This page is to provide a variety of diverse pedagogical resources for Spanish language learners, including lesson plan materials and outlines, music & playlists, bilingual jokes & funnies, Spanish movies & TV shoes, applications, and various other daily tech ideas for learning.
Materials from events
Pedagogical workshop "New Trends in the Dynamic Language Classroom" - Saint Louis University, March 2019. Here you can access Faculty Presentations and Lesson Plans provided by the attendees. Faculty presentations discuss corrective feedback, hybrid course design, collaboration and community-based language learning for a German media course, performance approach in language teaching, sustained content & collaborative teaching, and automated speech recognition. Lesson plans include a variety of lesson topics for ESL, French, Italian, Russian, and Spanish.
🎵 Music
Necesitamos la música para muchas cosas en la vida, especialmente para el aprendizaje de idiomas y de cultura.
Music is wonderful, and wonderfully essential in second language and culture learning.
Spotify - Feel free to follow my Spotify playlist of amazing Spanish tunes, oldies, newbies, Top 40 hits, as well as lesser known gems. As I curate this list, I will make note of the cultural and linguistic content of the song.
Spotify Playlist - Profe Jones' Spanish Playlist • user name: Joneslc2
Listing of song name, artist, and potential pedagogical value in the Spanish language classroom (i.e. vocabulary, culture, pronunciation, etc.). The working project can be found here.
🎶 If you are interested in multiple languages, check out my Polyglot Café playlist!
(Kristin Marena, Spanish Teacher at Ringgold High School, PA shares her thoughts on "Teaching World Languages with Music")
🤣 Funnies found online
Video clips
Demetri Martin Live: At the time - stand up comedy set, "quesadilla / little cheese girl". Netflix, at 18:20-18:40 . This 20 second clip is a fun way to warm up students into class with a little laughter. I just show the clip, write "Quesadilla" on the board, and ask them the root of Martin's joke. i.e. why does he say "little cheese girl" in his translation of "quesadilla"?
Jokes
🥛 "What if soy milk is just regular milk introducing itself in Spanish?"
Q: "What does a chair say when it leaves a room?" A: "Silla" 💺
So, a Spanish magician was on stage getting ready to prepare his trick. He moved about, waved his hands, and counted to three...uno...dos...and he disappeared without a trace (tres).
Q: ¿Qué hace una abeja en el gimnasio? A: Zumba!
Una manzana está esperando el autobús. Llega una banana y le pregunta: "¿Hace mucho que usted espera?"Y la manzana responde: "No, yo siempre fui manzana."
¿Cómo se escribe "nariz" en inglés?– No sé– Correcto!
Q: ¿Cómo haces para que un pan hable? A: Lo pones en agua toda la noche y al día siguiente está blando.
📱 Mobile Tech Tool favorites (in progress)
🐦 why I like them in less than 280 characters:
Social Media
🐦 Images, sounds, & stories are essential elements for language learning. Instagram offers learners a highly visual and auditory experience in engaging learners in their L2, including posting gallery images with captions in the L2 or sharing stories while discoursing in the L2.
Snapchat - Snap Map & Explore
🐦 Exploring stories from across the world from the palm of their hand, Snap Map allows students to travel virtually to their target country, and in seconds witness first hand occurrences, while experiencing both audio and visual input of the target language and culture.
🐦 Highly popular among young generations, the 3rd most downloaded video app is a social media space where students can create, share, discover, and express themselves in a low-stakes, fun environment, centered on singing, speaking, lip-syncing, and even comedy.
Podcasts
Duolingo Podcast Spanish: Fascinating Stories in Easy-To-Understand Spanish
Podcast Project (podcasts in Spanish with comprehension lessons)
Messaging & More
Avatars
🐦 Creating an avatar in the TL offers LLs the opportunity to practice high frequency vocab like physical features & colors. Creartuavatar is pedagogically advantageous because while the prompts are in the L2, they are supported by the image, thus making it a fun and easy activity.
🐦 Building out and incorporating a Bitmoji into learners’ daily CMC practices is also a way to drive personal motivation and language creativity. *The variety of Bitmoji expressive stickers also facilitates many opportunities for language learning review, games, and activities.
Text Messaging
🐦 Language learning is a social and communicative process, and so is texting. Our students are texting more than ever, & we should encourage them to do so in their L2, thus increasing exposure to input, providing real-world practice settings, & perhaps even enhancing motivation.
Emoji
🐦
Mobile apps for news
Social & Multimedia Learning
YouTube Channels
🐦 Reyes’ videos offer a range in content and duration, allowing viewers to hear an authentic Castilian accent present a diverse array of engaging material regarding themes including informal and colloquial Spanish, as well as grammar, vocabulary, and much more.
Movies - the Americas
Coco (Coco) (MX)
Diarios de motocicleta (AR) (Motorcycle Diaries)
El ciudadano ilustre (SP & AR) (The Distinguished Citizen)
Lusers, los amigos que no se eligen (Losers, Friends who are not chosen) (Argentina, Chile, Peru)
No se aceptan devoluciones (Instructions not included) (MX)
Roma (MX) (Rome)
Selena (US)
Solteras (MX) (Ready to mingle)
También la lluvia (Even the rain) (Bolivia)
Y tu mamá también (MX)
Series - the Americas
Casa de flores (MX) (House of flowers)
Jane the Virgin (US)
Narcos (CO & MX)
Movies - Spain
Diecisiete (Seventeen)
El laberinto del fauno (Pan's Labyrinth)
Ocho apellidos vascos (Spanish Affair)
Ocho apellidos catalanes (Spanish Affair 2)
Palmeras en la nieva (Palm Trees in the Snow)
Todos lo saben (Everybody Knows)
Vivir dos veces (Live twice, love once)
Series - Spain
Alta Mar (High Seas)
El desorden que dejas (The Mess You Leave Behind)
Casa de papel (Money Heist)
Mar de Plástico (Plastic Sea)
Las chicas de cable (Cable Girls)
Vis a vis (Locked up)
Vivir sin permiso (Unauthorized living)
Other film related resources
More ideas, articles & resources to support you in your Spanish language learning endeavor
• "Extending Language Learning Outside of the Classroom: 13 tips" - a publication of the Graduate Certificate in Language Teaching with Technology, University of Colorado-Boulder. (*cough* "Encourage students to text each other in the target language."*cough* 😉 )