RSS Feeds for Teaching Spanish (Gallery Option #1)

With today's world constantly changing, it is not uncommon to hear many individuals speaking languages other than English in the United States. Due to the large amount of southern immigrants, there has been a large influence from the Spanish language in our country. In large public places, such as grocery stores and movie theaters, it is very common to see signs printed in both English and Spanish, and now even elementary schools are feeling the stress for Americans to know Spanish. Many elementary schools are starting Spanish immersion programs where the school-day is taught half in English and half in Spanish with the goal to create bilingual students. In addition to having my Education degree, I have also earned a degree in Spanish, so I hope to someday work in one of these immersion classrooms. I think that using technology in these classrooms to teach young children Spanish is crucial to their success, so I have researched and made a list of helpful links for parents to visit to assist them in making their child bilingual. Check the links out here!
Each of the links provides a different type of teaching technique to the parents to use with their children. On the Teaching and Learning Spanish blog, the online chat and learning tool, Twitter, is promoted because it includes many interactive activities that focuses on a few simple tasks each session. In addition, it provides different activities for the different types of learners. For audio-visual learners, the blog includes interactive games that the learners can play each time they sit down and these games also include lessons on how to write in Spanish. Finally, this blog is complete with learning goals for parents to use with their children, vocabulary flashcards, and links to lesson extensions so that students' learning is well-rounded with lessons about all Spanish-speaking cultures.
In the blog Free Technology for Teachers, the focus is more for the classroom instructors and their students. The blog is complete with different Spanish learning lesson plans for various ages and grade levels. This blog is different than many of the others that I researched because it focuses more on teaching of Spanish-speaking cultures. There is a large focus on geography of these countries, as well as their history and how they evolved as a Spanish-speaking nation. This blog is very beneficial for teachers like myself because it includes downloaded games, posters, manipulatives, and other materials for classroom use.
The next blog, Spanish Lesson Plans for Children, is aimed at both parents and teachers for ideas of teaching Spanish to younger children. What makes this blog so interesting is that it focuses on the religious aspect of the language. It teaches religious vocabulary, as well as descriptions of the different religious practices in Spanish-speaking countries. It is complete with songs and their lyrics that you can see and hear, as well as explanations for important vocabulary that is used in the songs that could possibly cause confusion. Another unique aspect of this blog is that it teaches techniques for typing in Spanish. It teaches the learner how to type words with accents and also how to use shortcuts for faster typing. One final part of the blog that I found interesting is that it includes an entire section on teaching slang words in Spanish. This is helpful because it teaches the learners many aspects of the language they may not hear in everyday conversation.
The Bilingual Fun blog was created by a Spanish Elementary teacher and was made for teachers and parents of Spanish learners. This website is set up by themes for each month. For example, the October post is all about ways to teach about Halloween in Spanish, as well as the Mexican equivalent, El Dia de Los Muertos. Each theme has a different vocabulary set, as well as pictures of how to run the activities in the home or classroom. This is one of my favorite blogs because it also includes support information for parents and suggestions about how to create a supportive bilingial home environment. Finally, the teacher made a list of short activities that parents can do at home that can make a huge improvement in their child's success in learning Spanish.
Homeschool Spanish Support was created by a homeschool mother who has successfully taught Spanish to her young children. This blog is different than the others because it is basically set up like an online-version of a class. Each post is a new 30-minute lesson to teach to children and it is enough for 1 years' teaching. Even though this blog does not have additional lesson plans or many other links to interactive websites, I did find it to be helpful because it goes very in-depth about each lesson. The strength of this link is the instruction on pronunciation. For each word or slang phrase that it teaches, it also includes the phonology of how to say the word like a native speaker. It also has a button you can click to hear the pronunciation. The blog also includes how to conjugate verbs and an explanation of WHY sentences in Spanish are structured as they are, and finally includes current events that are going on in Spanish-speaking nations.
The final blog, Speak Spanish Everyday, is the most appealing to the eye. It was created by a non-native Spanish speaker from Texas who has created the blog with different themes that would be very applicable in the United States. For example, the most recent post was about the Superbowl. It included vocabulary that may be associated with the event, learning numbers to say the score of the game, and also lesson plans that revolve around the Superbowl in Spanish. The blog prior to that one had to do with the Presidential Inauguration and important vocabulary and explanations related to that historical event. I absolutely love this blog because it it uses things that are very real and applicable to everyday life for Americans. In my opinion, this website would spark a lot of interest in the minds of young Spanish learners in the US because it seems fun, exciting, and very interactive.
I chose this option for the Gallery Project because I am going to be in a Spanish immersion classroom for my teaching internship next year and I think that it is extremely important to do whatever you can as a teacher to advance your students. By using the newest forms of technology, the learning of these students could be maximized. By having immediate access to online support through RSS feeds, students are able to see a much wider range of Spanish lessons than in the traditional classroom teaching. Students are able to use RSS feeds to further their learning because they can complete interactive activities on their own time that assist in their learning. In addition to this, they are able to see what other students are learning about the language in other states and countries so that they feel that there is more of a purpose behind learning the language. I think RSS feeds are also an important form of professional development for teachers because it allows us to get ideas from our colleagues. In my opinion, if a teacher teaches in the same format year after year, that teacher is not truly benefitting her students. By seeing what is successful in other teachers' classrooms and incorporating those things into ours, students are able to learn much more efficiently. Finally, RSS feeds are essential tools for communicating with parents. Years ago, it was not possible for students' learning in the classroom to be extended to the home environment, but now in the world of rapidly-growing technology, parents can have access to the same materials a teacher uses in the classroom. By learning at school and at home, the students will learn the language much quicker and also their learning will be much more meaningful because it is enforced in all aspects of their lives.