This is a free English as a second language podcast. I've included it because many of my visitors are from Europe and often learn several languages as a norm. I hope you enjoy it.
It's called English as a Second Language Podcast.

http://www.eslpod.com/website/index_new.html

Are you a Spanish teacher?

If you are a  teacher of Spanish (or a student) who is often looking for quality information to share with your students, this is your blog. Let's say you come across something in a textbook, but you want more information on that subject. It will save you a lot of time to use the links I have provided than to just start doing a US google search. Search by country using any of the Google country specific links provided on this blog. Maybe you want a video or listening comprehension on a particular theme, look through the listening links provided. If you are studying an author from a particular country, you can use the link "A Country by Country tour" where you will find multimedia links for each country. You can find images of that country, maps, the city the author is from, even a historical timeline on BBC country profiles and US Deparment of State country profiles. If you want to add authentic materials to your curriculum, this blog will help you achieve that. For Spanish II, III, and IV high school, check out Reader's Digest in Spanish to find articles that they can manage on a subject that interests them or is in the textbook. I felt as a teacher that I was spending too much time searching the Internet and that my students needed more direction for their research too such as finding an Hispanic artist to present to the class with an image of his or her work. I continue working on this blog to narrow the path to high quality authentic materials minimizing the number of keystrokes and the amount of time it will take you to find what you need.

Preparing to write for the Spanish Praxis

During the writing section of the Spanish Praxis you will be given 5 minutes to practice using the writing tool. Though it is simple to use, it will reduce your anxiety during the writing portion if you have already practiced. It's one less thing to think about while you are writing if you have already practiced. Take a few minutes to practice using the writing tool. This is the tool that will allow you to use accent marks, etc. My strategy for this was to just write my essay without using the tool because it would have stopped my flow of ideas and thinking. I watched the clock and allowed myself time to go back and place all the correct vowels with accents where they belonged. It would be nice if they made this tool available online to practice writing with it.

I noticed on the sample questions that ETS provides that they show you the format for an email, so use that exact format, but of course change the salutation / closing and the use of formal / informal based on the task.

You will be asked to write three essays; one memo/email/letter at least 60 words and two other essays about 120 words each. Practice doing this ahead of time if you are not in the regular habit of writing in Spanish. In fact, you could even practice just hand writing out the email memo they have provided. One thing that is nice is that you will be given a passage to read and then you will respond to that passage in writing as directed. If you are nervous about doing this then practice until you are not nervous. Find articles on Reader's Digest in Spanish or El Pais for example, both links on this blog. Print the article. Read it. Then write a summary or opinion of what you just read in around 120 words within the time required. Type out your response in Word so you can see the Word count. Set a timer to go off so you know what it feels like to write under pressure. Then you can do a spell check with Word using its language tool. This will give you a good feel for what a 120 words feels like, writing under pressure, and how many errors you are making. If this seems easy to you after one time, then stop. You're probably ready. But, if you feel nervous still, keep doing this everyday until you don't feel nervous.

A typical typed double spaced page is about 250 words, so 120 words isn't really a lot. They are looking for your ability to respond to question asked with a beginning, a middle, and an end, use complete sentences, spell correctly, and use accent marks correctly, etc. Ask your teacher or an educated native speaker to proof read your writing showing them the printed article so they can see how well you wrote the summary or opinion of that article.    

The Spanish Praxis: Test at a Glance with sample questions.

The makers of the Spanish Praxis offer sample test questions for free with answers to follow. Take the sample test and see how you do. If you do well, then you'll probably do well on the Spanish Praxis. (?) If you don't do well, then calculate the sections with the most errors and use that as your guide on what you need to work on. You will find a variety of high quality reviewed sources that you can use to start reading authentic materials daily and/or listening to authentic speakers daily at www.cs-spanishnews.blogspot.com.

From the ETS link below you will find the following approximate breakdown of the test:

Listening: 30 questions (26%)

Reading: 30 questions (26%)

Culture: 15 questions (12%)

Writing: 18%

Speaking 18%

Prepare for all sections of the test well, but keep in mind that listening and reading are a little more than 50% of the test. That is significant. These skills must be strong. The best way to improve these skills is to start reading and listening to authentic Spanish media daily. You probably already know this, but just a reminder; "authentic materials" are written and spoken media that were designed for native speakers of Spanish, not for second language learners. This is a critical distinction because you will be required to understand "authentic Spanish" on the Spanish Praxis. This blog was designed to help teachers and students find high quality sources of authentic Spanish for lessons and student practice. I hope you will use it to prepare for the Spanish Praxis. Have fun exploring, reading, and listening to all the authentic materials provided in links on this blog. Check out a different one every day! Here is an example of the Argentina BBC link to the left on this blog; first you will see English, but when you scroll down you will see links to authentic newspapers, television, and radio in Argentina. It doesn't get much better than that!

