Notes in Spanish
Description:
This site offers podcasts from Spain on current topics (e.g. Harry Potter and Facebook). Podcasts and sample worksheets are free. Other worksheets are available for purchase.
Activity Ideas:
Interpretive: After listening to one of the podcasts, students can write five true-false questions and be prepared to quiz a classmate. Another activity would be for students to complete a worksheet that focuses on specific vocabulary, content and Spanish difficulties.
Interpersonal: Students can complete an information gap activity.
Presentational: Students could respond to one of the podcasts either in their own podcast, letter or e-mail to the speaker.
Audiria
Description:
This site has podcasts categorized by level of difficulty and content. It also provides videos to go along with songs as well as exercises to check for listening comprehension.
Activity Ideas:
Based on podcast chapter #646 "La ONCE":
Interpretive: Students complete a matching activity based on what they have heard, discuss the logo that ONCE uses and answer other questions following the podcast.
Interpersonal: Half the students are given fake money. The other half have to come up with a "pitch" to convince a classmate to donate his/her money to ONCE in two minutes. They then switch partners and pair up with a different "wealthy" student. The students with the money will only donate to the student who most convinced them of the worthiness of his/her cause. Student having the money will give a report as to why the winner got their money.
Presentational: Students then have to create their own non-profit organization. They will make a brochure with the bullet points of their own organization.
Duolingo Spanish Podcasts
Description:
The podcasts on this site tell interesting stories in a great format for students. The narrator speaks in English to set up the story and the characters' dialogue is in Spanish.
Spanish Phone Conversations
Description:
A resource put together by the Defense Language Institute which provides many phone conversations in different dialects of Spanish (Argentinian, Cuban, Ecuadorean, Honduran, Mexican and Peruvian). Conversations can be searched by dialect, level of difficulty or topic.
Activity Ideas:
Interpretive: Students are presented with three categories Person, Place, and Thing. After listening to a teacher-selected recording from Spanish Phone Conversations, students have to guess the Person (dialect), Place (places mentioned in the podcast) and Thing (the main things mentioned in the conversation). If the task is too difficult, students are given options within each category to guide their selections.
Interpersonal: Students sit back to back to act out a phone conversation given one of the same categories (e.g. Finances or Daily Life) presented on the Spanish Phone Conversations site.
Presentational: Student focus on two different dialects presented in the site (Argentinian, Cuban, Honduran, Mexican, Ecuadorean, or Peruvian). Then they are given a 5-6 line dialogue (e.g. Hi how are you? Fine…and you?) and have to rehearse the dialogue in the two dialects, then present to the class. The class must guess which dialogues were selected.
Spanish Listening
Description:
This site provides short videos to improve students' listening comprehension that can be searched by level or by topic. Students can take a vocabulary or video content quiz on the site as well.
Audio Lingua
Description:
Here you can find hundreds of short podcasts in Spanish. Podcasts can be searched by keyword/topic or by one of six proficiency levels.
Activity Ideas:
Interpretive: Have students choose a topic, search podcasts based on that topic and listen to 3 different ones. For example, students could choose "transporte" and would find about 15 podcasts related to that. Afterward, students could answer some basic compare and contrast questions about the three and some open-ended questions relating the experiences of the speaker to their own.
Interpersonal: Students go to a given topic (either designated by the teacher or chosen by them) and listen to one podcast on that topic. As they listen, they write interview questions that person could have been asked to generate their response. They then need to ask their interview questions to a classmate and see how their classmate's responses compare to that of the speaker of the podcast.
Presentational: For 5 different podcasts, students take the 1-2 sentence summary shown just above each podcast and add 1-2 sentences more that would enhance the podcast's description.
Radio ambulante
Description:
This radio program provides many interesting Latin American news stories. Some topics are geared toward a more mature audience. Podcasts are between 15 and 30 minutes and do include a few spoken ads. Several have a transcript available as well.
Activity Ideas:
Using the podcast called "El superhéroe"
Interpretive: After listening to Menganno's description of himself, students must draw his super heroe costume.
Interpersonal: Instead of fighting crime, Menganno does good deeds around town. Students can listen to the things he does and then fill in a "find someone who..." activity to compare good deeds they and their classmates have done to help out others in their community.
Presentational: Students create a game called "¿Qué harías tú?" similar to the game "Scruples". For example, "You just witness an accident on the street but you are late to meet a friend. What would you do?" They then ask their questions in a small group and choose their favorite 3 questions to ask the whole class.
Lengalia
Description:
Offers 22 different podcasts about Spanish-speaking countries. Podcasts about Spain are divided into proficiency levels. Podcasts on Latin America are informative and interesting. Native speakers speak clearly and at a moderate pace.
Activity Ideas:
Interpretive: Using the podcasts from Spain, students answer basic true/false and multiple choice questions based on what they heard about the given topic.
Interpersonal: Students each listen to three podcasts. They then have a BINGO board to complete with squares such as "Find someone who listened to the podcast about food in Spain". Below this statement students will write the name of the person who fulfills that description and one thing that their classmate learned about that topic in order to "earn" the square. The first one to complete a line on their BINGO board wins.
Presentational: Students are assigned a podcast from Latin America. They listen to the podcast, take notes as they listen, and then create a tourist brochure for this country based on the information they heard in the podcast.
The Touch of Sound
Description:
This website offers authentic audio clips from geographic locations from the around the world. The site is divided into urban, nature, and ocean sounds. The sounds can be set to autoplay and each one is accompanied by a map of the location of the sound. For example, you may hear a street in Cuba, a restaurant in Morocco, or the Galapagos Islands.
Activity Ideas:
Interpretive: Let students listen to the sound with their eyes closed, but do not give them the location. Tell them they are going to visualize the location based on the sounds. Have them open their eyes and fill out a graphic organizer asking them to predict locations (e.g. a restaurant or a soccer game).
Interpersonal: The class practices improvisational techniques. One of the sounds is selected but not revealed to the students. A small group of 2-3 students listens twice to the sound and then must spontaneously act out a skit that focuses on where they think they are. Another version would involve telling groups their location in secret, then asking the class to guess the location. For an easier version, the various locations could be written on the board to help the rest of the class guess.
Presentational: Students select one of the sounds clips. Next, the write an essay about that location. For example, if they hear a soccer game audio clip, they must imagine who is playing? Where are they playing? Why are they playing? The essay could involve student's five senses as well. What do they smell where they are? What can they see? What can they taste?
Spanish Obsessed
Description:
Offers many free podcasts and conversations divided by level. Topics include grammar, culture, and daily life.
The Open University
Description:
Beginner and Intermediate-level podcasts are provided on a wide range of topics.