RESOURCES FOR TEACHING SPANISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE
 
-- a guide to current SLA research & instructional materials for college level Spanish
  
Click on the topic or subtopic you wish to view.
         
RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS
ABOUT THE SPANISH LANGUAGE
EXERCISES AND ACTIVITIES ON THE WEB
                    

-- Professional Associations and Institutes
-- Online Journals
-- Current SLA Research: Papers and Presentations
-- Bibliographies
-- Instructional Resources

-- General
-- Grammars
-- Dictionaries
--
Spanish Linguistics

-- Beginning and Intermediate Spanish
-- Readings and Texts
-- Civilization and Culture
-- Advanced Language and Linguistics
-- Mass Media



RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS

Professional Associations and Institutes



AAAL (American Association for Applied Linguistics)
-- http://www.aaal.org/



AATSP (American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese)      
-- http://www.aatsp.org/



ACTFL (American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages)
-- http://www.actfl.org 



CAL (Center for Applied Linguistics)
-- http://www.cal.org



CALICO (Computer Assisted Language Instruction Consortium)
-- http://calico.org/



CARLA (Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisistion)
 --
http://www.carla.umn.edu/



CASLT/ACPLS (Canadian Association of Second Language Teachers/L'Association canadienne de professeurs de langues secondes)  
 -- http://www.caslt.org/index.htm



EuroSLA (European Second Language Association)
 --
http://www.swan.ac.uk/cals/eurosla/



ICOSLA  (The International Commission on Second Language Acquisition)
 -- http://www.hw.ac.uk/langWWW/icsla/icsla.htm



Ja-Ling: The Gateway of Language 
 -- http://jaling.ecml.at/default.htm



The Linguist List (Language Resources)
--
http://www.linguistlist.org/langres/index.html



Linguistic Society of America 
-- http://www.lsadc.org/



National Capital Language Resource Center
-- http://www.nclrc.org/essentials/index.htm



National Foreign Language Research Center
 -- http://www.nflrc.hawaii.edu/



School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies.  Victoria University (Wellington, New Zealand).  Second Language Learning, Teaching, and Assessment.
 -- http://www.vuw.ac.nz/lals/research/second-lang.aspx



SIL (Summer Institute of Linguistics) 
-- http://www.sil.org/linguistics/





top of page

Online Journals


Many online journals now offer free access to table of contents and abstracts.  Check with your library to see if you also have access to full text of the journals listed below through database subscriptions or e-journal services.




ADFL Bulletin Online (Association of Departments of Foreign Languages)
-- http://www.adfl.org/bulletin/index.htm




Applied Linguistics (Oxford Journals online)
-- http://applij.oupjournals.org/



The Calico Review (reviews of software) 
 -- http://calico.org/CALICO_Review/



CALL-EJ Online
 -- http://www.clec.ritsumei.ac.jp/english/callejonline/callej.html



CÍRCULO de lingüística aplicada a la comunicación (clac)
-- http://www.ucm.es/info/circulo/index.htm



Clarion 
 --
http://www.kun.nl/ttmb/clarion2.html




ELT Journal (Oxford University Press)
-- http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/



Essential Teacher; TESOL Journal (abstracts); TESOL Matters; TESOL Quarterly (abstracts)
-- http://www.tesol.org/s_tesol/seccss.asp?CID=205&DID=1675



Hong Kong Journal of Applied Linguistics (abstracts)
-- http://ec.hku.hk/hkjal/default.htm



Journal for Language Teaching (abstracts)
-- http://www.ajol.info/journal_index.php?jid=37&tran=0&ab=0



Journal of Second Language Writing (abstracts)
 -- http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~silvat/jslw/vol13.html




Language Learning and Technology
-- http://llt.msu.edu/




Language Teaching (Cambridge University Press) -- table of contents & abstracts
-- http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayJournal?jid=LTA



Language Teaching Research (Table of contents and abstracts are available through Ingenta)
-- http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/arn/ltr



The Language Teacher online (Japan)
-- http://langue.hyper.chubu.ac.jp/jalt/pub/tlt/



The Modern Language Journal (table of contents & abstracts)
--
http://polyglot.lss.wisc.edu/mlj/contents.htm




On-CALL Archive
 -- http://www.cltr.uq.edu.au/oncall/home.html



Reading in a Foreign Language
 --
http://nflrc.hawaii.edu/rfl/



The Reading Matrix: An International Online Journal
 --
http://www.readingmatrix.com/current.html




Revista Iberoamericana de Educación
 -- http://www.campus-oei.org/revista/




TESL-EJ (Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language)
 -- http://www-writing.berkeley.edu/TESL-EJ/index.html





top of page

Current SLA Research: Papers and Presentations


Bocale, Paola (2004).  Interaction and language learning: An investigation into McCarthy's 'Three Is' pedagogical modelling.  Studi Linguistici e Filologici Online.  Retrieved May 27, 2005, from  http://www.humnet.unipi.it/slifo/2004vol1/pdf/Bocale2.1.pdf
McCarthy's three I's -- illustration, interaction, induction -- are studied as an alternative approach to L2 instruction.  The analysis of corpora of spoken language with instructor guidance gives students an opportunity to talk about what they have noticed.  Discussion of these observations leads to comprehension of the example and formulation of rules.  In the induction stage students draw conclusions about the grammar of the target language.



Dasse, Virginie (2004).  The effects of different types of Focus-on-Form instruction: The case of auxiliary selection in L2 French acquisition.  Unpublished master's thesis.  Florida State University, Tallahasse, FL.  http://etd.lib.fsu.edu/theses/available/etd-06252004-143009/
Dasse's master's thesis is available full-text from the Florida State University Library web site.  Her study treats the effects of different instructional treatments in university level elementary and intermediate French classes.  Students were divided into four groups based on the following treatments:  Focus-on-FormS, Focus-on-Meaning, Focus-on-Form, and a control group.  Assessment activities, all related to acquisition of the passé composé included a composition, a fill in the blank cloze test, and grammaticality judgment.  Analysis of the results showed differentiation over the short term among the four groups; however, the various treatments did not seem to produce the same results over the long term.



