Spanish Proficiency Exercises is a compilation of brief video clips in which native speakers of Spanish from various locations throughout Latin America and Spain demonstrate various language tasks. The site incorporates proficiency topics, divided by level of dificulty: Beginning, Intermediate, Advanced, Superior. The specific topics include video clips, vocabulary lists, phrases lists, and mini-grammar explanations.
Type of Material:
Tutorial
Recommended Uses:
These videos can be used in conversation classes, for group and pair work and at home or online for independent learners.
Technical Requirements:
Quicktime
Identify Major Learning Goals:
Learners will enhance listening comprehension, pronunciation, cultural awareness and ability to accomplish like tasks.
Target Student Population:
All levels of proficiency from basic level on.
Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:
Listening and Speaking Proficiency levels ranging from Novice to Near-native abilities.
Content Quality
Rating:
Strengths:
The variety of topics and levels makes this resource truly excellent and unparalelled on the web today. It is a very useful feature to have a mix of speakers of both genders, a range of ages and different countries of origin. In this way, a student gets to encounter different accents, vocabulary and expressions.
The fact that the communications are unscripted lends a natural and authentic tone to the materials.
Concerns:
no
Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool
Rating:
Strengths:
The materials are exceptional in providing specific topics centered around video clips, vocabulary lists, phrases lists, and mini-grammar explanations. The learning material provides excellent interaction in seeing vocabulary in a context, and modeling certain functional language in mastery of speaking at different levels. A student in a beginning class expressed, "This site is really helpful. Daily activities and dialoges by different people with different accents...wow!!!!" Another student, at an advanced proficiency level, was delighted to listen to the videos, and felt that the audio quality was excellent in helping her focus on the material to improve her listening and speaking. The transcripts of the audio materials are also extremely helpful as authentic models in developing the writing skill.
Concerns:
no
Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty
Rating:
Strengths:
The site is very easy to use and navigate with a clean interface and easy access to audio files and transcripts.There is a complete index of video interviews and podcasts, as well as related grammar, vocabulary, and phrases contained in this site. At each level, and for each topic, there is a simplified example of the task for narrating or describing the material.
The video and audio has excellent quality.
Concerns:
no
Other Issues and Comments:
no
Creative Commons:
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