Happy Hour Spanish

As usual, I ran across this resource as I was spending a bit of time this morning on Twitter. Happy Hour Spanish is a fairly new site (2011) that features videocasts, podcasts and exercises to help you learn Spanish and about the Spanish culture.

Hayley, a California native, was a student of Maider who was teaching classes in Bilbao (her native city) when they decided to start the Happy Hour Spanish program. More information from the About Us page:

After becoming fast friends, we decided to embark on creating the ultimate language learning program based on our unique experience in both teaching and learning foreign languages. We have designed Happy Hour Spanish as a program that teaches Spanish grammar while also giving you an immersion-style experience of Spanish culture and the Spanish lifestyle.  We like to say you can consider our program a cross between “Rick Steve’s Europe” and “Rosetta Stone”.  Follow along with us on our video tours throughout Spain and enjoy all the sights and sounds the Iberian Peninsula has to offer while feeling what it is like to be immersed in a foreign language…

With the podcasts, you’ll find transcripts and translations. Accompanying the videocasts are transcripts, translations and printable exercises (beginner and intermediate).

Here is look at one of their videos about La Boqueria in Barcelona:

Actualidades Revista

One of my favorite blogs now will be publishing a downloadable magazine which will feature printable versions of some of the articles from Actualidades: Blogueando Para Aprender as well as exercises including crossword puzzles, reading comprehension questions and more geared toward high school Spanish language students.

Take a look at the magazine’s masthead:

 
I think this is brilliant. What a wonderful resource this will be for high school/college teachers!

Where to go:
Actualidades Revista – first issue
Actualidades: Blogueando Para Aprender

Over at the Foreign Language Fun Blog…

This evening I was reading through my blog list when this review at the Foreign Language Fun blog caught my attention. Diane, a French teacher, who is encouraging her sons to learn Spanish as well, wrote a post about Sing-a-Lingo. To me her review has clout because of her background in education and foreign languages.  So, I decided to click on the video:

And I have to admit, I was hooked as well. This music is fun and I could definitely see young children learning Spanish by listening to it.

Where to go:
Foreign Language Fun Blog
Sing-a-Lingo
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Around the Twitterverse…

I haven’t had much time to blog, but I’ve run across some great resources just by spending a little time on Twitter the last couple of weeks. Here are some good finds:

RT @josepicardo: New from Boxoftricks: Fun, engaging resources for the independent learner of Spanish http://www.boxoftricks.net/?p=1187

RT @icpjones: World Language Resources -- http://bit.ly/2XGxML

RT @spanglishbaby: New post about 4 bilingual and Spanish book publishers. Know more? Please leave link in comments http://bit.ly/16siln

RT @spanishonly: Some interesting articles about Extensive Reading for Second Language Acquisition. http://www.benikomason.net

RT @bencurtis: Fun Notes in Spanish video contest, big prizes, spread the word! http://bit.ly/vY0Xf

RT @yocrezco: Animal Scramble, de Wild Planet http://bit.ly/1a5hvz

RT @spanglishbaby: Finally found the PBS media player en ESPAÑOL! It’s here: http://bit.ly/Fq9h5

Ver vs. Mirar http://bit.ly/uxPES

Where to go:
To follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/spanishblog
To follow others click on the names after the @ sign. (You’ll have to sign up with Twitter first.)
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Blog Spotlight: English Tricks

Huh? Wait a minute… isn’t this a blog for learning Spanish? It certainly is and that’s why I thought I should bring this particular blog to your attention because you might not have noticed it otherwise.

Ramses from the Spanish-Only.com blog, first brought it to my attention via Twitter. (Seriously, Twitter is a great resource for finding things like this.) I started subscribing to it immediately and have kept up with it ever since.

The blog author who is a native Spanish speaker writes about English expressions and vocabulary. First, what the expression or word means in Spanish, then example sentences in English followed by the same sentences in Spanish.

An example from the blog:

Once and for all

El equivalente en español es: “de una vez por todas” y se usa para mostrar que algo termina definitivamente, después de un gran esfuerzo o de muchos intentos.

The pipe has been leaking for months. I’m going to fix it once and for all.

La tubería lleva goteando meses. Voy a repararla de una vez por todas.

Where to go:
English Tricks: http://www.englishtricks.com/
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Added some new blogs

I’m not sure if you have noticed my blog list (lower left-hand side), but just in case, I thought I would point out some new ones that I have just added in the last week or so.
More Spanish – Lesson plans & technology for the Spanish classroom is written by Sherry Amorocho, a high school Spanish teacher. It’s fairly new, but looks very promising.
Spanglish Baby – Two Latina moms talking about raising their children bilingual.
¡Vámonos! is written by Lisa Stevens, a primary language teacher in the UK who is also quite a techie.
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Two blogs - technology and languages

This evening through Twitter I found two wonderful blogs. They talk about using technology in the modern foreign language classroom.

The first one is Integrating ICT into the MFL Classroom written by Joe Dale, a French middle school teacher. The second blog is called ICT and Education - Box of Tricks written by José Picardo, a high school foreign language teacher.

Not much else to say except, please go take a look at them. Come back and let me know your opinions. For me, I think it's so important to introduce and integrate technology into the classroom, but as a tool to help students learn, not for the technology itself.
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