Learn Spanish by playing games
Games for learning Spanish
This article discusses the use of edutainment in the process of learning Spanish as a foreign language.
In addition, we would like to provide both the teacher and the student with different sources to find free games to learn Spanish as a foreign language.
Spanish Games for Adults
Spanish teachers need to rely on educational and teaching resources that motivate students and encourage them to study Spanish.
Games create the ideal atmosphere to learn Spanish, since they reproduce aspects of real life and offer several situations that motivate language production.
Bellow, we suggest two sources to find this type of games.
a) To acquire a better pronunciation as well as to improve your grammar and vocabulary, we highly recommend the teaching method created by Javier de Santiago Guervós and Jesús González Fernández Aprender español jugando. Juegos y actividades para la enseñanza y aprendizaje del español. In this title the professors of the University of Salamanca have chosen a teaching method that, as stated in the introduction, is based on “delighting and instructing”. The games suggested are an excellent way to learn Spanish in sequence.
Javier de Santiago Guervós and Jesús Fernández González: Aprender español jugando. Juegos y actividades para la enseñanza y aprendizaje del español, Madrid, Huerga & Fierro Editores, 1997, 144 pp.
b) We can also find useful games on Rayuela, the Instituto Cervantes Virtual Center site, the on line IC headquarters to promote the use of Spanish on the Internet. On this site we can download activities to learn Spanish for free. There is also a wide range of educational activities grouped into four levels of difficulty. Among them are riddles, crossword puzzles, logic games, puzzles, word search, etc.
Centro Virtual Cervantes. http://cvc.cervantes.es/aula/pasatiempos/
Spanish Games for kids
Spanish courses focused on children have to take into account that the best way to teach Spanish to children is through play. Using games to learn Spanish, the Spanish teacher will reinforce kids’ self-esteem and get them to learn Spanish easy and very quickly.
This article reviews the desirable requirements that should fulfill Spanish classes for children and suggests a set of resources, exercises and games to learn Spanish for free.
The material used to teach Spanish for kids should meet the following criteria:
- The techniques used in the process of language learning should achieve a high degree of motivation. Therefore, our activities should be based on topics closer to the children.
- It is important to consider both the physical and the mental age of our students in order to learn what they can demand and suggest them appropriate games to practice pronunciation, grammar, conversation, and basic vocabulary in Spanish.
- No one learns to speak Spanish without listening to the language, or learns to write without learning to read previously. Therefore, it is essential that we teach the skills in the right sequence.
Resources:
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Learning Spanish cd, mp3, DVD
- In Kideos. Videos for kids, you can find trailers, short animated films and educational videos. Although the content is mostly in English, there is a Spanish section in which we can browse for children's videos to learn Spanish and dubbing episodes of Pocoyó, Manny Manitas, the Little Mermaid, etc. Kideos
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Bit of intelligence flashcard
- The flashcards designed by Glenn Doman is a method of early childhood learning that takes advantage of the capacity and curiosity of children to learn quickly. Through an image, sound or word the child achieves the desired knowledge. The effectiveness of this method is proved in the teaching of Spanish to foreigners. We can find free bits to learn Spanish dealing with different topics on the web: Spanish alphabet, basic Spanish vocabulary, Spanish phrases.
