’s an excerpt from the article on BBC Mundo:

Las aventuras del famoso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha, héroe de la lengua española, se trasladan a internet, en la primera lectura global de la obra de Miguel de Cervantes en YouTube.

La iniciativa de la Real Academia Española (RAE) y el canal de videos YouTube, comenzó este jueves, y contará con la participación de 2.149 internautas de todo el mundo.

Cada voluntario deberá leer fragmentos de El Quijote para recrear, en video, la lectura completa de la novela, y luego subirlo a YouTube.

What’s especially helpful for those who are studying the language is that you can read along by clicking on the link below each video: Versión para imprimir.

Where to go:
El Quijote en YouTube
BBC Mundo article: El Quijote, nuevo héroe de YouTube

Foreign Language Bill in US Congress

Just a quick heads-up about this bill. From the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL):

Congressmen Holt and Tonko have sponsored HR 6036 which will provide significant levels of funding at the national, state, and local levels for language education. Please help get co-sponsors for this bill so that Congress will realize how important this legislation is for students in the US and for building our nation's language capacity!

Where to go:
American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (includes useful links to get started)
Article from Asia Society: New Language Bill Introduced in Congress

SpanishDict: A very helpful app

I’m reading the Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins, but of course in Spanish (Los juegos del hambre). Currently I’m reading the second book En llamas (Catching Fire).

This series came highly recommended by several friends. When I read the description, I must admit I wasn’t sure if I would like it, but I trusted my friends, so I bought the first book. I flew through it and enjoyed every minute of it.

But wait, the title of this post is about an app, right? Well, I don’t usually travel with a regular dictionary, but I always have my iPod Touch with me. Several months ago I downloaded the free SpanishDict app to test it out. While reading the first book I had to look up a few words. (I mainly do not look up every unfamiliar word because usually I can get the meaning within context.) Well, I was able to find every word in the dictionary section of this app (over 100,000 entries) and there were a few obscure words, let me add.

Frankly, I was impressed. What’s nice is that I don’t have be online to use it since I just have an iPod Touch. (There is an option to look up further meanings which requires you to be online, but I didn’t need to at the time.)

You can learn about the other features (phrasebook, word of the day, word game) using the links below.

Oh, by the way, they have a video podcast as well which is also free.

Where to go:
SpanishDict App on iTunes
SpanishDict Blog (post about the app)
SpanishDict Video Podcast on iTunes
Los juegos del hambre

Free Online Magazine: VeinteMundos

Through the CASLS (Center for Applied Second Language Studies) newsletter I learned about a fairly new online magazine totally in Spanish called VeinteMundos. Here’s the information from their site:

Journalists from Spain and Latin America write interesting reports and articles about everyday life and culture in their homelands. Alongside, Latinos tell us about their experiences in Europe, and Europeans and Americans about their experiences and travels in Spain and Latin America –all in Spanish, of course.

The texts are accompanied by key vocabulary and are written in varying degrees of difficulty, so that you can practice and refresh your Spanish in an efficient and enjoyable way.

An issue is released every month, free of charge, which includes a PDF version of the magazine, an audio version and a vocabulary list. Also, there are resources for teachers such as teacher guides, vocabulary lists, mp3s and more.

Where to go:
VeinteMundos
VeinteMundos for Teachers
CASLS