Listening Strategies:
Unfamiliar Words
Give a Focus
Context Clues
TQLR
Planning Effective Listening Activities
During Listening Activities:
Card Activities
Categorize Words
Charts
Cloze Activities
Commands
Commercials
Dictations
Illustrations
Interviews
Listening Games
Movies
Native Speakers
Newscasts
Pictures
Puzzles
Questions
Radio
Songs
Sounds
Statements
Stories
Textbooks
TV shows
Video Clips
DISCUSS THIS ARTICLE
One of the best ways to improve listening comprehension is by viewing TV shows in Spanish. TV shows have a lot of repeating vocabulary, an interesting storyline, and students will watch it to understand what is happening rather than focusing on vocabulary. You can show soap operas, sitcoms, variety shows, children’s shows, sports, game shows, and comedy skits. Sometimes I only show part of the show, especially if it is too long. I really enjoy showing popular telenovelas since many have scenes with cultural festivities such as weddings, quinceañeras, and holidays. Always preview the scenes first to avoid showing an inappropriate scene. Many textbooks come with telenovelas. If yours does not come with one you could use Corazon Salvaje, Amor Real, Rebelde (but skip over the racy scenes), and Destinos (although a little dated). Be sure to give students a task to complete during and after they have watched the TV show.
TV Show Activities
-
Cloze Activity
- Transcribe a few sentences from each scene.
- Leave out words that students will be able to recognize.
- Play the TV show several times.
- Students fill in the blanks.
- Transcribe a few sentences from each scene.
- Insert blanks with two synonyms. The actor says one of the words, but not the other.
- Play the segment.
- Students circle the word that the actors said.
- Tell the situation or problem that the TV show will solve or attempt to solve.
- Discuss the problem with students.
- Ask students how they would solve the problem.
- Present the segment.
- Compare and contrast how students would solve the problem versus how the characters handled the situation.
Cross out What Was Not Said
Discuss the Problem
-
Narration
- Play the segment twice with sound.
- Students complete activities while watching the segment.
- Students narrate it.
- Students answer questions about the setting, plot, and characters and predict what will happen next.
- Students supply dialog.
- Afterwards, play it without sound.
- Play the video a few times.
- Afterwards, students brainstorm expressions and vocabulary they could use during their role play.
- Students then act out the scene.
- Instead of saying the exact lines, they paraphrase it.
- Later, students rewrite the ending according to how they would handle the situation.
- Provide background information about the TV show or scene.
- Before students watch the clip, they brainstorm vocabulary that may be used in each scene.
- Present the TV show.
- Students expand on the actual vocabulary by sharing used in the scene.
- Students categorize the vocabulary used.
Role-Play
Vocabulary
Examples:
- Community
- Family
- Hobbies
- Relationships
- Transportation
Resources
Disney Channel - Disney Channel has some popular TV shows in Spanish. Just do a search in videos for Spanish and quite a few shows will appear.
Cartoon Network - Here you will find cartoon clips, episode summaries, character profiles, and games in Spanish.
Latin American Network Information Center - This website from the University of Texas contains links to many TV stations from Spanish-speaking countries.
TV Channels from Around the World - COMFM contains a list of TV channels with links to their websites from various countries. I had to search through a lot of channels just to find some videos but I did see summaries of TV Shows, cast biographies, listings, and other information that you may find useful.
TV Shows on the Internet - This website has TV shows that you can watch online from many countries all over the world.
Internet TV List - You can watch Internet Live TV here from many countries in different languages.
Broadcast Live Spanish TV - This site contains live and on demand TV news, business, and sports broadcasts in Spanish from Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, Spain, Uruguay, United States, and Venezuela.
Spanish Television - This Spanish TV website has lots of video clips from a variety of TV shows such as soap operas, variety shows, sports, news, talk shows, etc.
NetTVDB This website contains links to over 1000 Internet TV stations from 108 Countries.
Multilingual Books Online TV in Spanish - Spanish internet Television and online video from Spain and Latin America
Popular TV - This is a Spanish TV station's website that contains many videos from their TV shows.
ChileVision online news and live television from Chile using the Real Video Player.
Canal13 - Live TV from Chile
Destinos - This is an instructional telenovela created in 1992. Although it is a little dated, it is still a nice soap opera for upper level high school and adults.
Univisión - I have watched many TV shows on Univisión and have even bought some DVD's so I could incorporate them in my own classroom. I don't show the whole telenovela. There are some inappropriate scenes so I make sure I carefully preview each episode and I pick and choose what scenes to show. Some of my favorite telenovelas for school are:
Additional TV Ideas from Teach Spanish Easily