You will know after you take the sample test on the link below where your weak skills are. You can't test your listening skills though on this sample test and it's quite important, so buy their prep book because it has a listening practice component. At least you'll know ahead of time if you are strong or weak in that area. Don't give up if you don't pass the first time. ETS will provide you with a breakdown of where you made mistakes by category, so you will know where to work harder for the next test. Here is the ETS link showing you the breakdown of the test and it includes free sample test questions with answers.

 http://www.ets.org/s/praxis/pdf/5195.pdf

Free prep materials for the Spanish Praxis and a book you can buy.

If you are preparing for the Spanish Praxis, I highly recommend you review all the free preparation materials that ETS makes available. You don't want to be learning how to take the exam during the exam. I purchased their test prep book and was glad that I did. I took it in 2012. I wish they would require testing center to provide a quiet room for each test taker because it's quite distracting to take your test while other people are taking the speaking part of their tests. I took a test in Florida for certification there, not the Praxis, and the testing center provided an individual sound proof room. That was nice! I took the Spanish Praxis at Indiana University of Pennsylvania and there were others testing and talking at the same time. Some test takers even made high pitched screeching noises as they left the room and did other bizarre discracting things during the test. If you find it hard to concentrate in such an environment, you might want to look for a testing center with a sound proof room for individual test takers. Here is the link for ETS's free and for purchase materials.

 http://www.ets.org/praxis/prepare/materials/5195

How to register for the Spanish Praxis.

How to register for the Spanish Praxis: ETS, Educational Testing Services, is the organization that administers the Spanish Praxis. It's worth looking around their website for testing preparation materials because I found them to be excellent, not only for the Spanish Praxis, but for other tests they administer too.

Here is their Web page:

http://www.ets.org/praxis

Listening section of the Spanish Praxis.

The Spanish Praxis listening section of the test is very important. It weighs heavily in your grade. If you have never taken a listen comprehension test like this, the Spanish Praxis is not the place to learn. One of their test prep materials comes with a listening comprehension practice component. You don't want to be learning how to take the test during the Spanish Praxis. That you should already know and I am pleased that the Spanish Praxis Test makers provide this opportunity in their Spanish Praxis Test Prep book. The free sample online test shows you a printed dialogue that you will actually hear, not see, instead of providing a link for an audio of that dialogue which it should. Then you will be asked a series of written questions to which you will reply by clicking the correct answer. If you feel you aren't strong in this area or you scored low on this section of the test, then I recommend that you go to any of the highy quality sources for students and teachers of Spanish at www.cs-spanishnews.blog.spot and start listening daily and often. Watch t.v. in Spanish, listen to the radio in Spanish, buy an audiobook in Spanish that you can listen to in your car. If you are weak in this area try to listen to only Spanish all day everyday for at least a month leading up to the test. Listen for meaning. That's what they are testing you on. Do you know what's going on in the dialogue.

How to prepare for the Spanish Praxis.

Spanish Majors preparing for the Spanish Praxis, here are some tips. Also, paste my blog somewhere convenient so that you have a ready source of authentic high quality sources to read, watch, and listen to. You have always loved learning Spanish, so run with that! Set a goal of reading at least one newspaper or magazine article / story / several pages from a book by a favorite author of yours every single day in Spanish. Listen to Spanish every single day in the form of music, telenovelas, movies, t.v., audio-books. The best listening and reading practice are the media that were not designed for second language learning, but were designed for native speakers of the language. Read for pleasure and meaning only. If you aren't enjoying it, you won't keep it up. So, pick something you would normally enjoy reading in English, but read it in Spanish. Find a Latino music artist or t.v. show that you love. Have CNN en Español feeds coming into your Facebook account and only read what really interests you. Also, read aloud at home to get your tongue and mouth comfortable speaking Spanish.

