Focus Publishing
Cinema for Spanish Conversation, Third Edition and ¡De película!: Spanish Conversation through Film both offer an innovative way to facilitate conversations in Spanish while retaining the high level of interest that today’s modern students demand. Movies offer natural language in context and provide a context in history and culture. Cinema for Spanish Conversation includes previewing exercises, background information, vocabulary, cultural material, and post-viewing exercises in each chapter. Using sixteen engaging and thought-provoking feature films, students hear Spanish as it is spoken in different countries and in a wide variety of situations and are encouraged to listen to and converse about the social and cultural aspects of Spanish-speaking countries around the world. As with the parent text, ¡De pelicula! provides a context for listening to the film through exercises and vocabulary but also divides each chapter into four segments allowing educators more options of showing the film over an extended period of time. This text covers eight films and it may be used as a primary or ancillary text, providing flexibility for courses that cannot accommodate an entire semester of film or where resources are more limited, like high school courses or language courses taught in the evening.
Little Pim
Little Pim is an award-winning foreign language learning series for babies, toddlers and preschoolers. The program, specifically designed for children under six, combines cartoon animation and real kids, teaching words and phrases for everyday activities.
Little Pim is the brainchild of Julia Pimsleur Levine, an award winning documentary filmmaker who, as the mother of two, wanted to create a top quality, fun language-learning series for babies and young children. Julia was inspired by her own bilingual childhood: she is the daughter of Dr. Paul Pimsleur, who pioneered the international best-selling foreign language audio teaching method. In determining how best to approach creating effective materials for kids, she immersed herself in the latest scientific research regarding language acquisition and brain development, worked with leading neuroscientist Dr. April Benasich, and drew from her own experience as a language teacher, filmmaker and mother.
Little Pim is available in Spanish, with DVDs featuring the Entertainment Immersion Method of native speakers, optional English subtitles, and themed repetition so children and parents can easily learn a new language.
Winner of 18 awards including the 2010 National Parenting Center Seal of Approval, Parents’ Choice, Dr. Toy 2010 Best Audio Visual Award, the Creative Child 2010 Media of the Year Award, and recently featured on the Today Show, Little Pim offers a host of different ways to learn.
Mango Languages
Mango’s K-12 Educator Edition makes a great supplement to course material for students of all ages. The online language learning tools focus on delivering practical conversation skills and cultural lessons for the most popular elementary and high-school languages. With a fun and engaging format, an easy and effective teaching methodology, and access from any online computer, Mango gets your students excited about learning, and makes them active participants in the world around them.
Middlebury Interactive Languages
MiddWorld Online’s, High School Spanish I is a brand-new online product available for the first time this month. It is based on the 100 years of proven language immersion methodology of Middlebury College and claims to be the most immersive high school language product in the market today. Using current technology platforms, the program recreates the immersion experience for the high school classroom by guiding students through coursework, activities, and extracurricular games designed to keep students in language — developed by highly qualified Middlebury academics from around the world. MiddWorld Online incorporates contemporary Web-based technologies such as a virtual world game and social media into the learning process to engage students using familiar delivery systems. Coursework can be implemented into classrooms with or without teacher support (on-site or virtual), and because it is Web-based, MiddWorld is scalable for classrooms, schools and districts, and is compatible with popular LMS platforms. They also offer Avant STAMP assessment testing as an option for schools that require quantifiable benchmarks. Aligned with national ACTFL standards, MiddWorld Online helps pre-college students become proficient in a language: that is, they will be able to use it, use it for a purpose, use it in context and use it in interaction with others. Spanish I is available in January 2011, with Spanish II to follow in Fall 2011.
Oxford University Press
From dictionaries to workbooks, Oxford University Press has a variety of language resources for students and teachers alike. Oxford language reference products are available in over 15 different languages, and come in a range of prices and formats to fit any budget and level of learning.
Oxford offers an assortment of dictionaries and grammar books including: Exacto!: A Practical Guide to Spanish Grammar, a student-friendly Spanish grammar aimed at intermediate-level learners and the Living Language series. Perfect for students and travelers, this series takes a traditional approach to language learning with accompanying CDs for both listening and speaking.
