Audio Resources for my Greetings Unit

Today I want to share two authentic-ish audio resources, as well as activities I’ve put together to go with them. I’m using them in the second week of Spanish 1, as part as the introductory unit covering greetings and leave takings, personal information, numbers, and dates.

The first listening activity is one I made last year, and found last week as I looked through my unit 1 files – hooray for files being organized enough to find things, and hooray for year three of proficiency-based teaching, and having teaching files worth reviewing! Anyway, here is the activity (updated link – PDF formatted 2 per page), and or you find it here in an editable format, with the direct audio links. The audio is from Audio Lingua, and features speakers from Mexico, Spain, and Paraguay. If the audio links don’t work, trying searching the speaker’s name on Audio Lingua, and you should find a “Me presento” file. Each recording includes different information, but it gives students a chance to hear native speakers introduce themselves, tell where they are from, tell their age, and their birthdays.

The second listening activity I have for you today is based on a video from Spanish Proficiency Exercises.   In it, a Mexican woman describes the rules on when cars are allowed to drive inside Mexico City – basically, due to high air pollution, everyone is banned from driving one day a week based on the last number of their license plate*. So I like this audio for reinforcing days of the week and number vocabulary, and again for exposing students to native accents and rhythm of language, but I LOVE the culture in it!  I made a cloze activity for it (there is a Spanish and English transcript for each video, so clozes are super-easy to make!). I will probably ask students to skim for cognates before we listen to it, and underline the days of the week, then afterwards discuss in Spanish (because Martina Bex taught me to do a pre- and post- activity for every authentic resource!) – ¿En Atlanta, hay problemas con el tráfico? ¿La solución de México es buena o mala? I’ll keep the discussion simple, because it’s the second week of Spanish 1, but it will still be in the TL! Here is the activity, with a link to the audio at the top.  Irma C. is the last video at the bottom of the page. Enjoy! What authentic audio do you use with your novices?

*My Mexican friend told me the law has been tightened since Irma C. recorded this video – now cars that are more than ten years old are also prohibited from driving on Saturdays. 

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