Christmas

Christmas

Noche de Paz, modernised version by La Oreja de Van Gogh


Videoele Feliz Navidad

Christmas traditions explained and illustrated (A2)


La Cabalgata de los Reyes Magos

The Three Kings Parade in Madrid.


Feliz Navidad
José Feliciano´s Christmas song with lyrics.


Roscón de Reyes

Three King´s cake recipe

Noche de Paz - La Oreja de Van Gogh

Christmas song by La Oreja de Van Gogh

Noche de Paz

The joys of learning a foreign language

The beautiful benefits of learning a foreign language

English for Beginners


It's never too late to learn a foreign language, as this simple yet effective Polish Christmas advert beautifully demonstrates.

A rare treat these days, the advert presents a story that many of us can relate to in one way or another.

In a world increasingly interconnected under its globalising pull, learning a foreign language becomes ever more significant, bridging the gap across nations and cultures to open our minds, strengthen mutual understanding and develop relationships, not to mention its beneficial role in enhancing mental agility and delaying cognitive decline.

What a fantastic, proactive approach to the vicissitudes of life!

Simple but helpful online interactive games

My Spanish Games 

For complete beginners learning the numbers, the elephant counting game is good.

The vowels game is also useful for pronunciation and spelling. The vocabulary is related to animals.

Spanish Tuition

Spanish Tuition

Interactive, lively sessions based on:

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·         The use of authentic material, including video, music and media

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·         Games, information gap activities and role plays

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·         A dynamic approach that places the emphasis on the learner's production of meaningful and real communication

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·         A relaxed and supportive atmosphere where learners feel comfortable to practice new structures with confidence

Courses

Adults

Whether you are a complete beginner or are returning to your studies after a pause, you will be working at your own pace, following a tailor made programme that will suit your own needs.

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You can choose to study through an individualised programme of one-to-one sessions or you can benefit from the social element of working within a group. 

Individual tuition can maximise your exposure to the language with higher concentration of speaking practice and interaction with your tutor, while learning with peers can boost energy levels as you feel the social and motivational benefits of a group dynamic. 

Travelling Around Spain Game

Children

Immerse your child in a world of songs, stories and magic and share the gift of a second language.

Fun and exciting Spanish programmes for preschoolers, KS1 and KS2 children.

Friendly, creative and dynamic teaching

Extensive treasury of inspiring and imaginative resources

Nurturing children´s natural curiosity

Developing a lifelong love for languages

Children explore the language through a multi-sensory approach. New vocabulary and structures become easily absorbed within an environment that encourages children to visualize, hear and act out new content through movement, games, music and crafts. 

The Fishing Game

"If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart."

Nelson Mandela

Pre Prep Numbers 1 to 5

Learning to count to 5 can be so much more fun with the help of a soft cuddly cat, five little mice finger puppets, a pair of black cat ears and a lively song performed by Duo Tiempo de Sol.

Cinco ratoncitos vi

I made very simple mice finger puppets out of paper, pink felt and black felt tip pen.

Before listening to the song, I made the five little mice come out of the house one by one. As I counted them out I put them on the fingers of my left hand. The cat came next, miaowing first before revealing itself. The children laughed when the mice moved to one side at the sight of the cat!

I said the rhyme slowly so the children got used to it first. When the cat appeared, it took one of the mice and we counted how many mice were left in the hand. We did the same for the remaining four mice, counting them out each time the cat took one.

On the next lesson, we watched the song and used the finger puppets to act out the story. The children took turns to wear the black cat´s ears and remove one of the mice from my hand.

At the end of the song, we counted the mice again one by one as the children put them back on my fingers for a last goodbye.

