Spanish
This page contains links to cultural resources in Spanish (most of which are culturally authentic, but some of which are semi-authentic.
Ads
- A searchable database of ads from around the world (search by country, industry, media/type of ad--audio/print/video, etc.)
Anuncios comerciales - - Word document containing a list of commercials in Spanish, along with transcripts and cultural thought questions for each one. They are also tagged by grammatical structures
- Grocery store ads from Spain
Escucha de anuncios publicitarios y de mensajes de campañas de información - Commercials accompanied by teacher-made cloze exercises
- Grocery store ads from Mexico
- Grocery store ads from Costa Rica
- A collection of publicity-related materials in Spanish from Zachary Jones
Audio
- Very nice database of mp3 recordings in a variety of languages (Arabic, Catalan, Chinese, Corse, English, French, German, Italian, Occitan, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, etc.) categorized by topic and searchable by language, level, gender, age, and length (Shared by Amy Lenord)
- Links to culturally authentic materials in a variety of languages, including Spanish
- Links to essays and stories narrated for radio (some are very imaginative)
- Audio materials with transcripts from Carnegie Mellon in French, German, Japanese, and Spanish
- Program similar to NPR's This American Life
Links to audio texts, read/performed by native speakers, and searchable by language, country, topic, and type of text (commentaries, interviews, legends, news, news magazines, radio novels, radio plays, podcasts, poetry, reports, short stories, songs, etc.)
- A crowd-sourced collection of texts in Spanish (and a variety of other languages), shared by language learners who found them helpful or interesting. The site allows you to search by categories (fiction, non-fiction, conversations, songs, and others) and to build a list of texts, a word list, and flashcards based on what you have read (if you are signed in).
- Telephone conversations between native speakers of Spanish (also available in Arabic) representative of different Spanish-speaking countries (Argentina, Cuba, Ecuador, Honduras, Mexico, Peru) on a variety of topics, including clothing, city or town, communications, daily life, education, family life, finances, food and drink, shopping, and working conditions
Biographies
- Biographies in Spanish with links to multimedia, videos, etc.
- Provides information about famous celebrities and historical figures from all over the world in extremely simple, novice-level Spanish
Children's Literature
- A collection of children's literature organized by author (much of it downloadable as PDFs, also some audio and video available)
- A collection of children's stories online from Mexico
- Collection of videos in which native speakers narrate animated children's stories in Spanish. The words appear on the screen as subtitles that are highlighted as they are spoken. Not all stories shared are culturally authentic.
- Fairy tales, regional stories, original stories, etc., read by native speakers. You can also download the mp3s.
Cuentos con pictogramas - A series of downloadable fairy tales written exclusively as pictograms (no words) that could be used to have students retell the stories in Spanish
- A collection of short stories in Spanish, organized by genre, character type, and category (such as classic fairy tales)
- Contains print versions of each story, and some have coloring pages and games related to the stories as well.
- A collection of children's stories in Spanish, including class children's stories, fables, legends, interactive stories, and video stories
- A collection of fables, legends, myths, proverbs, music, riddles, stories, tonguetwisters, etc., for children
- Explore, create, and share stories in Spanish (click this link to go straight to the creative tools, which include augmented reality, Comic strips, cut out stories, fanzines, Kamishibai, opera, paper animations, Scratch programming, shadow theater, videogame creation, etc.)
- Searchable database of children's books in a wide variety of languages (including Arabic, Chinese, Croation, Farsi, Filipino, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Mongolian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Tagalog, & Thai), categorized by age, color of cover, genre, length, topic, etc., that can be read online
- Lists of the children's picture books currently available for check-out from BYU's library collection (organized by year of publication)
- An interactive map containing links to legends and folktales from countries around the world read by native speakers in a variety of languages, including Spanish
- A fabulous online collection of children's books from Colombia
Mi primer libro de dichos - Read the book online
- A very interesting site with animated audiobooks in Catalán, Gallego, and Spanish that have each word illustrated with a labeled pictogram under the animation
25 Cuentos con Pictogramas en PDF gratuitos - A library of children's stories in Spanish written in pictograms that can be downloaded for free as PDFs from Educaenvivo. Be sure to explore their other resources as well.