Doughty, Catherine (2004).  Designing Psychololinguistically Valid Classroom Instruction. SLATE Lecture Series, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.   Retrieved May 27, 2005, from http://slate.lang.uiuc.edu/LectureSeries/powerpoints/slate_files/frame.htm
The University of Illinois Lecture Series web site for the SLATE program has archived the Powerpoint presentation from Doughty's 2004 lecture.  The Powerpoint provides an overview of the changing focus of L2 research.  Doughty is particularly concerned with the reliability of such studies in terms of methodology and presumptions about the effect of formal instruction on L2 acquisition



Galasso, Joseph (1999).  A Working Paper on Second Language Acquisition Research: Some Notes on Theory and Method.  Retrieved August 11, 2005, from http://www.csun.edu/~galasso/wkpap.htm
These lecture notes offer a good introduction to theories of language acquisition for both L1 and L2.  Differences in learning styles for child second language learners and adult second language learners are also discussed.



Genesee, Fred (1994).  Integrating language and content:  Lessons from immersion.  Educational Practice Report 11.  http://www.ncela.gwu.edu/pubs/ncrcdsll/epr11.htm
This study derives from observation of the success in immersion prograns to teach French in Canada.  The success of the program, according to Genesee, is a product of the integration of language instruction with content.  The language across the curriculum approach made language learning relevant to the students and avoided the isolation of second language instruction as an element outside the regular curriculum.



Koike, Dale (2005).  Lingüística aplicada: Adquisición del español como segunda lengua (instructor companion site to the textbook).  Retrieved March 11, 2006 from  http://bcs.wiley.com/he-bcs/Books?action=index&bcsId=2359&itemId=0471013919
This is the companion web site for Dale Koile's textbook on applied linguistics with focus on Spanish as L2.  Although some of the links require a subscription key acquired through purchase of the textbook, there is open access to the transcription of the videos for the textbook and a list of professional resources for the instructor.  Some of the professional resources lead to broken links but this is a perennial problem in the maintenance of any web site.



Krashen, Stephen D. (1981).  Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Learning.  Retrieved May 27, 2005, from http://www.sdkrashen.com/SL_Acquisition_and_Learning/
In addition to the full text of Krashen's classic introduction to SLA, the author's web site offers full text of selected recent articles and a subscription to announcements and a discussion list http://www.sdkrashen.com/main.php3



Lafford, Barbara A., Collentine, Joseph, & Karp, Adam (2002).  The Acquisition of Lexical Meaning by Second Language Learners:An analysis of general research trends with evidence from Spanish.  Retrieved May 27, 2005, from http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~jgc/research/vocabstate/
This review of theories of lexical acquisitions provides an excellent overview of different approaches to the lexicon in both L1 and L2.  Of particular interest to those teaching Spanish as L2 is the discussion of common errors in beginners with examples of strategies to provide meaningful input through techniques designed to promote active learning.



Loewen, Shawn (2003).  The occurrence and characteristics of student-initiated focus on form.  Proceedings of the Independent Learning Conference 2003.  Retrieved March 10, 2005, from http://www.independentlearning.org/ila03/ila03_loewen%20.pdf
Although this study utilizes observations in an ESL setting as point of departure the results are applicable to all L2 instruction.  The results of this study indicate that students do initiate discussions about grammatical form as part of classroom interaction.  The need for explanation of the language structures that give meaning to utterances is clearly a driving force for some students.



Long, Michael H. (1997) Focus on form in Task-Based Language Teaching.  Retrieved March 10, 2006, from http://www.mhhe.com/socscience/foreignlang/top.htm
Long's presentation on focus on form provides a working definition of this approach to task-based language teaching.  There is a brief overview of previous grammar-centered techniques in which the deficits of such approaches are discussed.  Additionally, strategies that utilize a focus on form approach are briefly discussed.



Piñol, Mar Cruz  (1997).  La World Wide Web en la clase de E/LE  http://www.ucm.es/info/especulo/numero5/m_cruz.htm
This article published in the Spanish online magazine, Espéculo, discusses the use of the internet in teaching Spanish as a second language.  Although particular teaching strategies are not presented in Piñol's article it does offer a useful list of online resources in Spanish such as sources for current news, magazines, that could provide input stimulus for the teaching of Spanish to advanced intermediate and advanced students.



Rex, Scott Matthew (2003).  Rethinking grammar in the foreign language classroom.  Journal of Language and Learning, 1 (1).
http://www.shakespeare.uk.net/journal/jllearn/1_1/rex_learn1_1.html
The teaching of certain grammar points, according to Rex, cannot come as mere byproduct of classroom communication due to their complexity.  He utilizes as case in point a discussion of negative and indefinite expressions in Spanish.  These constructions differ significantly from English use, and, while they occur frequently in natural conversation, they are typically treated in an unnatural fashion in textbooks through a series of predictable question and answer patterns.



Rodríguez, Lisbert M. & Avent, Patty.  What happens when direct grammar instruction is used to develop oral proficiency in a Spanish immersion classroom?  Retrieved May 28, 2005, from http://gse.gmu.edu/research/lmtip/arp/vol1pdfs/L.Rodriguez.pdf
Although this study focuses on the results of  the introduction of grammar instruction in an elementary school Spanish immersion program, many of the issues discussed here could be of interest to those teaching heritage speakers at the college level.  The heritage speaker, like the elementary school students in the immersion program, may often be fluent in the spoken language but lacks the necessary understanding of grammar to be write well in the target language or to read and understand more complex texts.  Rodríguez and Avent's study demonstrated a significant improvement in student writing skills after the introduction of specific grammar instruction.  Furthermore, students began to correct their own errors without teach prompting because they had become aware of issues such as gender agreement.



Sanz, Cristina, and Van Patten, Bill (1998).  On input processing, processing Instruction, and the nature of replication tasks: A response to Salaberry.  Originally published in The Canadian Modern Language Review/La Revue canadienne des langues vivantes, 54, 2 (January/janvier).  Retrieved May 27, 2005, from http://www.utpjournals.com/product/cmlr/542/542-Sanz.html
This article offers a thorough review of  the various SL2 approaches that are united by the psycholinguistic concept of input processing.  The authors convincingly argue that some L2 structures are neither mastered nor retained by students without instructional intervention.  Because SLA is a relatively new discipline the authors acknowledge the need for replication studies.



