My formal Spanish training came through an intense summer course, in which we used Destinos as our text. I took the course more than 10 years ago and at least 4 years before I actually needed to use Spanish for anything. Destinos uses the drama to teach vocabulary and gradually transition viewers from English to Spanish. I just discovered that its all online for free. Perhaps I’ll watch it again sometime.
Destinos: An Introduction to Spanish
Mar 21
The Voice of America has excellent programming for English language learners in Special English which is English with a restricted vocabulary. As far as I know, all VOA Special English content is available at the site, so you can see video, listen to radio, or read the transcripts. It seems like it would be an excellent resource for both adult and teen learners of English as a second language (ESL).
The VOA website also has content in dozens of other languages, including common languages like French, Hindi, and Russian, as well as less commonly spoken languages such as Kirundi, Khmer, and Croatian.
Mar 6
I think it’s clear that my blog’s audience consists of mainly my kids so here’s one that’s sure to be a hit. Reading Between the Lions is a popular children’s television program. Here are four Lions playlists from various YouTube users:
Feb 27
A year ago, my daughter (then 4) sprung “Parents need to teach their kids sign language!” on my wife and me. We, of course, didn’t know any sign langauge. Luckily our friend gave us a bunch of Signing Time videos and she’s been studiously learning it. She knows how to label tons of things and she’s started stringing words together. As she learns to spell, she’s associating the hand signs with the written letters. Now she wants to learn Chinese and Spanish, so she does keeps us busy.
I just looked up these Signing Time playlists for my daughter. We haven’t tried out the Signing Time Kids website yet, but I’ll have my kids play with it this week.
Feb 18