Category: spanish

Whilst writing an article on storytelling for a future publication, I found a song I’d downloaded to which I wanted to refer. As often happens, I couldn’t recall whether I’d been sent it by a friend, downloaded it from a fora or found it online.

After a bit of searching – which took me once more to the wonderful West Sussex GFL language resources – I found that it had come from a site called MrsJonesRoom. When I approached the eponymous MrsJones for permission to use the song, she was very accomodating and pointed me towards other Spanish resources on her page.

I’ve had a look at some of the links and particularly like the downloadable mini books and the songs, complete with sound files of the tunes! There are even some Spanish Disney songs – great for EDL? Sadly there are a number of ‘dead’ links which is a shame but it’s well worth a look.

Thanks to the above tweet I’ve found this song that won’t stay out of my head.

A lovely summer feel good song.

Hope you enjoy it too!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyVa5DYl4yE&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999]

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgmu3PtJVNY&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x402061&color2=0x9461ca&border=1]

With all sorts of bugs doing the rounds at the moment, here’s another little gem that is
a)fun
b)free
c)useful and topical.

El Barrio Sésamo in Mexico has made this little video to encourage children to wash their hands and advises them to sing part of the song ‘Pin Pon’ to help them judge how long it should take.

So let’s see if the sinks will be ringing to the sound of children singing and washing…;o)

Just come across this lovely cuddly family – Los Patata on Youtube.

As the blurb says

Telemadrid emite todos los fines de semana, por la mañana, “Los Patata”, una serie infantil realizada con muñecos, dirigida a niños en edad preescolar. Estructurada en mini episodios, pretende entretener fomentando conocimientos, valores, respeto e igualdad de roles… Además, la familia Patata, cada noche invita a los niños a irse a la cama con la canción “Hasta mañana, un beso”. “Los Patata” también están a diario en la programación infantil de laOtra.

I love this goodnight song – very sweet and makes a change from Chris Jarvis on CBeebies with his mobile eyebrows telling us ‘The time has come to say goodnight….’

Here’s the short version-
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tp0k45cYwu4&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x006699&color2=0x54abd6&border=1]

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9EZ25NIjJA&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999&border=1]

On the day of his funeral, here’s Michael Jackson singing in Spanish. For a 2001 special edition of his “Bad” album, Jackson recorded “Todo mi amor eres tú,” a translated version of his hit “I Just Can’t Stop Loving You.” He performed it as a duet with Siedah Garrett.

(Thanks to About.com for sharing this)

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Spanish Hand Gestures, originally uploaded by KatsAsleep.

Just picked up the following from Twitter via @josepicardo who was alerted to it by @luciax.

Published by The Guardian in its Language Resources – Spanish area, ‘Learn Spanish gestures’ is a guide to some typically Spanish gesticulating that you could employ to look truly authentic as you complain of being fed up or tell your friend how busy the bar was at lunchtime.

Gesticulating is something that I can’t help doing when speaking, especially in Spanish so this is just up my street. And I can see that this would be a useful resource for intercultural understanding activities, comparing typical gestures. I recall discovering the hard way that gestures that are innocuous in one country can cause offence to other nationalities – not my fault that Greece lost 5-0 in the football and noone had told me that holding up five fingers with my palm facing a Greek was rude!

Having never been to Stoke on Trent previously, I was there twice in three days! This time I’d been invited to speak at a ‘Creative Spanish’ afternoon for Primary Language teachers, organised jointly by Lorna Harvey from Staffordshire and Helen Thomas from Stoke on Trent. I really enjoyed the presentation on using Art by Shirley Kliment-Temple and was sorry to miss the salsa and skipping!

My presentation was a repeat of the one I did at the Primary Language Show in Liverpool about the QCA unit based on SaintSaens Carnival of the Animals, and I have posted the slidecast from that event below so that you can listen and watch the slides! If yu want any of the resources, they are in this post.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.

I picked up the above tweet earlier from Chris Craft, a teacher at CrossRoads Middle School.

Intrigued, I checked it out and found the following.

A few things struck me;

• Kids did this without being asked.
• They genuinely enjoy their lessons.
• They appreciate the use of technology.
• Kids are the best people to be persuading their peers.
• And, as Chris said in his blog post, ‘Kids, they’re too cool!’

You might also want to check out SpanTube, Chris’ channe on which you can find videos made by his classes. they include a series of films featuring Eugene who really should pay more attention in Spanish class as she seems to misunderstand lots of signs around school!

Can I join your class, Sr Craft??

Getting into the Eurovision spirit ….

Here’s the Andorran entry La teva decisió sung partly in Catalan (disappointed that it switches to English for the chorus but I guess that’s so more people understand it!)

And the Spanish entry by Soraya called La noche es para mi (again has English in the chorus!)

Here are the words in case you feel the need to join in!
Vuelvo a mirar, tus ojos son un volcán
No escaparás, tu fuego dirá la verdad
No importa si quieres o no, porque hoy mando yo

Come on and take me, come on and shake me
Quiero saber lo que sientes por mí
Come on and take me, come on and shake me
¿Que no lo ves que estoy loca por ti?
Come set me free, just you and me
La noche es para mí

No puedo más, juro que mío serás
Ven a bailar, ya no podrás escapar
No importa si quieres o no, porque hoy mando yo

Come on and take me, come on and shake me
Quiero saber lo que sientes por mí
Come on and take me, come on and shake me
¿Que no lo ves que estoy loca por ti?
Come set me free, just you and me
La noche es para mí

Ah…
Take me, shake me, take me

Brilla la luz, mi mágica noche eres tu
Ya no hay tabús
Quiero clavarte mi cruz

Come on and take me, come on and shake me
Quiero saber lo que sientes por mí
Come on and take me, come on and shake me
¿Que no lo ves que estoy loca por ti?
La noche es para mí
La noche es para mí
Come set me free, just you and me
La noche es para mí

Wonder who’ll win? Could it be Jade and Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber? Or Soraya? Who knows with the way the voting works at times!

I spent this afternoon taking part in an eTwinning event at the British Council in Manchester, delivering a case study and explaining a bit about eTwinning.

Below is my presentation (soon to have sound added to it so you can listen and look!):