Smith, Mike Sharwood (1999).  Modular responses to negative evidence.  Retrieved March 12, 2006, from http://www.let.uu.nl/~slr/EuroLund/
Originally offered as a presentation at EUROSLA in 1999, Smith's survey of second language acquisition offers a good overview for students in a graduate class on SLA.  The definition of terms presented at the beginning is crucial to understanding Smith's view of modularity in language and negative evidence.  Smith recognizes that some grammatical aspects of L2 are more difficult to acquire than others.  The goal is for the second language learner to be able to engage in autocorrection through negative evidence, that is, a recognition that structures in large part influenced inordinately by L1 will result in ungrammatical output in L2.  The learning that results from negative evidence is then mapped to the corresponding module of L2 grammar.



Smith, Mike Sharwood.  Input enhancement: Investigating feedback in second language learning.  Retrieved March 12, 2006, from http://www.hw.ac.uk/langWWW/icsla/Input_Enh.pps
While there is some overlap between this presentation and the one above, this discussion of input enhancement is concerned primarily with the development of L2 writing skills.  Smith focuses on teacher-centered correction versus student-centered development of a corpus that allows analysis and autocorrection.




top of page

Bibliographies



Cook, Vivian.  Second Language Acquisition Bibliography (SLABIB).  
-- http://homepage.ntlworld.com/vivian.c/SLA/SLABIB/index.htm



ERIC (Educational Resources Information Center) 
-- http://www.eric.ed.gov/



Franceschina, Florencia.  SLA Bibliography.  
-- http://www.ling.lancs.ac.uk/staff/florencia/bib/method.htm



Llisteri, Joaquim.  Adquisición del sistema fonético y del sistema fonológico del español como lengua extranjera: Bibliografía.  
-- http://liceu.uab.es/~joaquim/applied_linguistics/L2_phonetics/Adquis_Fon_ELE_Bib.html



Llisteri, Joaquim.  Enseñanza de Español como Lengua Extranjera y Enseñanza de la Lengua Asistida por Ordenador:  Bibliografía. 
--
http://liceu.uab.es/~joaquim/applied_linguistics/new_technologies/ELE_CALL_Bib.html



Fulcher, Glenn.  Resources in Language Testing Page.  
-- http://www.dundee.ac.uk/languagestudies/ltest/ltr.html



Internet Resources for Language Teachers and Learners (The Subject Centre for Languages, University of Southampton) 
-- http://www.lang.ltsn.ac.uk/cit/langsite/





top of page

Instructional Resources: Multimedia, Software, Templates, and Lesson Plans


The websites linked below offer many resources for teachers of Spanish as L2 including complete lesson plans often with multimedia links that could be used to enhance in-class activities or assigned to students as homework.  Other sites offer downloads of freeware, shareware or demo software that can be used in the creation of CALL activities for students of Spanish. 




ELENZA Website (Education Office of Australia and New Zealand, Advisory Services of the Ministry of Education of Spain)
-- http://redgeomatica.rediris.es/elenza/english/index.html
This website offers downloadable lesson plans (usually in Word format) for Spanish teachers and links to other websites that could be incorporated into culture modules.  Although many of the resources are for primary and secondary school there are others that could be used in teaching college level Spanish as well.



FL Teach: Foreign Language Teaching Forum 
-- http://www.cortland.edu/flteach/flteach-res.html
Although the focus of this website is second language instruction in general, there is a section devoted to each of the more commonly taught languages including Spanish.  The list of links includes many Spanish language media websites such as radio from a wide range of countries.  There are also links to worthwhile websites dedicated to acquisition of Spanish as L2.



Foreign Language Home 
-- http://www.foreignlanguagehome.com/topics/home/index.htm
Foreign Language Home offers information and links for teachers of foreign language in general.   Items include recent news and developments in the field, software reviews, as well as links dedicated to the instruction of particular languages as L2.  The Spanish section provides links to many online activities, including quizzes and games, that could be assigned to students for in-class work or as homework.     




Free Spanish Teacher Resources Provided by Visual Link Spanish™
-- http://www.spanishprograms.com/spanish_teacher/index.htm?link=2
Although this website is aimed at teachers of Spanish at the secondary level some of the available resources could also be used to create activities for beginning students at the college level.  There are demos of web-based exercises and games for verb practice and vocabulary learning as well as a weekly newsletter.  Some of the activities require registration.  There are also software modules than can be purchased.



The GISMO Project: Guildhall Interactive Software for Multimedia Online
-- http://languages.londonmet.ac.uk/CALL/call/home.htm
The exercises in the Spanish section of this CALL demonstration site are produced using Java applets.  In addition to the usual self-correcting formats, the Virtual CALL Library offers exercises that allow students to work on pronunciation.  Students first listen to a short phrase.  Installation of a Java plug-in is required for students to be able to  record and listen to their own pronunciation; full instructions are available here -- http://languages.londonmet.ac.uk/CALL/call/instalation.htm



Hot Potatoes
-- http://hotpot.uvic.ca/
Hot Potatoes is an easy to use free software (check the website for use guidelines) that generates self-correcting quizzes in several formats:  cloze tests, fill in the blank, jumbled sentences, matching, as well as crossword puzzles.  The website offers free download of the software for Windows platform, Linux, and a beta version for MAC OS X.  The Hot Potatoes site offers detailed tutorials for the different quiz formats.



Hot Potatoes Exercises to Accompany the Caminos Textbook
-- http://atschool.eduweb.co.uk/rgshiwyc/school/curric/HotPotatoes/spanishindex.htm
This website offers demonstrations of the many formats of Hot Potatoes and how they could be used to provide practice and feedback to students in beginning Spanish.  The topics are general enough that the fact that the exercises were developed for a specific textbook is not a drawback.