- Collection of stories from around the world in both English and the target language including many less commonly taught languages
Unite for Literacy - A collection of texts on a wide variety of topics in English, Spanish, & Ukranian (but the texts are in translation and NOT culturally authentic)
Comics
- An encyclopedia of cartoonists
- A blog containing culturally authentic comic strips from popular comic artists in Spanish
Pedagogical Resources Related to Comics
A website created by graphic novelist Gene Yang that contains a history of comics in education, reasons for using comics in education, and quality resources (both online and print-based) for educators who wish to use comics in their classrooms. (From Gene Yang)
- A lengthy, annotated list of Latin American comics that provides brief background on the characters, settings, and content of each comic strip
Cultural Comparisons / Culture
Intriguing cultural information in Spanish on a variety of topics, including art, film, literature, painting, philosophy, and poetry
Dollar Street - Use the dropdown menus on this incredible site to choose countries and topics for comparison based on socioeconomic level. Your selections will bring up photos of whatever you chose from the countries you selected. The site contains many common everyday objects, people, and situations (e.g., adding spices to food while cooking, alarm clocks, answering phones, arm watches, armchairs, backyards, bathrooms, bedrooms, beds, bikes, boats, books, bowls, brushing hair, brushing teeth, car keys, carrying water, cars, ceilings, chickens, child rooms, chopping food, cleaning equipment, cleaning floors, closing the front door, computers, cooking, cooking pots, cooking utensils, cups, cutlery, diapers, dinner guests, disability aid, dish brushes, dish racks, dishwashing soaps, dishwashers, doing dishes, drinking water, drying clothes, drying dishes, earings, eating, everyday shoes, families, family snapshots, favorite home decorations, favorite items in kitchen, floors, freezers, get water, glasses, go through mail, goats, grains, guest beds, hairbrushes, hallways, handwashing, hands, and so forth.
Cultural information in English, accompanied by a collection of short video clips filmed with native speakers in the 1990s. Some are interviews with native speakers, others demonstrate various cultural practices in cultural settings from around the Spanish-speaking world. Topics include communication, shopping, social life, and transportation. Materials in a variety of other languages are also included on the site (shared by Lori Langer de Ramirez)
- Virtual library of resources in Spanish which contains, among other things, virtual tours of various places in Mexico
Documentaries
- Browse this site from Spain thematically by topic. Documentaries are in Spanish and address many of the AP themes as well as current events. Interviews with famous figures like Salvador Dalí, along with interactive explorations, are also available on the site.
Games
Images
- Culturally authentic images (Scroll down to browse by language)
- Hundreds of free images related to Spanish culture
- Searchable database of high quality, professional, royalty-free images including many culturally authentic images from around the Spanish-speaking world
- Culturally authentic images selected by teachers
Infographics
- A collection of culturally authentic posters/infographics in Spanish from a variety of different sources
- A fantastic collection of infographics in Spanish categorized by topic and curated on a blog by Alfredo Vela
Infografías / Gráficos - A collection of infographics in Spanish on a wide variety of topics from Aztec Noticias (shared by Leslie Grahn)
Infographics for World Languages: Spanish - A Pinterest collection of infographics by Leslie Grahn
Informational Texts
- A collection of culturally authentic posters/infographics in Spanish from a variety of different sources
- Magazine and newspaper sites, categorized by country and topic, from 200 countries around the world
Database of educational materials in Castellano, Catalán, English, Euskera, Gallego, and Portuguese. Materials are organized by grade level, age, topic, subject area, language, etc.
- INCREDIBLE site in Spanish that contains a list of global themes, background reading about each one in Spanish, and links to related statistics; click on the Countries tab to access background information about each country, historical information, a fantastic page of statistics regarding global issues, a map of the country, a downloadable audio file of the country's national anthem, and images
- Links to a wide variety of texts in Spanish regarding history, geography, and social studies, including contemporary events
- This fantastic site (Currículum en línea) from Chile contains informational texts in Spanish related to language arts, mathematics, natural sciences, and visual arts (including some multimedia texts). Once you select the category, the texts are organized by grade level (for Chile).curriculumnacional.mineduc.cl/614/w3-propertyvalue-57568.html
- A collection of front pages from today's newspapers from around the world
- A map that plots the locations of newspapers from around the world--can be filtered by language (Arabic, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish)
- Fabulous site in Spanish that contains both how-to videos and well-scaffolded how-to print articles illustrated with photos for accomplishing a variety of tasks on a variety of topics, including body, cars, education, environment, fashion, food, games and hobbies, health, home and garden, languages, law, music and dance, parties, personal finance, parenting, pets, relationships, shopping, sports, technology, travel, and work
Interviews
Cultural Interviews with International Business Executives - A collection of interviews in Spanish about business negotiation tactics (similar collections are also available in Chinese, German, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, & Turkish). Bonus interviews include information on a host cultural topics from daily life.
- A site from Spain that contains transcripts in Spanish of interviews conducted with famous artists (Pablo Picasso), politicians (such as Barak Obama), writers (such as Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortázar, Umberto Eco, Gabriel Garcia Márquez, Juan Rulfo, and other cultural figures (Michel Foucault, Sigmund Freud, etc.).