Oxford Dictionaries Online is the English dictionary site English language users have been waiting for: the most comprehensive, accurate, up-to-date language resource available — based on the largest language research program in the world. Bilingual teachers and students should turn to the innovative Oxford Language Dictionaries Online. Featuring essential language resources in German, French, Spanish, Italian, Russian, and Chinese, this fully searchable and completely comprehensive site offers instant access to Oxford’s unabridged bilingual dictionaries.
Recorded Books
Recorded Books offers technology solutions to make language learning easy and fun, giving educators support in motivating students to learn. The foreign language learning resources from Recorded Books consist of programs for all ages and levels of proficiency and students who are speaking and learning English as a second or foreign language. Featured products include Pimsleur Language courses, Byki Online, Transparent Language, KidSpeak, Sing & Learn ABC Melody, SmartReaders and SteadyReaders. Since 1979 Recorded Books has produced and distributed unabridged audiobooks and other audio products direct to public, university, and school libraries, on CD, cassette, Playaway, MP3, CD, and in downloadable formats. Over 9,000 titles are available for adults, children and young adults narrated by professional, award-winning actors. In addition to downloadable audiobooks from One-Click Audio, the digital databases offered by Recorded Books are ePrep Test Preparation Services, Universal Class Continuing Education Courses, and Byki Online Foreign Language Courses.
Red River Press
ESL Library is expanding its Spanish resources section this year to include ready-to-print lesson plans for Spanish teachers in a variety of topics and levels. You can also download or print over 2000 Spanish flashcards to enhance your lesson plans and teach new vocabulary.
Teacher’s Discovery
Teacher’s Discovery’s Game Guroo is a Spanish e-learning web site with over 5,000 online reinforcement games for Spanish teachers and their students.
Spanish teachers find it easy to create their own online interactive games, quizzes and homework, or choose from thousands of proofed activities, created by Teacher’s Discovery. All activities track student scores and report directly back to the teacher. Games include classic game shows, conjugation games, and aural writing practice, just to name a few.
A new Gringos video game section of the site allows students to enter a virtual town and shop in its tiendas to earn points and reinforce vocabulary and grammar. The site also offers thousands of printable exercises available for all first-year Spanish topics. Improve students’ overall grades by reinforcing with something they know and love — interactive games!
Yabla
Yabla Spanish provides authentic video immersion to your students anywhere they have an Internet connection. Videos include TV dramas, documentaries, profiles of beautiful travel destinations such as Ibiza and Madrid, “man on the street” interviews, and, best of all, lots of music videos. Students are motivated to learn because the videos are engrossing and fun, not stale and didactic.
Yabla Spanish offers steep educational discounts — as little as $7 per student per year — and special management tools for teachers. Your students can quickly and easily sign themselves up, choosing their own usernames and passwords. Then you’ll be able to assign videos to them as homework or lab assignments. Students complete assignments by playing the Yabla Game and earning points. As students complete the assignments, you can monitor their progress with detailed reporting.
Yabla Spanish Features:
• Subtitles in Spanish and English; One-click, multi-dictionary definitions; Phrase repeat and pitch-corrected slow play; Videos organized by category and difficulty level; New videos added regularly; Email mini-lessons; Personal flash card lists to assist learning; Monitored comments for each video so students can ask Yabla a question or discuss what they’ve watched; The Yabla Game; Steep discounts — rates drop the more students you enroll; and a 60-day free trial for any number of students.
Avant
Avant offers Spanish students self-assessments in web-based language portfolios which include integration with instruction, formative and summative assessments, teaching resources, and meaningful reporting at individual and class/district levels.
Avant’s new generation of solutions for language teachers and learners is centered on data to inform decisions and guide student learning. Avant integrated solutions in 2011 include:
• Web-based four-skill assessments for placement and proficiency at levels related to the ACTFL Performance Guidelines.
• Multimedia portfolio utilizing CEFR descriptors where students show evidence of what they can do and teachers review student evidence, integrate classroom instruction and coach with feedback.
• Professional development to facilitate
the application of data to improve student learning.