Internet Activities for Foreign Language Classes 
-- http://www.clta.net/lessons/
Information about the development of internet-based activities is the focus of this web site.  There is a discussion about the use of the internet in foreign language instruction followed by a list of links of activities developed by students following the protocols suggested in the lesson planning section.



Lengua y literatura: Servidor de recursos educativos para el profesor y el alumno de lengua y literatura  http://www.vicentellop.com/
The language portion of this website offers instructional modules on all aspects of Spanish grammar.  There are downloadable exercises in Word format as well as online self correcting exercises that utilize Java applets.



MERLOT: Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching
-- http://www.merlot.org/search/ArtifactList.po?catcode=341
As stated on its homepage MERLOT is a free and open resource designed primarily for faculty and students of higher education. It provides links to online learning materials that have been submitted by instructional faculty and accompanied by a peer review.  Many of the online materials have linked exercises and assessments.  Some of the Spanish examples utilize multimedia such as music or brief film clips as a point of departure to assess student comprehension.



Quia
-- http://www.quia.com/web

Quia offers subscription based access to templates to create many formats of self-correcting quizzes including flashcards, matching, concentration (memory), word search, cloze exercises, hangman, jumbled words, and scavenger hunt among others.  Although access to the quiz creation feature requires a subscription of $49 per year, samples of quizzes created with Quia are available on the web site and can be freely accessed by both instructors and students.



REACH: Recursos para la enseñanza y el aprendizaje de las culturas hispánicas
-- http://www.nflc.org/reach/
REACH is a website dedicated to Spanish language and culture.  The seven modules that have been developed consist of thematically grouped links to different aspects of the Spanish language as well as cultural information about the countries where Spanish is spoken.  There are also two modules dedicated to Spanish language instruction.



Teaching Spanish to Native Speakers 
-- http://www.cal.org/resources/faqs/RGOs/sns.html
This is a comprehensive website with a bibliography of articles on the challenges of teaching native speakers and quasi native speakers.  Additionally, citations from ERIC have been selected for materials related to the teaching of native speakers.  There is also a section on curriculum development with a list of textbooks for native speakers. 



todoele.net: Página del profesor de español como lengua extranjera
-- http://www.todoele.net/
This website is dedicated to the teaching of Spanish as a second language.  There are many activities and lesson plans that can be downloaded (mostly in PowerPoint and Word document format).  Many of the lesson plans are associated with multimedia materials such as popular songs and films that should be easily available to instructors through their institutional media center.



Virtual CALL Library
-- http://www.sussex.ac.uk/languages/1-6-6.html
Software and software reviews are the focus of this website.  The downloadable software is either freeware or shareware.  There is a brief description of the software and then a link to the provider's website.  There are also reviews of commercial software.




top of page

ABOUT THE SPANISH LANGUAGE


General


Centro de Consultas de la Lengua Española de Ciudad Seva
-- http://www.ciudadseva.com/enlaces/lengua.htm
This web site offers links to a variety of resources:  reference tools, grammars, dictionaries, spelling checkers, and automatic translators.  It is a useful for both instructor and students in advanced language and literature classes.



Centro Virtual Cervantes:  Biblioteca del profesor de español
-- http://cvc.cervantes.es/obref/biblioteca_ele/
Different aspects of teaching Spanish as a second language are covered on this web site.  There are links to pedagogical activities, studies on ELE (enseñanza del español como lengua extranjera), and announcements of upcoming conferences on the teaching of Spanish.



Centro Virtual Cervantes:  El español en los EEUU
-- http://cvc.cervantes.es/obref/espanol_eeuu/
There are two major points of interest on this website:  the use of Spanish in the United States (for example, in mass media) and the pedagogy of Spanish as a second language.  There are links to full text articles dealing with both topics.



Centro Virtual Cervantes: Morderse la lengua
-- http://cvc.cervantes.es/actcult/morderse_lengua
/
This website offers examples of language abuse in mass media and advertising.  The examples could form the basis for interesting discussions in advanced language and lingusitics classes.



Cuadernos Cervantes: La revista del español en el mundo 
-- http://www.cuadernoscervantes.com/
In addition to offering access to articles in the current and past issues of the Cuadernos Cervantes the website offers a section en ELE (enseñanza del español como lengua extranjera) and links to current articles related to the Spanish language and the teaching of Spanish from other news sources.



El español en el mundo 
-- http://cvc.cervantes.es/obref/anuario/
El español en el mundo is an annual publication of the Instituto Cervantes.  The journal offers a wide coverage of articles related to the Spanish language including ELE.



Ethnologue -- Spanish
-- http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=spa
The Ethnologue web site gives comprehensive information on the dissemination of the Spanish language in the world including where it is spoken and the number of speakers.  Additionally, it is possible to look at the language situation of particular countries.



La página del idioma español
-- http://www.elcastellano.org/
This comprehensive website dedicated to the Spanish language offers a variety of resources including links to grammars, dictionaries, history of the language, review of recent articles in the press, and a word of the day feature to develop vocabulary.




top of page

Grammars


This section contains links to both current and historical grammars.  There are also aids for students such as verb conjugators.




Archivo Gramatical de la Lengua Española (Salvador Fernández Ramírez) 
-- http://cvc.cervantes.es/obref/agle/



Diccionario panhispánico de dudas (Real Academia Española)
-- http://buscon.rae.es/dpdI/




Español urgente 
-- http://www.efe.es/esurgente/lenguaes/




Flexionador: verbo (Universidad de las Palmas)
-- http://www.gedlc.ulpgc.es/investigacion/scogeme02/flexver.htm




Gramática de la Lengua Castellana de Antonio de Nebrija (1492)
-- http://elies.rediris.es/elies16/Niederehe1.html




Gramática de la Lengua Castellana compuesta por la Real Academia Española (1771)
-- http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/servlet/SirveObras/45771431102371451100080/index.htm




Gramática de la lengua castellana destinada al uso de los americanos
(Andrés Bello)
-- http://www.jabega.net/bello/index.html



Instituto de verbología hispánica  (verb conjugator)
-- http://www.verbolog.com/



Manuales de Lengua y Literatura Castellanas (Biblioteca Manes) 
-- http://www.uned.es/manesvirtual/BibliotecaManes/LengCast/LCastPeriodos.htm



Las normas del español actual 
-- http://www.elcastellano.org/gramatic.html




top of page

Dictionaries


Diccionario de español (Universidad de Oviedo)  
-- http://tradu.scig.uniovi.es/anton.html
In addition to a monolingual Spanish dictionary,  this web site also offers the following dictionaries: Diccionario de  Antónimos, Diccionario de  sinónimos, Diccionario de inglés, as well as a verb conjugator.



