JanineCALLblog

Software/Website Title: Learn Spanish: a free online tutorial

Website URL: http://www.studyspanish.com/freesite.htm

Grade/Age Level: Grade 6 through adult

Language & Content:

1) The intended purpose of this website is to teach Spanish pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, and culture, and to advertise a CD Spanish course.

2) The contents of the website are:

• Pronunciation Tutorial
• Grammar Tutorial
• Vocabulary Tutorial
• Verb Drills
• Word-a-Day
• Travel Helper
• Cultural Notes
• Spanish Schools
• Survey
• Idiom Generator
• Top Ten List
• Useful Links
• Online Translator
• Spanish in your City

3) The contents are presented as hot links that contain detailed explanations, practice exercises (written and oral), assessments, photos, translations, and further hot links to sites that are of interest to Spanish students and instructors.

3) The external documents included in the website are listed above. They include links to discussion forums, radio and television stations, and Spanish language schools. The documents are effective for practice, assessment, translation, networking with other learners and instructors, and broadening cultural knowledge.

4) The website is interesting to the target audience because it contains practical information and tutorials. The grammar explanations are clear and well illustrated. The website has an audio component with pronunciation models from Spain and Latin America. The format allows for repetition of drills to achieve mastery of the subject matter. The links are of interest to anyone who wants to learn more about Hispanic language and culture, and they provide opportunities to network with others.

5) This website is useful to meet language goals of comprehension, speaking, reading, writing, and cultural knowledge. It includes material that is normally covered in beginning and intermediate-level Spanish classes.

6) The website offer practice, assessment, and feedback. There are multiple choice and fill-in-the-blank quizzes and tests that are automatically graded upon submission. The audio component speaks words and phrases and leaves pauses for students to repeat the information.

7) This website is easy to use. The navigation and layout are totally intuitive. It requires no technical knowledge. It even provides a bank of accented letters that can be chosen for written answers in the quizzes and tests so that the student does not have to use special keyboard controls for accents.

8) The strengths of this website are that it is very comprehensive, and it's free! It provides a lot of practice opportuntities, and the cultural readings are equally accessible to beginners and advanced students, because they are provided in English and Spanish on the same pages. The links are pertinent for anyone interested in the Spanish language and the Hispanic world.

9) For a free site, this website provides a lot of explanations, practice, translations, and audio and visual components. The only improvement that I would suggest is for the webmaster to ascertain that all of the listed links are still active. A couple of the links that I tried were dead.