Spanish Praxis: 37.9% Pass Rate (3 years) PA

Let's increase the pass rate:

After reading about the Spanish Praxis' 37.9% pass rate on the Pennsylvania Department of Education's website, I began to wonder why it is so low. There are many possible reasons. Foreign Language Education is going through the greatest change since I started studying Spanish in the 7th grade; both the Spanish AP Exam and the Spanish Praxis are testing students for skills that have never been tested before and they are using technology. These tests require language educators who have been doing things the same way for 15 + years to change their teaching approach and testing methods and it requires textbook companies to change too.

These important tests reflect the expectations of the new National Standards for Foreign Language. Foreign language instructors who have used methods that served their students well for decades might find that those methods are not preparing their students for the Spanish Praxis or the Spanish AP Exam because of the new objectives. Here are the pass rates for the Spanish Praxis in PA.

http://www.teacherpassrates.ed.state.pa.us/Screens/wfPassRates.aspx?PID=4490&AUN=405253104&Y=2011

Fortunately, Educational Testing Services, who deliver the Spanish Praxis, offers a Free PDF (see the link below) that explains each section of the Spanish Praxis with examples. It's important to read through this carefully and complete all the sample questions, including listening and speaking sections. Buy their test prep materials too. They are well worth the money and time.

Even with the best textbooks and a teacher who speaks Spanish, it is still not enough to prepare students for success on the Spanish Praxis. Spanish majors and minors should listen to or read at least an hour a day of authentic Spanish language materials starting in their Freshmen year of college going beyond the course requirements, which might never require you to listen to authentic Spanish. "Authentic Spanish language" materials are written or spoken Spanish media that were not designed for second language learners, but were designed for native speakers of Spanish. At first, it might seem overwhelming. Read or listen to sources in which you are able to get the gist of it. That's all that is expected during the learning process. You will become slowly more comfortable as the months go by. Trust me. I know from experience. Start with music, t.v. shows, Reader's Digest, and radio talk shows. When you reach a level of comfort with that, then move to news; newspapers, radio news, and television news are the most difficult. They really are speaking faster, just like news people do in English and there isn't a lot of repetition or visual clues. Personally, I think that serious students should be doing all of this on their own, but teachers must  integrate authentic materials into their lessons regularly, both written and audio.

Why do I like Reader's Digest so much for students? Because there is always some article that will interest you and the writing is good quality and manageable. The accents are in the right places and correct spelling as well as complete sentences. They do not use Spanglish. Avoid websites and magazines that use Spanglish. It won't be on the Praxis. The other reasons that I love Reader's Digest in Spanish is that there are so few middle level reading sources in Spanish for second and foreign language learners that will interest them. It's ideal for intermediate students because the sentences and paragraphs are not too long. The style of writing is more direct than creative. It's just a really excellent source for building a strong foundation in reading and provides a vast array of useful daily vocabulary. What more could you ask for? In fact, a good textbook company would include a classroom set of Reader's Digest in Spanish magazines with an online workbook for high school Spanish II, III, and IV, increasing the difficulty of the questions for each level. This would also be a great idea for a Spanish I and II college textbook company too. And if they could get Reader's Digest to let them make an audio of some of the articles with a listening comprehension activity, that would be awesome!

Remember, the links on my blog are designed with students in mind, to make it easy for you or your teacher to find quality Spanish sources. I do not recommend chatting in Spanish because of the poor quality of the Spanish. When you are still learning, it can be confusing and cause you to develop bad habits.

I highly recommend buying audio books in Spanish. The links to two audio-book vendors are provided here on my blog and I have personally checked them out. If you buy an audio-book that is not abridged then you can buy the book and follow along with the speaker. There is so much that a college professor or an AP Spanish teacher could do with this! Your students could read an entire novel together in Spanish! In addition to written tests, you could give listening comprehension tests using the audiobook and writing your own questions.

I suggest copying my blog and posting it somewhere that is convenient for you, so you will have excellent reviewed Spanish sources available at your fingertips all the time.  Here it is:

http://cs-spanishnews.blogspot.com.


Teachers: buy textbooks with high quality and interesting listening comprehension component. Remember, the fact that you speak Spanish in class is not remotely sufficient to prepare students for the Spanish Praxis. Students will be required to understand a wide variety of dialects and dialogues as well as group discussions, often with background sounds going on. No teacher singularly can provide this. Find a textbook that has already done this work and use the listening comprehension component for every single chapter. I found that students experienced the most success when I presented the listening comprehension activities after we did everything else in the chapter so they were already familiar with the new vocabulary. It's very important that students experience success in these activities or they will just give up. Consider taking the Spanish Praxis so you can experience first hand what your students will experience and this will help you to select the best textbooks to prepare for the exam.