CLAVE.  Diccionario de uso del español actual. Madrid: Ediciones SM 
-- http://clave.librosvivos.net/
An added feature of this (monolingual Spanish) dictionary is that it offers a brief discussion of the current usage of lexical items including recommendations for avoiding anglicisms.



Diccionarios.com  http://www.diccionarios.com
This website contains the Diccionario General de la Lengua Española Vox, Diccionario de Sinónimos y Antónimos de la Lengua Española Vox, as well as bilingual dictionaries:  Spanish and English, French, Catalan, and German.  Dictionary entries seem to be up to date and include technical vocabulary such as terms in telecommunications and informatics.  A disadvantage of this web site is that users may only perform a few searches without enrolling in the fee based subscription service.



Diccionarios elmundo.es 
-- http://www.elmundo.es/diccionarios/
This web site provides access to several different dictionaries including a thesaurus, bilingual dictionaries for both Spanish/English and Spanish/French, as well as a specialized dictionary of medical terms.  A list follows.
Diccionario de la lengua española, de sinónimos y de antónimos

Diccionarios bilingües: español inglés, inglés español, español francés y francés español
Diccionario de medicina



Multi WordNet 
-- http://multiwordnet.itc.it/english/home.php
Based on work done by the TALP Group at the Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, the Spanish database for WordNet offers very complete entries for lexical items, including grammatical function, with a gloss in English.



Página de los diccionarios (José Antonio Millán)
-- http://jamillan.com/dicciona.htm
This website maintains up to date links to online Spanish dictionaries of all types, including regionalisms and slang.  There is also a list of recently published dictionaries available in print.



Real Academia Española  http://www.rae.es/
The website for the RAE offers many linguistic resources including the current Diccionario 2001 (22nd ed.), all previous editions of the Diccionario de la Real Academia Española from 1780 to 1982, and the eighteenth century Diccionario de Autoridades.  There are also linguistic databases in which users can search for use of a specific word or phrase; databases can be selected by date, genre or author.  Dictionary entries for verbs include access to a verb conjugator.  The Diccionario de dudas will shortly be replaced by the new Diccionario panhispánico de dudas.



Diccionario de regionalismos de la lengua española 
-- http://www.hispanicus.com/drle/
Full access to the dictionary is available only through subscription.  However, the demo offers access to a large number of lexical items.



WordReference.com 
-- http://www.wordreference.com/es/
WordReference provides access to several dictionary databases through a single search interface.  These include a dictionary of synonyms, several bilingual dictionaries including Spanish/Portuguese, Spanish/English, and Spanish/French, as well as the capability of searching for a term that appears in the definition of any lexical item.




top of page

Spanish Linguistics



Base de datos sintácticos del español actual: Características generales de la cláusula
-- http://www.bds.usc.es/manual/tipoclaus.html
The manual that accompanies this web site, a corpus of contemporary texts from the Archivo de Textos Hispánicos de la Universidad de Santiago (ARTHUS), provides an excellent overview of Spanish syntax with examples of different types of syntactic structures.   Use of the database requires registration.



Centro Virtual Cervantes: Congresos de la lengua
-- http://cvc.cervantes.es/obref/congresos/sevilla/
The Congresses of Sevilla (1992), Zacatecas (1997), Valladolid (2001), and Rosario (2004) are represented on this web site with summary information, press releases, and full text of presentations.



Centro Virtual Cervantes: Voces y letras hispánicas
-- http://cvc.cervantes.es/obref/dvi/
There are three sections of linguistic interest in this module of CVC:  Los sonidos, an introduction to Spanish phonetics; Historia, a brief history of the Spanish language; and Las palabras, an introduction to word origins including the contributions of Amerindian lanauges.  There are accompanying audio files that explain the text and images displayed on the screen.



Corpus del español (Mark Davies, Brigham Young University) 
-- http://www.corpusdelespanol.org/
This corpus project is based on data from the 13th century to the year 2000 and contains over 100 million words.  Advanced search strategies include collocation, grammatical category, and frequency, among others.



Estudios de lingüística del español 
-- http://elies.rediris.es/
This comprehensive website is part of Red IRIS ( Interconexión de los Recursos Informáticos), a program of the National Office for Research and Development in Spain.  On this site are links to research studies on Spanish linguistics, virtual libraries, linguistic corpora, dictionaries, and other databases of linguistic interest.



Grupo de Estructuras de Datos y Lingüística Computacional (Lematizador, Flexionador, Conjugador, Desambiguador)
-- http://www.gedlc.ulpgc.es/
This web site is the result of collaborations in the area of computational linguistics at the Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.  There are several modules which provide for input and analysis:  a morphological tagger and analyzer, an inflectioner (for nouns), a verb conjugator, a lexical database for morphological relationships, and a morphosyntactic disambiguator. 



Phonetics: The Sounds of Spanish and English.
-- http://www.uiowa.edu/~acadtech/phonetics/about.html
Excellent audiovisual materials are available on this web site that could be used for instruction in Spanish phonetics or comparative English/Spanish phonetics.  There is a Flash animated articulary diagram for each consonant or vowel together with a text description of the articulation of the sound.  Both vowels and consonants are pronounced in the context of a word.



SIL.  Materiales para la enseñanza de la fonética general. 
-- http://www.sil.org/capacitar/fonetica/fonetica.stm
SIL offers materials for a complete course in general linguistics online.  The materials are in a variety of formats -- web pages, downloadable PDF files, and hyperlinked audio files.  Although the course does not deal with Spanish specifically because the explanatory texts are in Spanish they could be a valuable source of instructional material for an advanced class in Spanish linguistics.



