Authentic Sources
January 10, 2013
Looking for a few songs to make talking about the present a little more engaging? Take a look at this post about stem-changing verbs. Or try the songs I’ve picked for this series, starting with this one. Note: I believe that students’ primary challenge is in speaking and so you’ll notice that these are primarily […]
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January 4, 2013
It’s no secret that I advocate using almost all authentic materials from the beginning. Using authentic materials with novices is both possible and critical. Here’s an example of an activity you could do with novice learners in a unit on entertainment or technology, with communicative goals like expressing likes or dislikes or talking about your […]
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October 12, 2012
Using authentic materials is an ideological battleground for language teachers. No matter how much people agree that it’s important for all levels, I still seem to hear so much uncertainty as to how to do it, particularly for novices. –But what if they don’t understand? What can they do with it? How can we help […]
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September 17, 2012
At the beginning of the year I was curious what problems or dilemmas people were facing this year. @lintperez commented her current challenge is “trying to get ready for standards-based grading and everything that comes with it!” What standard are you using for your lesson planning and assessment? Here are some “standards” I have used […]
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September 4, 2012
A song for feelings
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One of my students actually brought to my attention this new Reggaetón sensation, Joey Montana. La melodía had become one of her favorite new songs. I ended up adding him to my Pandora station (linked at the page footer). So the other day one of his new songs came on: Sin ti. It strikes me as […]
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August 28, 2012
Myth #7: Spanish Mike is a taco.
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It’s about time I picked up the task of finishing my myths posts! For the original post, click here. Myth #7: Media produced for language learners counts as authentic materials (or, “The ‘First Semester of Spanish Love Song’ is the best video ever!”) Most media in the world language classroom is a taco. It’s not just […]
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August 20, 2012
Menus
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Whether you’re beginning to dabble outside the textbook or you kicked it out a long time ago, one of your greatest resources will certainly be the wealth of authentic material on the internet. From shopping malls to gaming, your students can interact with a seemingly infinite variety of engaging materials. If you do a food […]
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August 17, 2012
2019 update: Full ebooks available As of October 2014, I made the in-depth, professionally designed ebook guide for Cajas de cartón available for sale. In the spring of 2019, the Esperanza renace guide was released. You can purchase either guide or get the guide to La ciudad de las bestias for free on my ebooks page. The ebooks improve on the […]
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August 13, 2012
I posted a long time ago (like, three years ago) about this video from tu.tv, El Abecedario, spoofing Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. Well, it turned out the site was blocked at my school, and then with the move to the new site all my embedded YouTube videos broke, and while going through those […]
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July 20, 2012
More uses for Amor de mi tierra
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I wrote about the Carlos Vives song “Amor de mi tierra” in this post about songs with repetitions of voy + a. Here are a few more things you can do with the song: There’s only one unique occurrence of this subjunctive for influence, but it’s a nice line and it’s repeated: Quiero que lleves en ti la […]
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July 13, 2012
Songs for ‘duele’
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Using the phrase me duele is an important part of any health unit, which usually consists of exercises intended to help students explain how they’re feeling. I’ve seen a lot of assessments that involve being able to go to a doctor and talk to him about what’s wrong. With that in mind, here are five great […]
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November 21, 2009
Voy + a + infinitive is a fun construction because it gives students the ability to talk about the future without too much trouble. It’s also fun to teach through music because there are several good songs for it. The first is ‘Irreemplazable‘ by Beyonce, always fun because the students know the English version. It […]
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