Resources For Immersing Students In Spanish Language

One of my Spanish 1 students came into class a bit early one day and heard the tail end of a conversation I was having with another student who had grown up in Mexico.

How long till I can speak Spanish like that? Is what my bright-eyed Spanish 1 student asked.

Is what I thought. But then what I told her was it all depended on how hard she wanted to work, and I reminded her to the language immersion resources that I gave here class.

If you are a language teacher, and you are reading this post, you know that it take so much practice for a student to go from lesson number one to proficiency. And you know that any way to simulate immersion in another country will get the student closer to proficiency without leaving home.

In this article I’ll address resources specifically for a Spanish language class. However, if you teach another language, see if you can find similar resources for what you teach.

Movies And Shows They Already Watch

As streaming TV becomes more common in households, we now have more access to switch the audio and subtitle settings of our favorite TV shows and movies. Just like you and me, your students get hooked on shows on Netflix or Amazon Prime. With a quick switch of the settings they could be immersing themselves in the language they want to learn.

A drawback of dubbed and subtitled shows is that they are not culturally representative. But for Spanish students, we are so lucky that streaming services offer programming from Spanish speaking countries.

When I heard a student say, Oh my gosh, have you seen “Velvet” lately, that was music to my ears. I knew that she had gotten hooked on the Spanish romantic drama, and was inherently listening to so much more Spanish than she otherwise would.

Music With A Beat They Like

When I was a much younger Spanish teacher, I would play Spanish-language music nearly every day. This was back when Shakira still had dark brown hair and was wearing jeans and t-shirts. I used her music to teach grammar and interpretation. Soon my students were singing her music, even when they were still in the beginning levels of…