Spanish FrameNet:  An Online Lexical Resource
-- http://gemini.uab.es/SFN/SFN_Corpus.htm
This corpus is a research project of the Department of Education of Spain, the Autonomous University of Barcelona with collaboration of the International Computer Science Institute in Berkeley, CA.  It is an online lexical resource for Spanish based on the concept of frame semantics  as illustrated in the corpus evidence for each lexical item. 




top of page

EXERCISES AND ACTIVITIES ON THE WEB


Beginning & Intermediate



The web pages linked below offer instructional materials for self-instruction of Spanish as L2.  They could also be used in formal language instruction to supplement textbook and classroom activities.  Many of the exercises are self correcting which allows students to work independently.




Aula de lengua
-- http://cvc.cervantes.es/aula/
CVC offers modules for language instruction at all levels from primary school to adult learners of Spanish as a second language.  There are text-based materials such as short readings and interviews as well as interactive, self-correcting exercises.



BBC Languages: Spanish 
-- http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/spanish/
The BBC website is extensive and offers language instruction at beginning and intermediate levels.  There are both audio and video segments for students that provide authentic exposure to mass media.  Exercises and self-tests are also available on this website



Contigo: Español para principiantes
-- http://ww2.college-em.qc.ca/prof/epritchard/espagnol/index.htm
It is not apparent whether or not these exercises were designed to accompany the textbook of the same name, however, since the exercises are general in nature and self contained they would be of benefit to any student in beginning Spanish.  The exercises require Flash 5, a free download.  The exercises provide instant feedback and hints for correction.



Cuentos para todos
-- http://users.servicios.retecal.es/mariaarenzana/cuentos/index.htm
The readings and exercises on this web site are more suited for instruction at the primary/secondary level but they would also be good examples for college level students studying the teaching of Spanish.  The reading selections themselves offer no enhancements such as highlighted text or illustrations.  The self-correcting exercises are very brief; some check comprehension while others check mastery of grammatical structures.



Fondo Lector (Mariano Vindel, Junta de Andalucía) 
-- http://www.juntadeandalucia.es/averroes/%7Ecepco3/fondolector/justifica.htm
The purpose of this web site is to stimulate interest in reading at the primary school level.  There are many word games on this web site that such as jumbled sentences. 



Gramática  (Cecilia Benenati, Lewis & Clark College)
http://www.lclark.edu/%7Ebenenati/gramatica.html
This web site provides a quick reference grammar for students of intermediate level Spanish.  It includes comments about common native speaker errors such as spelling and placement of written accents as well as problem areas for Spanish L2 students.



Houghton Mifflin 
-- http://college.hmco.com/languages/spanish/instructors/
This publisher's website offers exercises and supplementary materials for their textbooks most of which require a passkey obtained only when the textbook has been purchased.  However, there are also maps and transparencies in PDF format that can be printed out and used as AV resources even when other textbooks are being used.



Learn Spanish: A free online tutorial 
-- http://www.studyspanish.com/
Although this is a commercial web site that offers instructional materials for sale there are are many free lessons and self-correcting quizzes, including audio files to learn pronunciation and quizzes on basic grammar structures.



Más arriba: Spanish Language Exercises
-- http://www.trentu.ca/spanish/masarriba/
The exercises on this web site have been developed to accompany the ¡Arriba!  textbook (Canadian edition).  However, they could be used by students enrolled in beginning Spanish classes using other textbooks.  Many of the exercises request written input from students with an option to click for audio of the expected response.



Spanish Grammar Exercises (Barbara Kuczun Nelson, Colby College)
 -- http://www.colby.edu/~bknelson/exercises/
This web site has received awards from CALICO and MERLOT.  It makes good use of audio and music as well as short video as input to stimulate student interest.  There are followup exercises to check comprehension and mastery of the grammatical focus of the multimedia stimuli.



Spanish Language Exercises  (Juan Ramón de Arana, Ursinus
-- http://mld.ursinus.edu/~jarana/Ejercicios/index.html
Exercises on this comprehensive web site are of two types:  Self check exercises with automatic correction and feedback for the student and Instructor check exercises that can be sent by the student to a specified instructor e-mail address.  The Instructor check exercises are usually open ended questions that appear at the end of a brief informational unit.



Spanish Video Resources
-- http://www.ashcombe.surrey.sch.uk/Curriculum/modlang/shared/vod_sp.htm
A series of short videos about different aspects of everyday life can be viewed on this web site.  The video can be paused and repeated if students need additional input.  After watching the video a cloze exercise tests comprehension as well as writing skills.



Taller hispano
-- http://www.cortland.edu/flteach/usafa/taller.html
Taller hispano offers short videos related to Spanish and Spanish American culture and daily life.  Students are provided with text boxes to record information about what they have heard in a guided note taking activity.



VMI Online Spanish Drills
-- http://academics.vmi.edu/modlan_kbb/kbb/vmispanishdrills.htm
The online drills on this web site have two components:  a brief grammar lesson and a related grammar quiz.  The quizzes are self correcting Hot Potatoes format.  Except for the automatic, instantaneous feedback these exercises are very traditional in their approach to teaching grammar, that is, a focus on forms.




top of page

Readings & Texts



Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes
-- http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/
This virtual library offers the most comprehensive coverage of full text literary and scholarly works in the Spanish language.   Although copyright restricts the presence of the most recent authors, there is a good representation of authors from both Spain and Spanish America from the early twentieth century and earlier.



Colibrí (SEP, México) 
-- http://omega.ilce.edu.mx:3000/sites/colibri/htm/menu.htm
Colibrí is part of the digital library project of the Secretaría de Educación Pública in Mexico.  Although designed for K-12 instruction, the digital library contains modules of fiction and non-fiction that could be utilized in intermediate level classes.  Based on textbooks, these web sites are highly illustrated.  Most of them do not offer any exercises or instructional material.



Lecturas Paso a Paso (Centro Virtual Cervantes)
-- http://cvc.cervantes.es/aula/lecturas/
This web site from Centro Virtual Cervantes offers guided reading activities with background information on the reading selection, before reading activities, and after reading activities including interactive quizzes.  There are three different levels of reading difficulty from which to select.



