Lectura y Escritura/ Reading and Writing

Colorín Colorado
http://www.colorincolorado.org/educators/brightideas
I recommend his website to bilingual teachers or any language teacher because it has great ideas for literacy activities that you can incorporate in almost any teaching context. In this website there is a section for educators that has a link to “ bright ideas” that you can use for your lessons. On the very bottom on of this page, there are two activities that I will consider doing in my teaching context: Retelling Stories and Literacy Circles.

 El castellano.org

http://www.elcastellano.org/diezerr.html

I like this website because it includes an online dictionary in Spanish and can be useful if I have to explain  the meaning of certain words. It also contains a variety of other resources that can be used for teachers to help them strength their language skills in Spanish. This is more like a tool for the teacher.

Mis cositas
http://www.miscositas.com/spanish.html
I love this website because it contains a lot of god ideas for reading and writing activities. In addition, a variety of worksheets are offer that may be used after a reading activity. There is also a booklet with a lot of songs that can be used as a reading activity follow by a listening activity. One of the things that I like the most is a repertoire of different Thematic Units to teach Spanish.

Literacy Connections
http://www.literacyconnections.com/SecondLanguage.php
This is a great website that you can also use for a variety of teaching contexts. There is a lot of information on strategies that you can use to encourage your students to read and write. It also provides other online resources for parents and teachcers. I will use some of the activities mentioned in this website such as "the readers theather" activity. If you look on the left side of this page, there is a link called "Readers Theather" and if you click on it, you wil find a lot of examples of this activity. All of the examles are in English but I will modify them to Spanih or I will create my own with my students.

ABCTeach
http://www.abcteach.com/directory/basics/writing/
In this website, you will find a lot of good ideas for teaching in general, especially for reading and writing. I like the writing activities even though I will have to modify them by changing them to Spanish. Some of the ideas that I wil consider doing is "color and write", "poetry" and "letters". Young learners will be encourage to read and write by using art within a writing or reading activity. You should look at this website if your teaching context is for begginers.

Aprendiendo español al escuchar

Canciones de Cricri

http://www.cri-cri.net/Canciones/canciones.html

This is a good website for young learners because it has a lot of songs that teachers can use in their lessons to expose students ( beginner and intermediate level) to listening activities. Also, some of the songs included in this website can be found in You Tube where images appear related to the lyrics of the song. In addition, integration of these videos may help visual learners have a better connection with the language they are hearing.

José Luis Orozco’s songs

http://www.joseluisorozco.com/frameset_index.htm

In this website there are not activities or lesson plans, however, it is important to know that Jose Luis Orozco is a very famous bilingual author and singer who has written a lot of Spanish songs for children. Teaching these songs to young learners is a good exposure to the target language and provides students the opportunity to acquire a variety vocabulary words. I used some of his songs when I taught Spanish to Elementary students.

Story Place: La biblioteca digital de niños

http://www.storyplace.org/sp/storyplace.asp

In this website, you can find a variety of digital books that a teacher may present in class. This website offers two libraries, a Preschool library and an Elementary School library. Students may also use this website to work individually.  If the students are at an advanced level (Listening for the Gist stage), the teacher may play some of the digital stories from this website and later in groups they can discuss the story’s main idea.

La tortuga taruga

http://www.latortugataruga.cl/

This is a good website for children who are learning Spanish. The website contains six video clips and few songs that can serve as extra listening activities for students. I think I will use some of the video clips in combination with other activities, especially if we are learning colors or numbers.

Foreign Language in the Elementary Schools (Teacher Resources)

http://www.tesd.k12.pa.us/fles/teacher_resources.html

 I like this website because it offers a variety of lessons that contain listening activities. Teacher can use this lessons to expose their students to authentic language. Also, under teacher resources, there is a section with a list of songs but you can’t listen to them. Maybe you can listen to the songs in You Tube

El Autobus Mágico: Está en el aire

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_xSwIHI8xY&feature=related

This is a great video that can be shown to advance students. Teacher may play this songs and ask students to discuss what is going on in the video clip. The discussion can be focus on main ideas. Also,  this video can also be incorporated as part of a Thematic Unit.

Propósito

The purpose of this blog is to share links, activities, and resources with anyone interested in teaching Spanish to young learners. However, some of these activities may also be modified to teach ESL.

 The intended audience is all my classmates and anyone interested in Teaching a Foreign Language.

Comments and suggestions are welcome!

Teaching Context

The teaching context I chose is based on a Spanish classes I taught in an Elementary School in Austin, Texas in the year of 2006. Most of the links and resources will specifically be for young learners in my teaching context but can be modified for other contexts. 

v    The teaching context I have chosen for my work in this class is Spanish. 

v    Spanish would be taught as a foreign language for second and third grade students in an Elementary School in the United States. However, it is important to point out that there is diversity of cultural backgrounds, (some students are from India, China, and Korea, etc…) but all of them speak English.

v    The proficiency level of the target language will be a beginner, though the students have been already exposed to the target language since they have had Spanish instruction since kinder.

v    The students will get forty-five minutes of instruction once a week. There will be about sixteen (16) students in each class.

v     The students’ age would be between 7-9 years old. The language instruction will be given during their regular school days.