- Videos of eye-witness testimony given in Spanish and a vareity of other languages regarding various topics related to a whole host of topics, including acceptance, anti-semitism, choice, civil rights, courage, culture, deportation, discrimination, education, empathy, faith, family, fear, genocide, hate, human rights, humanity, hunger, identity, memory, refugees, religion, resilience, stereotypes, and a whole host of other topics (click language and your target language to access the videos for your language)
Jorge Ramos entrevista con Sandra Cisneros - 4:45 min. interview in Spanish
- Interviews with native speakers of Spanish from different countries about a variety of different topics, organized by proficiency level
Literature (See also Children's Literature; Spanish Literature)
- Links to full texts in Spanish from many famous authors, accessible by author, period, theme, and type
- Links to brief biographies, interviews, short stories, texts, etc., from famous Chilean writers
- Latin American Network Information Center - Extensive list of texts in Spanish & Portuguese (organized by country)
- Links to several texts on different topics (including El Cid), followed by interactive comprehension quizzes (See also poesías interactivas)
- Free books in the public domain that are available in text and audio formats
- Very short passage, followed by a variety of online comprehension activities, which teachers can adapt if they log in
- A collection of books, e-books, and other texts in a wide variety of languages. Use the advanced search feature to find texts in Spanish.
- Links to sites related to literature in Spanish & Portuguese
Logic Games & Puzzles
Juegos de ingenio - A Pinterest collection of logic puzzles and games in Spanish by Eddyver [Contributed by Sam Gunn]
Magazines
- Magazine and newspaper sites, categorized by country and topic, from 200 countries around the world
- Interesting stories in Spanish categorized by curiosities, health, history, pets, and news
- Brief tidbits about various current events and interesting stories in the news (also available from Spain)
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- This site contains informational texts on natural sciences (biology, earth/space, and geography), technology, biomedicine, math/physics/chemistry, humanities, social sciences, science-related politics, and innovation. The site gives permission (under a Creative Commons License) to copy and distribute the content as long as users credit the site.
- Strong coverage of Latin America
- Short news stories from around the world in Spanish
Memes
Authentic Text: Spanish Memes & Quotes - A Pinterest collection by Leslie Grahn
Spanish Memes #1 - A Pinterest collection by Vee [Contributed by Sam Gunn]
Spanish Memes #1 - A Pinterest collection by Vee [Contributed by Sam Gunn]
Music
- Culturally authentic songs in Portuguese organized by continent, country, holidays, and language
News
- Directory from around the world
- A fantastic collection of infographics in Spanish categorized by topic and curated on a blog by Alfredo Vela
- Links to newspapers from around the world in Spanish
- A collection of front pages from today's newspapers from around the world
- A map that plots the locations of newspapers from around the world--can be filtered by language (Arabic, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish)
0:22 “La tension inició a las 9:30 de la mañana.
0:52 “Los oficiales continuaban llegando para…”
1:00 “Mi hija me habló, luego luego que algo estaba pasando aqui, por eso vine para aca.
1:16 “Afuera, más de cien padres de familia esperaban angustiados”
0:52 “Los oficiales continuaban llegando para…”
1:00 “Mi hija me habló, luego luego que algo estaba pasando aqui, por eso vine para aca.
1:16 “Afuera, más de cien padres de familia esperaban angustiados”
- News articles in Spanish for kids
- This site contains informational texts on natural sciences (biology, earth/space, and geography), technology, biomedicine, math/physics/chemistry, humanities, social sciences, science-related politics, and innovation. The site gives permission (under a Creative Commons License) to copy and distribute the content as long as users credit the site.
- Strong coverage of Latin America
Tensiones entre Haití y República Dominicana - About immigration and human rights
- Short news stories from around the world in Spanish
Novels
La casa en Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros - (Novel recommended by Dr. Mara García)
La casa en Mango Street - An audio recording in Spanish of part of the novel by Sandra Cisneros
El coloquio de los perros - (Novel recommended by Dr. Erik Alder)
El coloquio de los perros - 2:09:13 hour audiobook of the full text in Spanish
Crónica de una muerte anunciada by Gabriel García Márquez- (Novel recommended by Dr. Mara García)
Crónica de una muerte anunciada by Gabriel García Márquez - A 2:50:33 hour audio book narrated in Spanish by a male native speaker
Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo - (Novel recommended by Dr. Mara García)
FRAGMENTOS DE PEDRO PÁRAMO EN LA VOZ DE JUAN RULFO - 10:54 min. video of scenes narrated by Juan Rulfo himself
Los recuerdos del porvenir by Elena Garro - (Novel recommended by Dr. Mara García)
Pelicula - Los Recuerdos Del Porvenir (Cine Mexicano 1969) - Full-length colored movie version of the novel by Elena Garro in Spanish
Poetry
- A site from Peru that contains hundreds of poems in Spanish by famous Peruvian poets, many with audio or video versions.
