Spanish NewsBites: Teachable, Catchy Current Events

I love this website! Produced by a couple of teachers in Madrid, Spanish NewsBites is a blog of current events and topics designed for self-study and perfectly applicable to classroom use.

It can be hard to find authentic, current news stories that are a) interesting and b) graded, and the stories here are both. Plus they are really well-selected, truly covering "hot topics" in the Spanish-speaking world (Vargas Llosa's Nobel prize, a new film about the Spanish Civil War, Ferrán Adriá's food experimentation, etc.).

The articles/blog posts are organized by both level (Inicial-Superior) and topic on a bar to the right, and there are accompanying exercises and PDFs for printing with each. If students use the website for self-study, they can listen to an audio recording of the text while reading it, which I love.

A great resource for increasing motivation and enjoyment with real current events, culture, and technology. Nicely graded reading activities for increasing reading skills as well. Quite a find!

Don Quijote and a little bit of culture

I found this website for Don Quijote, a company that provides in-country Spanish courses in Spain and Latin America. Their website has lots of resources for teachers and for student self-study.

On this page, the website has links to many different activities: games, verb conjugations, idiomatic phrases, words of the day, song lyrics and more. The games would be fun for student self-study, though they are more "fun" than "serious." What I like most here are the Popular Sayings and Jokes. I think these would be a great addition to any Spanish class. Imagine having a "joke of the day" or "idiom of the day"- what a fun extra to increase your student interest and enjoyment!

One interesting part of the website are the Profiles of Spanish Speaking Countries. At the click of a button, students have access to maps, history, practical travel information and cultural information for any Spanish speaking country. Disappointingly, the information is in English, but for lower level students it could be a nice resource for preparing a cultural presentation.

Though a bit simple, this website has some unique resources to offer, especially the jokes and idioms.

Pop Culture and Creativity

I love finding passionate, inspirational teachers! Zachary Jones is a Spanish teacher in Georgia (the state, not the country) who started Actualidades: Learning Spanish Through Pop Culture. Besides its extremely hip design, this blog offers lots of great resources that really grab student attention.

There's a lot to look at here. Click on the extremely authentic and contemporary "Carteles de cine" on the right for a series of pelipareja activities in which students pair a short movie synopsis with its poster. These are printer-friendly and updated frequently. The activity seems like a pre-reading exercise more than a complete activity in itself, but would be a great jumping off point to set a context or build further activities.

I love using pop music to introduce students to a culture, and the ClozeLine section of the blog has songs from Mexico, Spain, Colombia, Puerto Rico and more. Each song has an accompanying sheet with a cloze exercise, highlighted vocabulary words, grammar points, cultural focus and comprehension questions. Wonderful and very fun!

There's LOTS to explore on this website- have fun! The site's creator is obviously enjoying himself as he blogs.

A Professor's Page

Barbara Kuczun Nelson, a professor at Colby College in Maine, has such a devoted following among her students that there is a Facebook fan club in her honor (seriously, see "Barbara Kuczun Nelson was sent from heaven").

Her Spanish Language & Culture website is clean, easy to use and full of resources for both teachers and students. Originally called Spanish Grammar Exercises, the site focuses on grammar points, which are listed neatly on one side for easy reference.

The cultural focus is pervasive. Authentic songs, stories and videos (with subtitles) from Spain and Latin America are used to introduce and practice grammar, with loads of audio and visual support, self-checking exercises and verb charts. There are mini-cultural lessons like this one sobre el Día de Los Muertos that would be great for classroom use, and time dictation exercises for students to review on their own.

A great resource for culture and grammar review!