A1. Food and Drink

A1. Food and drink

1. BBC Mi Vida Loca

Episode 2

2. Food and drink flashcards 

Food and Drink Quizlet

3. Numbers 1 to 15 flashcards from www.cram.com

Numbers 1 to 15 quizlet

4. Numbers uno, dos, tres, (cuatro), cinco, seis, siete with the Cuban rythm

Salsa cubana

4. Ordering food and drinks structures flashcards

Food and drink structures quizlet

5. Pasos App Lesson 2, ¿qué quieres?

Pasos 1

6. 123Teachme flashcards

123Teachme food flashcards

Points to take into account when going through this particular deck, including differences between European and Latin American Spanish varieties:

	Latin America	Spain
8	el banano	el plátano
18	la papa	la patata
20	el durazno	el melocotón
26	los vegetales	las verduras
40	el jugo	el zumo
59	not much used	not much used
66	los caldos	?
73		los champiñones (wrongly spelt)
74	el refrigerio	el snack / el tentempié / el piscolabis
87	vaca	la ternera
103	la carne molida	la carne picada
106		el sandwich
107		los espagueti
111	Specific food item: el plátano es un alimento muy nutritivo ´Comida´: food we eat (in general)
115	el lote	el maíz
132	las papas	las patatas
129	el camote	el boniato
131	carne de res	la ternera

7. Ordering breakfast you tube clip

El gringo y el desayuno

8. Numbers 10 to 1000 song, from Basho and friends

Números 10-1000

9. Basil gives Manuel a language lesson...

Fawlty Towers

See what happens when Basil mixes a bit of Italian in his instructions to Manuel and how Manuel interprets Basil´s ´attempts´ to speak Spanish.

Un, dos, tres...

¿Cómo se dice ´butter´ en español?

¿Qué significa ´burro´?

10. Baking in Spain

Snippets of some of Spain´s culinary treasures

Open Learn Baking in Spain

Box of Tricks

Box of Tricks Modern Languages

Education and Technology blog

• List of general educational resources
• Modern Languages posts

Languages online

Victoria Government (Australia)

Languages Online Spanish

Excellent website with topic based interactive activities in Spanish and other languages.

• Songs
• Interactive whiteboard activities
• Posters
• Flashcards
• Worksheets
• Games

Euronews

News clips in Spanish accompanied by the written report (an almost literal transcript, except for a few omissions).

Euronews Noticias

BBC Mi Vida Loca

Excellent interactive series to learn and practise Spanish:

BBC Mi Vida Loca

• Topic based episodes with an underlying mystery plot
• Excellent views of life in Madrid
• Interactive element (you are also a character with a mission)
• A learning section (with exercises and printable versions of the vocabulary, grammar and practice pages)
• Transcripts
• Subtitles
• A talking phrasebook
• Authentic dialogues with real people 
• Very high quality production, dramatisation and acting

A very enjoyable way to enhance your learning experience.

La Marcha del Alfabeto

La Marcha del Alfabeto

Spanish alphabet song (military style) by Barbara MacAurthur

El alfabeto

Pronunciación de marcas famosas

Pronunciación de marcas famosas

Pronunciation of famous brands

Videoele clip with a list of brands and the way they are pronounced in Spanish.

With the exception of ´google´, ´hyundai´, ´renault´, ´vodafone´, ´windows´ and ´volkswagen´, the pronunciation of international brands following the regular pattern of the Spanish alphabet can be a useful way to verify the consistency of its general rule, ie every letter is pronounced the same way in all contexts.

Once you know the code you can apply it every single time.

Pronunciación Marcas

El Alfabeto

El alfabeto

BBC Languages has some useful information about the Spanish alphabet. Apparently, the page has been archived but you can still access the mp3 file with the pronunciation of the alphabet.

El alfabeto español

Songs

A1

Bailando

Enrique Iglesias, Gente de Zona and Descemer

Mainly present tense with just a few –ing forms (bailando, subiendo, bajando etc…)

Bailando

Volar

Álvaro Soler

Presente de indicativo. Regular and irregular verbs.

Volar

La Gozadera

Latin American countries

It might be hard to understand at times but it can be good if we just focus on the names of Latin American countries. There are also Zumba clips with this song.

A good idea for an activity is to have a handout with the map of Latin America and to write the names of the countries where Spanish is spoken as we listen to the song.

La Gozadera

Atención: There is a mistake in one line: it´s not ´el mundo se está sumando a la gente de los latinos´ but: ´el mundo se está sumando a la fiesta de los latinos´

Cuando me levanto

Kiko Veneno

Reflexive verbs

Cuando me Levanto

Luka

Suzanne Vega in Spanish

Very simple structures like ´Me llamo luka´ and very slow.