- A blog post that contains a link to a PDF of 13 poems by famous Spanish-speaking authors from around the Spanish-speaking world, along with activity ideas
- A collection of poetry, categorized by age and topic and downloadable as PDFs
Federico García Lorca - Vicente Monera "Canción tonta" - Poem by Lorca set to music and illustrated with famous works of art
A database of poems in a very wide variety of languages that can be filtered by country, language, or poet. Each poem is read aloud and accompanied by biographical information about the author. Translations to numerous languages are provided as well.
Poesía Estrella, Rocío y Mar. Declama Yazmeen - 1:17 min. video of an elementary-aged girl interpreting a poem in Spanish (she makes the input very comprehensible)
- Library of poetry in Spanish read aloud by the authors (or by others)
Polls
- Poll results on different topics in Spanish
Proverbs
Realia & Signs
- A collection of posters in Spanish from countries around the world
Resources & Other Texts in Spanish
- Links to a wide variety of texts in Spanish regarding history, geography, and social studies, including contemporary events
- A collection of books, e-books, and other texts in a wide variety of languages. Use the advanced search feature to find texts in Spanish.
Short Stories
El conde Lucanor - (Short stories recommended by Dr. Dale Pratt)
El Conde Lucanor - Full print text of all of the short stories in the collection in Spanish, each available on a separate webpage from the Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes
El Conde Lucanor (Cuento 11) - Don Juan Manuel | Audiolibro completo - An 8:31 min. audio recording of the story, narrated in Spanish by a male native speaker from Spain
Cuento XXXV - El conde Lucanor - Complete text of the short story in Spanish by Juan Manuel
El Conde Lucanor (Cuento 35) - Don Juan Manuel | Audiolibro completo - A 9:22 audio recording of the story, narrated in Spanish by a male native speaker from Spain
Cromatóforo by León Arsenal (Short story recommended by Dr. Dale Pratt)
Después de las carreras by Manuel Gutiérrez Nájera (Short story recommended by Dr. Mara García)
Después de las carreras by Manuel Gutiérrez Nájera - Full text of the story in Spanish
El que se enterró by Miguel de Unamuno (Short story recommended by Dr. Dale Pratt)
El que se enterró by Miguel de Unamuno - Full text of the short story from the Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes
El guardagujas, Juan José Arreola (Story recommended by Dr. Mara García)
El guardagujas, Juan José Arreola - 2:45 min. YouTube video adaptation of the story in Spanish, illustrated with colored animated drawings
“El guardagujas” by Juan Jose Arreola - Dramatized audio recording in Spanish from Mexico
El guardagujas - Complete text of the short story from the Biblioteca de Seva
El guardagujas - Online, 6-page version of the text from the Internet Archive
El guardagujas - Complete text of the short story from the Biblioteca de Seva
El guardagujas - Online, 6-page version of the text from the Internet Archive
La noche boca arriba by Julio Cortazar (Story recommended by Dr. Erik Alder)
La noche boca arriba - Julio Cortázar - A PDF of the full text of the short story in Spanish
La noche boca arriba - Julio Cortázar - A 20:57 min. video that shows the text of the short story as it is read aloud in Spanish
La noche boca arriba - Julio Cortázar (Cortometraje) by Hugo Covarrubias - A 9:16 min. short in Spanish based on the short story, illustrated with claymation type images (Alternate Vimeo link)
El rubí by Rubén Darío (Story recommended by Dr. Mara García)
El rubí by Rubén Darío - PDF of the full text of the story from the Biblioteca Virtual Universal (Alternate version of the full text)
El rubí by Rubén Darío - Audio narration of the story in Spanish by a female native speaker, followed by commentary
El rubí by Rubén Darío - Audio narration of the story in Spanish by a female native speaker, followed by commentary
Las ruinas circulares (Story recommended by Dr. Mara García)
Las ruinas circulares by Jorge Luis Borges - 4-page PDF of the story in Spanish
Las ruinas circulares by Jorge Luis Borges - 19:22 min. audiorecording of the story in Spanish
Las ruinas circulares by Jorge Luis Borges - A 18:47 min. audio version of the story narrated in Spanish by a male native speaker
Songs
Fun & Clean Spanish Songs for Your Classroom - An annotated list of 20 songs by Spanish Academy
Top Latin Songs 2024 Clean - Spanish Music Clean 2024 (Best) - A YouTube video playlist from Best Playlists x Today's Top Hits
Theater
En la ardiente oscuridad by Buero Vallejo (Play recommended by Dr. Mara García)
En la ardiente oscuridad - 2:28:44 hr. black and white movie version of the play in Spanish from RTVE.es in Spain.