Suggestions for Spanish majors on how to prepare for the Spanish Praxis. You have always loved learning Spanish, so run with that! Set a goal of reading at least one newspaper or magazine article / story / several pages from a book by a favorite author of yours every single day in Spanish. Listen to Spanish every single day in the form of music, telenovelas, movies, t.v., audio-books. The best listening and reading practice are the media that were not designed for second language learning, but were designed for native speakers of the language. Read for pleasure and meaning only. If you aren't enjoying it, you won't keep it up. So, pick something you would normally enjoy reading in English, but read it in Spanish. Find a Latino music artist or t.v. show that you love. Have CNN en Español feeds coming into your Facebook account and only read what really interests you. Also, read aloud at home to get your tongue and mouth comfortable speaking Spanish.

Any time you read an article on a particular theme, find a podcast on that same theme in order to reinforce the vocabulary with an auditory source. You will see the new vocabulary and hear it too. This is great! This is how you get vocabulary to land in your long term memory where you want it! It doesn't happen by memorizing long vocabulary lists. You can't possibly memorize vocabulary for the Praxis. It has to be in your long term memory. This takes years to acquire. That's why you begin in your Freshmen year as a Spanish major or minor reading and listening to Spanish daily.

Practice writing formal and informal letters. Look inside the middle section of an Oxford hard cover very large dictionary, which I am sure your teacher owns and you will find examples of formal letters in Spanish there. Remember, in a formal letter you will address the parties with "usted" or "ustedes" and you will use different salutations and closings than you would with an informal letter.

Organize a group on campus that meets to speak Spanish a couple of times a week at least. Arrange intercambios with native speakers of Spanish, a common concept in Europe, but not so in the states. Make sure their Spanish is really good. You could introduce them to your teacher to find out. For a 1/2 an hour you speak Spanish, and for the other 1/2 an hour you speak English. To get the most out of this experience, print out an article to read and discuss. This way, you push yourself beyond your usual vocabulary and you keep learning new vocabulary related to many different topics. Don't spend time translating. Look up few words. Start with Reader's Digest. Newspaper articles are very difficult, but you should keep reading them too. Mix it up.

Culture:

Know the major geographical locations (major cities and capitals, rivers, mountains) and local and countrywide socio economic issues of each Spanish speaking country, as well as key artists, musicians and writers. How to do this? A good introduction to Hispanic college textbook would probably be enough. But, go back and look at the break down of the test to determine how much time you want to spend studying culture.

Print out a map of a given country, then read one news or culture article everyday for one month on that country. When the article refers to a place mark it on the map so you have a visual of where it is. Look up any frequently mentioned places or phrases that you are not familiar with on wordreference.com, also listed as a link here on my blog. The BBC Country Profiles (a link on my blog) is a great way to get a general overview of the country in English before you take on reading articles in Spanish. It will lay a foundation that should help you. I do not recommend Yahoo because Yahoo in Spanish just seems to be a translation of English Yahoo. It does not provide country specific news and other information. This could have changed since the writing of this blog. Also, a wonderful country specific source is found under BBC Country Profiles; media. It provides a list of written and audio-visual media for a specific country. These would be even better than Google for a one month study on a particular country. Here is an example of Chile on the BBC Country Profiles; media.

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19356361

Listen to the news (radio and t.v.) from each country also, so that you become comfortable listening to regional dialects and fast paced speech. Remember, on the Spanish Praxis, you will not have any visual clues during the audio portion, so it is vital for your success that you are comfortable listening to Spanish without visual clues. It shouldn't freak you out during the test, it should be old hat. That can only be achieved from listening to Spanish daily for years of your life or having lived in a Spanish speaking country. I highly recommend study abroad for at least a year, especially for Spanish majors. If you can only go for a summer, then do not hang around Americans and try to live with a family that does not speak English or quite frankly it will be a waste of your time and money because you could end up speaking English the whole time.      

Language learning theory to consider reading for teachers, principals, provosts, and students: Stephen Krashen's theories of language learning. Krashen in a nutshell; the more Spanish you read and listen to, the better you will be at writing and speaking it, which follows what we have always been told. If you want to improve your English vocabulary, read a lot! The same is true with Spanish.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acquisition-learning_hypothesis


Finally, paste my blog somewhere convenient, so you will have a ready list of excellent sources for reading and listening. Give my blog to your students to make their lives a little easier. Often, they aren't sure what are good sources. There is no reason for them to spend a lot of time running around on the Internet trying to find good sources   when I have already done the work for them! :) They will surely appreciate it.

