Voices en Español

In one of my digital strolls through the Internet, I came across this promising new site: Bablingua. Created by Laura Garcia and Álvaro Mediavilla, Bablingua seeks to fill the gap in the market for teaching Spanish videos. Laura and Álvaro, both from Spain, spent three years teaching Spanish in North Carolina. During that time they say they frequently found themselves at a loss to find relevant, high-quality teaching materials that would educate and maintain the interest of their young students.

Bablingua offers three categories of products: Videos, Icebreakers and Vocabulary Cards. The video category includes activities teachers can use with students to build background knowledge before students watch the video. There are also Spanish subtitles available in the videos. Post video activities to evaluate students and what they learned are also provided.

The Icebreakers are exactly like what their name suggests: Very short videos (1 to 8 minutes in length) on a variety of topics. They are designed to accommodate different learning levels, from Beginner to Advanced.

The Vocabulary Flashcards can be used to learn new words or can be used in individual or group games.

What I like about the products is that they offer a fresh, youthful vibe. The videos are filmed outdoors and the content is delivered by españoles a de pie (regular everyday Spaniards) in a kind of “man on the street”-style of TV news reporting. This is excellent because it trains your ear to hearing the voices of different real-life native Spanish speakers who individually may have their own particular way of speaking. By that I mean, some people, regardless of the language, mumble when they speak while others may sound like they slur their words, etc.

The presentation of everything is professional and well done and the Bablingua web site is easy to navigate. While you can preview the Icebreaker videos, the bulk of the Bablingua content, such as the teacher activity guides, audio exercises, PDFs and vocabulary cards, is for sale only. Prices range from as little as $1 for an Icebreaker video on telling the time in Spanish, to as much as $45 for the DVD-Teacher’s Book package about shopping in El Rastro, Madrid’s famous outdoor flea market. [P.S. They don't have an affiliate program, so no worries....any money you spend with them goes directly to them and not to me. I'm getting no commission for this. I just like what I've seen of their product and figured some of my readers might want to hear about it too. ]

Bablingua: Spanish language teaching videos