Literatura 
-- http://cvc.cervantes.es/obref/dvi/
The literature section of this web site from Central Virtual Cervantes would be suitable for students in an introduction to Spanish literature class.  There is an anthology of texts from reprentative time periods that contains audio files of readings and songs.  There are no exercises or assessments.



Materiales para mejorar la comprensión lectora 
-- http://www.amejor.com/lector/entrada_caste.htm
This web site of "a-mejor," a non profit organization in Spain dedicated to improvement of educational success of children in primary and secondary schools, offers reading comprehension passages with follow up exercises and quizzes.  The reading selections chronicle the travel adventures of a group of teenagers throughout Spain.



El Mensual:  An intermediate audio Magazine (BBC)
-- http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/spanish/news/index.shtml
El Mensual is a monthly magazine for intermediate level learners of Spanish.  Students are able to listen to short audio clips of news stories or interviews and then test their comprehension through cloze exercises.  There are also audio clips of popular songs with fill in the blank exercises to check comprehension of lyrics.



Proyecto Scherezade 
-- http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~fernand4//index.html
Proyecto Scherezade offers a collection of short stories, some with interactive exercises and audio files, for use in upper intermediate and advanced classes of Spanish.  Many of the stories are published here for the first time.



Tecla/Texts for Learners and Teachers of Spanish (Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte de España en el Reino Unido) 
-- http://www.sgci.mec.es/uk/Pub/tecla.html
Tecla is an online magazine that offers reading selections, usually related to the history and culture of Spain and Spanish America, as well as post reading activities.  There are three levels to select from.  The magazine is easily downloaded as a PDF file.



Literatura en Ciudad Seva
-- http://www.ciudadseva.com/enlaces/ind-lit.htm
The literature section of this web site offers access to digital texts, particularly short stories.  The stories represent a variety of literatures including translations of authors who do not write in Spanish.  The full text access, however, presents many possible uses, including a source of texts for a course in translation studies.



Palabra de escritor (SEP, Mexico)
-- http://redescolar.ilce.edu.mx/redescolar/act_permanentes/
lengua_comunicacion/palabraescritor/iprincipal/pprincipal.htm
This web site from the Secretaría de Educación Pública is designed to foment writing and literary analysis.  There are several well done essays on the art of writing that could be used as outside reading for students in college level Spanish literature classes.




top of page

Civilization & Culture



The links listed below are primarily web sites developed in Spain or Spanish America for informational or instructional purposes.  Because many were developed for primary and secondary students the language is simpler thus increasing accessibility for students of Spanish as L2.   The web sites also provide a basis for classroom discussion of more complex  issues such as historical bias and national identity.




Almendron.com: una ventana al mundo cultural, artístico y político
-- http://www.almendron.com/
Almendron.com is a very attractive web site visually.  Parts of it are still in development but the image galleries in most sections are accessible.  The cultural infomation could provide a good point of departure for writing activities in advanced Spanish classes.



Biblioteca (digital) Luis Angel Arango (Colombia)
-- http://www.lablaa.org/para_ninos_digital.htm
This digital library offers an interesting selection of materials for those interested in the history of children's literature as well as those seeking authentic materials for use in intermediate/advanced Spanish classes.  Many of the links lead to pdf files of published juvenile books.  There are no instructional activities on this web site but the texts provide a point of departure for development of instructional materials.



Historia de Iberoamérica (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Instituto de Historia)
-- http://www.puc.cl/sw_educ/historia/iberoamerica/index.html
Divided into three section -- Expansión europea (s. XIV, XV), Irrupción europea (s. XV, XVI), América colonial (s. XVI, XVII, XVIII) -- this comprehensive web site would be a great enhancement for an upper level civilization or culture course.  Each section has a selection of brief texts and links to a web site and a bibliograph as well as brief music audio files.  The web site is well illustrated and has hyperlinks for important concepts or proper names.   There are many excerpts from primary source documents.



Historia de la historia (SEP, México) 
-- http://redescolar.ilce.edu.mx/redescolar/act_permanentes/historia/html/historia.htm
This web site offers well illustrated reading selections on both world history and Mexican history.  The Mexican history section includes primary source materials such as period photographs, letters and manuscripts.  There are provocative questions for students at intervals in the reading selection and also at the end of the reading.



Historias paralelas (Library of Congress)
-- http://international.loc.gov/intldl/eshtml/
Historias paralelas is a bilingual web site that surveys the common history of the United States and Spain.  It is a joint project of the U.S. Library of Congress and the Biblioteca Nacional de España.  The reading selections and hyperlinked documents would be a welcome addition to a class on Spanish or Spanish American civilization.



Leyendas mexicanas (Universidad de Guadalajara)
-- http://mexico.udg.mx/historia/leyendas/
Leyendas mexicanas consists of two sections -- Leyendas prehispánicas and Leyendas coloniales -- each of which has six short legends.  Each page has an attractive illustration.  Since there are no instructional activities, Leyendas mexicanas would need to be supplemented by instructor-developed materials.  The reading level is appropriate for high intermediate or advanced learners.



Mundo Maya
-- http://www.mayadiscovery.com/es/
Mundo Maya is a bilingual web site (the link above is to the Spanish version) that offers easy to read information about the Maya culture, both in historical perspective and in the present day.  The different sections of this web site are:  Arqueología, Naturaleza, Vida diaria, Historia, Artesanía, Leyendas, and a notes section.  Reading selections could probably be used to supplement materials in third and fourth semester classes as well as more advanced classes.  There are no exercises or quizzes but the readings could easily form the basis for a quiz on comprehension utilizing one of the test making tools such as Hot Potatoes.



The Oaxaca Collection
-- http://www.aug.edu/langlitcom/mexico/oaxaca.htm
A visit to the arqueological site of Monte Albán forms the basis for these reading selections.  The readings are supplemented by vocabulary lists and hyperlinekd glosses for difficult words.  There are also short comprehension quizzes for each reading selection.  This web site is illustrated with photos of a student expedition to Oaxaca.  The reading selections have some minor grammatical errors and awkward syntactic constructions.  However, conceptually the web site offers some good models for Spanish instruction.