Los fantoches by Carlos Solórzano (Play recommended by Dr. Mara García)
El censo by Carballido (Play recommended by Dr. Mara García)
El censo by Carballido - A nice PDF of the script of the play in Spanish
El censo by Carballido - A 22:32 min. video of the play put on in 2015 by Teatro Nena Delgado
Tonguetwisters
Videos
- Scroll half-way down the page to see the numbered list of videos
- Log in to the legacy version of the site to see a searchable collection of videos in hundreds of languages from around the world. Choose the 100% option in order to get a subtitled version of the video. You can also select the "country" tab to find videos from a specific country.
- Helpful, annotated list of videos in Spanish
- Shorts in Spanish, organized by category and searchable
- Videos recorded by native speakers on a variety of topics. Each video comes with a transcript. Students can check off specific grammatical structures on a checklist and they appear as highlighted items in the transcript.
Virtual Tours
- Tour of La Plaza de Espana, El Parque de El Retiro, Catedral-Mezquita de Córdoba
Pedagogical Resources
Blogs
Phenomenal site filled with creative, practical, proficiency-oriented ideas for world language teaching and learning
- Pedagogical materials for French and Spanish teachers and students
- Blog with games, ideas, and resources for preschool and elementary Spanish teachers
Excellent resources for building, tracking, and assessing proficiency
Excellent materials for building, assessing, and tracking proficiency from Alyssa Villareal
- A collection of resources for English, French, German, and Spanish teachers by Lori Langer de Ramirez
Materials grounded in the CI approach.
- A collection of language, music, and culture materials in Spanish from Zachary Jones
Information
Handouts from an ACTFL 2010 presentation that contain a comic analysis worksheet form, a comic creation worksheet that asks students to analyze complementarity, contrast, and redundant relationships among images and text, lesson plans, project rubrics, and more
- A PowerPoint presentation from an ACTFL session that contains loads of great examples for engaging students with culturally authentic texts in pedagogically sound ways
Instructional Materials
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- Magazine available in English and the language of your choice. Each issue is organized around a conceptual theme. Excellent visuals make great bulletin board material if you buy these in your local bookstore instead of viewing online. CAUTION: Much of the material in these magazines is NOT appropriate for classroom use, so teachers should preview and select carefully.
- Magazine produced by the Embassy of Spain (also available through the Spanish Resource Center)
- Site offers weekly news podcasts in Spanish. Each one comes with transcripts of the various news stories, targeted grammar and vocabulary, pronunciation exercises, and quizzes. Some of the content is free, but a paid subscription is required to access the full content from the site
- A collection of text sets for English/Language Arts, Science, Social Studies, and Social/Emotional Learning in English and Spanish with comprehension quizzes, writing prompts. Each text can be viewed at different reading levels
- Links to resources from the Realidades textbook series, including practice activities, puzzles, songs, and assessments
Links to a variety of teaching resources, including rubrics and PowerPoints
- A collection of sample responses to speaking tasks collected from native speakers, organized by proficiency level (includes some simplified examples)
- A series of thematic units in French, Japanese, and Spanish that can be downloaded for free. Most are based on culturally authentic children's books
- An online magazine filled with technology-infused instructional activities for Spanish teachers
Large collection of links to various types of culturally authentic materials, including images, songs, and texts in Spanish
- A collection of videos organized by European proficiency levels, organized in a chart that lists vocabulary, grammar, communicative function, and cultural elements present in each video.
- World-wide statistics on energy, environment, food, government and economy, health, population, technology, and water in Spanish that update in real time
- Search for educational videos in Spanish
- Depende (4:28 – Spanish – Video based on art that plays with perspective – would be a great foundation for launching a discussion re: the pros/cons of Spanglish)
- Don Quixote de la Mancha (“translated” into Spanglish)
- The Job (3:00 – English - Parody)
- Mujeres migrantes (3:23 – Spanish – Ad re: problems faced by women who are migrants)
- Manu Chao - Clandestino Clip Inmigrantes (3:01 – Music video)
- Los prejuicios contra los inmigrantes (:31 – Spanish – Public Service Announcement)
- Spanglish 2 (4:28 – Spanish & English - Movie clip that would be excellent for Translation classes)