I wish you the best of luck. Immerse yourself in Spanish as much as you can beyond the classroom and enjoy it! You will have fun and you'll be prepared to pass the Spanish Praxis!

* About My Blog

Note: I recently deleted a link from my blog because I noticed that the writers placed accents where they do not belong. If you notice a low quality link, please let me know so I can remove it. I don't think it's realistic to send our students out onto the Web to do research and hope that they will know which sites are good sources. It's important to direct them to quality sources for reading practice, listening practice, and research. That is what I hope to achieve with this blog. Your feedback will help in this endeavor. Thank you for following my blog. I hope you will find it a useful resource for the classroom or your continued study of the Spanish language.

Reading:

* Newspapers worldwide. I found this link in the Spanish Praxis study manual made by the makers of the Spanish Praxis test. I have not checked all the links in it, but assume it is a good source that was checked by the authors of the Spanish Praxis manual.

* About Reader's Digest: If you feel that you have a weak foreign language department in high school or college, I would like to share my personal insights as to why that might be. I have been studying Spanish since the 7th grade and I have spoken to many other Spanish teachers through the years, and many agree that there is not enough middle level reading for students. Most programs have beginning and intermediate textbooks and then suddenly leap into Spanish literature, which is challenging even for a Spaniard! The leap is just too great and too soon, but is a common practice in our country. First, let's make sure students are literate and fluent in Spanish. Sadly, Reader's Digest is considered unacceptable for the classroom by many old school teachers and yet it is interesting, well written, and perfect for intermediate learners with a wide range of relevant and current stories that will appeal to many students. You can feel safe sending your students to find articles here too because it is always appropriate content for students of all ages.

These are the skills that will prepare them to be successful when they take on Hispanic literature. My dream was to have a class set of Reader's Digest for my students, but it just never happened. It almost happened at CCC. Students were very interested in this idea and even willing to pay for their subscription. But, I think it got defeated by my department head because students in another class complained that their teacher wasn't doing the same. I wasn't trying to upstage anybody, but that is often how education works. I just wanted to create something fun and relevant that my students would look forward to reading.

Teaching suggestions using Reader's Digest in Spanish:

Use the same article for Spanish II, III, and IV, just have different expectations for each level. In Spanish II you want them to look forward to reading these articles, not expect them to understand everything and explain to them that that is o.k. It's all part of the learning process. It's normal. You want them to get comfortable with taking on authentic language reading samples and to experience success. I would suggest creating a standard worksheet that simply requires them to answer: Who, what, where, why, when. Who wrote the story and why? Who are the main characters? What is the main idea of the story? Where and when did it take place. Ask them in Spanish and have them answer in witing in Spanish. Best of all use this same story later as part of a test. The work they did on the homework will then translate into a good grade on their test if they did the assignment. This is all part of preparing them to experience success, which will keep them wanting to read and enjoy the assignments. By making the task the same, they become relaxed about doing the assignment and confident. You can always ask impromptu oral questions to see how much more they are getting beyond the basic written questions you gave them and to challenge them. Even better, offer extra credit questions on the test that go beyond the basic comprehension questions assigned. That will reward those who took the time to try to understand the article beyond the basic assignment without hurting others' grades.

Listening:

* The EP Podcasts and Audiria Podcasts are websites that were recommended in the Praxis Spanish test study guide made by the makers of the Praxis Spanish test for teachers.

* I purchased an audiobook by Fonolibros and found the sound quality to be excellent, but I could not read along with my book in Spanish because the audio was abridged.

Grammar:

* The grammar reference manual is excellent for teachers, Spanish majors, upper level students of Spanish. It is only a reference book. There are no exercises. This is the best grammar reference manual I have ever seen. It was recommended reading from the Spanish Praxis test prep manual made by the makers of the Spanish Praxis.

* The grammar website was recommended in the Praxis Spanish test prep manual made by the makers of the Praxis Spanish exam for teachers.

Books:

* The introduction to Hispanic literature book was recommended in the Spanish Praxis study guide written by the makers of the Spanish Praxis test. I purchased it and really like it.

* The New Spaniards by John Hooper was required reading for a Spanish graduate course. It was a page turner!

Literature Posts:

"The Modern Word" is a link that I found on the Nobel Prize Official Website and assume they would only list a quality source on their Web page. Let me know what you think.