Liz: Using SpanishPod.com Fits with Some Topics in the Spanish Community Service Learning Course


I have just been listening to several of the podcasts on SpanishPod.com. I really liked it! It was comparable to the Nuevos Horizontes, the radio clips we listen to for Spanish 232. Nuevos Horizontes usually focuses more on the Latino community here in the Champaign-Urbana and the United States, which is perfect since that is the focus of our class. The problem with SpanishPod is that some of the podcasts are relevant to the class and others are not. For example, I listened to one that was about finding an apartment and what kinds of questions you should ask. We were just talking about this in class and I thought the podcast presented useful vocabulary and information on the subject. On the other hand, there were podcasts on restaurants and how to order food that we wouldn’t be able to use for Spanish 232. Another problem might be that we don't necessarily have any idea what the future topics of podcasts will be. So there may not always be a podcast that is directly related to what we are talking about in class or with our community partners. Overall, I really liked the fact that the lessons were organized by level of skill. I listened to lessons at each level to see what the differences were to see which one would be best for our class. The Newbie, Elementary, and Intermediate levels used quite a bit of English. The Spanish vocabulary was repeated many times and it was mostly words that students should already know by the time they are in 200 level classes. I found the upper Intermediate and Advanced levels to be more appropriate for our class. As for students who studied abroad, they should find the Advanced levels to be quite easy to understand. The website is very well organized and useful but I think it would probably be better for a 100 level Spanish class than for Spanish 232.

Comments

  1. RoMeApril 15, 2008 at 5:44 PM

    Hola de que va éste blog, perdona pregunta estupida, ya leeré mas cuando tenga algomas de tiempo
    Why say spanish and there aren't nothing in spanish??

    ReplyDelete
  2. jp 吉平April 16, 2008 at 2:03 AM

    Dear Liz,

    Thanks for your post about SpanishPod! We are thrilled that you're listening.

    We publish new lessons every weekday of the year; if there are lessons that would be more relevant to your class, we would gladly, gladly, GLADLY take your requests!

    So far the requests from listeners have been for medical Spanish, service industry Spanish, and Spanish that's related to parenting, and we have only been happy to oblige!

    So if you want to know what the future lessons are, YOU tell us! We'll do it!

    Also, anytime you want to know what's coming up, send me an email, I can tell you what's coming up.

    Sincerely, JP Villanueva
    SpanishPod.com

    ReplyDelete

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