Peer Review

Nuevos Horizontes

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Reviewed:: Jul 12, 2009 by World Languages

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Ratings

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Overview:: “Nuevos Horizontes” is a collection of free weekly radio programs in Spanish broadcasted by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. As the site states, “The purpose of this radio program is to provide critical information and educational orientation to the Latino immigrant population in the United States, and those audiences interested in learning more about emerging Latino issues and improving their Spanish language listening skills.” The quality and variety of the broadcasts make “Nuevos Horizontes” appropriate for many learners, especially College level or advanced high school Spanish language, culture or health classes. Each radio program lasts 14 minutes and is divided into three sections: Entrevista, Salud, and Cultura. The information in the programs is engaging, varied, relevant and current. The broadcasts contain interesting interviews with scholars, political figures, and experts from the non-profit sector. The radio programs are free and are available to download into iTunes or the user can stream them through RealPlayer. Two CDs of past broadcasts with scripts are also available for purchase under the "Products" tab.
Type of Material:: Collection of radio broadcasts featuring reports and interviews.
Recommended Uses:: The "Nuevos Horizontes" radio programs are suitable for in class listening exercises, homework or for the independent learner.The podcasts can be used to provide input on current events, such as immigration policy, and topics related to health and culture. The site includes information not normally available in mainstream media or educational materials.
Technical Requirements:: RealPlayer 6.0 or later is needed to hear the audio, or the user can access the current and past (broadcasts) through iTunes.
Identify Major Learning Goals:: As stated on the site, “Nuevos Horizontes is an excellent tool to build and improve listening skills, not only because of its content but the students will hear native speakers with a variety of Spanish accents from Latin America.”The free podcasts provide students of Spanish with the opportunity to listen to native speakers as they discuss issues of interest to the Latino community.
Target Student Population:: Intermediate to advanced Spanish language; Spanish language classes focusing on health, immigration or culture; College level or upper level high school
Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:: The broadcasts are exclusively in authentically paced Spanish, thus the user should have at least an intermediate level comprehension of Spanish.Strong aural comprehension skills are required as the radio program is designed for native speakers of Spanish.

Content Quality

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Strengths:: • The radio programs are 14 minutes total and are divided into three sections: Entrevista, Salud, Cultura. The information in the programs is engaging, varied, relevant and current. • The broadcasts are often presented by news correspondents from CNN as well as various Latin American news agencies, and contain interesting interviews with scholars, political figures, and experts from the non-profit sector (for instance the director of the Instituto de Salud of the Consejo Nacional de la Raza). • Because the radio broadcasts are available in two formats (streaming through RealPlayer and as iTunes downloads), the learner or teacher has great flexibility as to how to use them. The issues discussed represent a wide array of interests from filing tax returns and the health benefits of goat cheese to the creation of a Mexican cartoon character on Nickelodeon and the celebration of Semana Santa in Latin America. The interview segments are particularly engaging and will prove useful for students hoping to strengthen their conversational skills.
Concerns:: • Because the site contains only short radio programs, the instructor would need to provide students with an introduction to the topics, background on the issues, and an activity, possibly geared to improve students’ listening comprehension. Although the website claims that it is a weekly radio program, the most recent broadcasts available for download date from 2008. Those searching for truly current events will have to look elsewhere.

Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool

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Strengths:: • As the site states, “Each radio program is divided into three different sections: Interviews, Health, and Culture. The Interview section touches on relevant and current issues of importance to the Latino Community. The Health section provides information about disease prevention, health and wellness, nutrition, food safety, seasonal illnesses and mental health topics. The Culture section features a wide variety of topics including Hispanic customs, historical events, holidays, and information about important writers, painters, and other artists from Latin America and the United States.” • Examples of topics in the sections are as follows. Sample interview section topics include “Campañas anti inmigrantes,” “El hip hop cubano de las Krudas,” “Habitat para la humanidad.” Themes for the culture section include “Mafalda,” “Herencia hispana,” and “El origen del mariachi” and the health section contains topics such as “Beneficios del agua,” “Fumador pasivo,” and “Jardinería.” • It would be very easy for an instructor to write assignments for learners to use this material creatively.With the wide array of topics discussed, students will be able to find podcasts that suit their interests. Additionally, they may listen to complete 14.5-minute broadcasts or two- to seven-minute clips of individual culture, health or interview segments depending on their interests and skill level.
Concerns:: • The radio programs are each isolated and thus do not necessarily build on each other very smoothly; nor do they contain much background or an introduction to the topic. The material related to current events, such as the economy, becomes quickly irrelevant if not regularly updated.

Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty

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Strengths:: • The site is available to view in Spanish and English and is very user friendly and visually appealing.he Web page includes bright colors and photographs that capture the interest of its users who may view the page in English or Spanish. The search engine of past programs allows users to browse by length, category or keyword related to the broadcasts. • The “Student’s Corner” has the radio programs organized by topic and is the easiest and fastest way to listen to particular broadcasts. This feature is only available through RealPlayer, however, once the user knows keywords from the title, the user can then search for the broadcast via title in iTunes and then download that specific program.
Concerns:: • The site is available to view in Spanish and English, however the broadcasts are completely in Spanish. • Because “Nuevos Horizontes” is a collection of radio programs, there is no interactive element included within the materials. The instructor could easily create pre or follow-up activities to improve on this aspect. • The programs are all one audio file (except for a few individual segments which the user can stream), thus the instructor may see the need to cut down the audio files in order to have only one of the three sections of the broadcast. There are several ways to search for radio programs, including "Students' Corner," "Search Past Programs," "Recent programs," and "podcast", with each method yielding different results. When clicking on "podcast" from any of the site's pages, the most recent date from 2007 and represent a total of 46 broadcasts. The search engine yields a greater number of radio programs dating from 1999 to 2008. Some of the links in this section were not working, however.

Other Issues and Comments:: When clicking on "Programas anteriores" under "Programas de radio," an error message stating that the page cannot be found is displayed. Under "Search Results," I received the following error message when clicking on the most recent radio programs: "Requested file not found. The link you followed may be outdated or inaccurate."
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