Just one or two simple pasts (fue) but it´s a good song to do at any level.

Luka

Me gustas tú

Good song to practice ´gustar´ (lots of ´me gusta/me gustan´) but it could also be quite confusing, because the title shows a different form that doesn´t seem to follow the apparent simple pattern. 

Edited Manu Chao song (one line in the song has been modified)

Me gustas tú

Esto es África

Shakira

It might be hard to understand at times but the chorus is easy and simple: Esto es África.

Esto es África

A2

Brindo por ti

Macaco

Mainly present tense with a subjunctive in the chorus ´brindemos´ (let´s have a toast).

Brindo por ti

Abriendo Puertas

Gloria Estefan

Some present tense but also progressive tense: vamos a + infinitive and a few –ing forms.

It can also serve as a New Year Greeting type of song.

Abriendo puertas

La risa es Buena

Che Sudaka

La risa es buena

B1/B2

Érase una vez (un lobito bueno)

Pretérito imperfecto

Short and simple, though poetic.

Érase una vez un lobito bueno

Inmortal

La Oreja de Van Gogh

Pretérito indefinido y pretérito imperfecto

Inmortal

B2/C1

La Visita

LOVG

Presente de subjuntivo (puede ser que)

La visita

No dudaría

Rosario

Condicional with pretérito imperfecto de subjuntivo (si pudiera…)

No dudaría

Paperman, ¿cómo está?                                         A1/A2                                                              

This animated short film presents a good opportunity to practise the topic of expressing emotions/feelings.

Students can choose the right adjective to describe the protagonists´emotions at different stages of the story (contento, triste, sorprendido, frustrado etc...)

Here´s the link on vimeo:

Paperman

 

Fishing game

Fishing game

When I was in Australia I often visited Kidspot for ideas and inspiration. One of the great things about teaching is the ability to make connections that you develop as you experience with different ideas, methods and materials.

Among kidspot's great ideas for a (rare) rainy day was this fantastic DIY magnetic fishing game:

Make a Magnetic Fishing Game

When thinking about ways to practise their numbers, I suddenly pictured the kids at school playing the game.

· Instead of using paper fish I used felt (just a very simple outline).

· I made 11 sets of yellow fish (0 to 10)

   and 11 sets of orange fish (0 to 10)

·  I also made 2 sets of pink fish for the + and - sign (we used these later for a card game).

·  I printed off 2 sets of numbers in Spanish (cero, uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco, seis, siete, ocho, nueve, diez) in large font size, as well as 2 sets of 'más´ and ´menos´ words.

·  I attached the words to the fish with paper clips.

·  I took two bamboo sticks from the garden (any stick would work),  making sure they were smooth (no splinters).

·  Because the bamboo sticks had been lying in the garden for a while they had been under the rain once or twice so they´d become a bit soft and flexible. With a cooking string I threaded a needle and I made a small hole at the end of the stick, where the bamboo is hollow. I took the needle out through the open end and made a knot.

·  At the end of the string I attached a fridge magnet.

·  I then drew two large fishbowls on the board (one yellow bowl and one orange bowl) and I wrote the numbers 0 to 10 and the two maths signs in each of them, leaving a space for the fish with the right Spanish equivalent to be placed there.

·  In class, I put the fish on the floor and I divided the class into two teams, the yellow team and the orange team.

·  The game consisted in having a member of each time come out the front to fish a certain number from the pool (or fish the numbers in order, depending on their knowledge of the numbers) and place it in the right fishbowl (orange or yellow) next to the right number or sign. I had already put some bluetack next to the numbers/signs on the fishbowl.

·  I had previously set up a handout to practise numbers so that those that were not fishing had something to work on. I initially tried the activity once with all the children huddled around the fish and I soon realised it can all get a bit too intense and loud! The handout definitely worked!

The children loved this fishing game, including the older ones. It can be a great way to revise or consolidate any vocabulary, not just numbers.