Spanish Proficiency Exercises from The University of Texas at Austin

[MorkTheFiddle]

In another thread, member CarlyD asks for some samples of Spanish spoken in Latin American accents.

Since then I stumbled upon
Spanish Proficiency Exercises
created by The University of Texas at Austin.

The site itself gives a good overview of what is offered, so see its opening page. There are in total 510 videos delivered in Spanish, somewhere between 30 and 60 seconds in length, and most of the speakers are from Latin America.

Here is one of the videos under the task “Describe how your life would be different if there were no electricity.” The speaker is from Chile, and the video lasts 56 seconds: Roxana B.

All the videos that I saw came with transcripts.

With each “task” come:

The grammar given related to this task,
Vocabulary,
and Phrases

In this particular task, three of the native speakers are from Mexico, one is from Peru and one is from Chile.

I did not check each video one by one, but I think there is at least one speaker from Mexico, from Cuba, from Spain and from every country in South America. I saw no speakers from Central America nor from the USA. Spanish is the native language of all of the speakers. Some speakers appear in more than one task, but overall there is a good variety of accents.

Because I have not used this material myself, obviously I cannot recommend it. Nor is there enough there, in my opinion, to constitute a full stand-alone course. On the other hand, this does look like a useful supplement.

[Brun Ugle]

I liked http://www.spanishlistening.org and used it a lot for a while. They are just short videos by natives from various countries answering different questions. There are transcripts for most of them, I think, and some also have subtitles. I found it very useful.

[tommus]

Since then I stumbled upon
Spanish Proficiency Exercises
created by The University of Texas at Austin.
...
All the videos that I saw came with transcripts

Excellent resource! And with the transcripts, you can select ES or EN or None.

Thanks very much!

This website is a small example of TPR Storytelling (showing the items being discussed) which I believe is an extremely effective method of language learning that you see all too infrequently.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TPR_Storytelling

[tommus]

I liked http://www.spanishlistening.org

Another excellent Spanish resource, based on the demo video. I will sign up (free) and check it out further.

It seems like our "Not the Real HTLAL" site is especially rich in identifying language learning resources. It is great to have this great enthusiasm to learn and to help.

[MorkTheFiddle]

I liked http://www.spanishlistening.org and used it a lot for a while. They are just short videos by natives from various countries answering different questions. There are transcripts for most of them, I think, and some also have subtitles. I found it very useful.

The audio of this site is of good quality, and the app works well on mobile, too. I have the most basic of mobile touch devices. It is an old (5 or 6 years) iPod Touch that still runs iOS 6.1.6 and has only 8GB of storage, yet the videos, transcripts, vocabulary and quizzes of the site are easily accessible and display well. I looked at only one trascript, but it was exactly in concordance with the audio. Agreeing with Brun Ugle, I think this a useful app.

[Brun Ugle]

Wow! I didn't even know it was an app. I just used to use the website. Now I need to have another look.

[彥::Charles]

Via the Spanish Proficiency Exercises page, you can find the link to the UT-Austin’s Center for Open Educational Resources and Language Learning page. There are a lot of helpful materials as well. Link: http://www.coerll.utexas.edu/coerll/materials

The one that I love is the SpinTX video archive. Link: http://www.coerll.utexas.edu/spintx/
It contains a collection of short video interviews with native/heritage Spanish speakers in Texas.

And, here’s another similar resource. Link: http://langmedia.fivecolleges.edu/colle ... anish.html