Sur del Sur
-- http://www.surdelsur.com/pagina3.html
Sur del Sur is a comprehensive, bilingual web site dedicated to the history of Argentina and its cultural manifestations.  The reading selections are usually quite short and accompanied by attractive illustrations.  Because of the abbreviated nature of the information found here, Sur del Sur would be most useful to accompany class activities that would be enhanced by a brief historical note or image.  There are no exercises or questions for study on this web site.




top of page

Advanced Language & Linguistics



The web sites listed below offer models for the teaching advanced Spanish grammar or Spanish linguistics at the advanced undergraduate level.  A few of the web sites are at a slightly lower level but may be helpful for students who need some remedial work.




Gramática y ortografía (Juan Manuel Soto Arriví) 
-- http://www.indiana.edu/~call/lengua.html
The grammar reviews and accompanying exercises are part of a larger web site dedicated to Spanish language and culture.  Each grammar section offers a brief review with exercises for students to check their mastery of basic grammatical principles.  There are also links to other pages that offer language instruction and tools such as dictionaries, verb conjugators, and spell check; a few of the links are no longer functional.



Introducción a la lingüística española (Ganesh Basdeo, University of Washington)
-- http://courses.washington.edu/dibas/323/323span.html
This web site was developed for an advanced level course in Spanish linguistics.  The materials would be of interest to anyone developing or teaching a similar course.  There are review questions, exercises, and diagrams to illustrate phonology, morphology, syntax.



Introducción a la lingüística hispánica (Sonia Ramírez Wohlmuth, University of South Florida)
-- http://chuma.cas.usf.edu/~swohlmut/spn4700/
This web site contains chapter reviews in Powerpoint format to accompany Hualde, Olarrea, and Escobar's Introducción a la lingüística hispánica.  There are also some review quizzes that utilize Hot Potatoes software.



Lengua.   Proyecto Aula: Lengua y Literatura Españolas. 
--
http://lenguayliteratura.org/mb/
The language section of Proyecto Aula offers reviews of different grammar points with exercises.  Some are web page format; others are to be printed out and completed as pencil and paper exercises.  Most of the instructional materials are a traditional focus on forms approach.



Lengua: Educación Secundaria Obligatoria -- Primer Ciclo 
-- http://roble.pntic.mec.es/~msanto1/lengua/
This web site was prepared as a review for exams for secondary students in Spain.  There are brief reviews covering an array of themes:  specific grammar points, history of the Spanish language, the dissemination of Spanish in the Americas.  Main points are presented schematically in diagrams and students have an opportunity to test their knowledge with short self correcting quizzes.



Morfología y Sintaxis (Alfonso Sancho Rodríguez) 
-- http://personal.telefonica.terra.es/web/apuntesasr/Morfologia.htm
-- http://personal.telefonica.terra.es/web/apuntesasr/Sintaxis.htm
The two web sites contained here are part of a larger web site still in process.  There is an extensive online grammar to explain linguistic concepts.  There are also Powerpoints that can be downloaded for in-class use.  The Powerpoints contain graphs and schemes that are not easily created in html format.  The materials here would be useful in both advanced undergraduate and graduate classes on the structure of the Spanish language.



Ortografía
-- http://roble.pntic.mec.es/~msanto1/ortografia/
This web site is dedicated to common spelling errors in Spanish.  It would be particularly useful in a Spanish for native speakers class.  Students who have acquired Spanish through experience other than formal instruction usually have problems in distinguishing spelling of s, z, ce, ci; b, v; ll, y, etc.



Ortografía interactiva
-- http://www.aplicaciones.info/ortogra2/ortogra.htm
Ortografía interactiva, like the web site above provides interactive exercises to help students learn to avoid common spelling errors.  There are also several exercises on homophones in Spanish.



Proyecto Cíceros 
-- http://recursos.cnice.mec.es/lengua/
There are many resources available on this web site from the Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia (Spain).  Of linguistic interest is a tool for syntactic analysis with 70 model sentences in which each segment is tagged for syntactic properties.


Mass Media



The following list of web sites are a selection of Spanish language mass media available through the internet.  These include news bureaus, online newspapers and magazines, radio stations, and television stations.




BBC Mundo.com
-- http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/spanish/news/
The BBC web site provides coverage of international news with a focus on Latin America.  In addition to the text news stories there are audio files and video clips.  These media formats offer opportunities for students to monitor their comprehension skills as they learn of recent news events or listen to interviews with well known authors and artists.



Las radios en español, país por país
-- http://www.elcastellano.org/radios.html
As the title indicates this web page offers a list of radio broadcasts in Spanish by country.  In addition to Spain and Spanish America many other countries are represented in this list.



Prensa Escrita
-- http://www.prensaescrita.com/
Prensa Escrita is a compilation of online daily newspapers throughout the Spanish speaking world as well as Canada and the United States.  The listings are arranged by country.



Revistas On-line
-- http://www.periodismo.com/masrevi.shtml
A wide variety of online magazines are available on this web site organized by country.  While most of the magazines offer full text others offer only a table of content service with a brief summary of the articles available in the print version.



Spanish Magazines in Spanish
-- http://www.spanishnewyork.com/spanish-magazines.html
The magazines listed on this web site are primarily literary magazines some of which publish original poems and short stories.



Zona Latina: Latin American Broadcast Television
-- http://www.zonalatina.com/BroadTV.htm
Zona Latina provides a list of Latin American broadcast television as well as a list of U.S. Spanish language television broadasters.   There is limited availability of direct broadcast through the internet for some of the television stations.



España -- Emisoras de Televisión
-- http://www.mediosmedios.com.ar/A.%20Espana-television.htm
This web site provides a list of television stations from Spain.  Some of the stations offer direct broadcast; the audio is usually quite acceptable but images are of varying quality.




top of page




    
This web site has been developed by:

Sonia Ramírez Wohlmuth, doctoral candidate in Spanish Linguistics, Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, University of Florida and Instructor, School of Library and Information Science / World Languages, University of South Florida.

I value any comments, corrections, or suggestions for additions.  Click on my name above to send a message.