Gina, these are my podcasts suggestions for you to learn Spanish. I looked for some of them that could actually help you to acquire some new Spanish words and expressions. I will introduce them one by one and write why I think they will be useful for you.
This is the first link: http://radiolingua.com/2008/10/lesson-01-coffee-break-spanish/. Radiolingua offers this Spanish course aimed at beginners through to intermediate learners providing weekly 20-minute lessons covering the basics of Spanish. This is an ideal course for anyone who wants to go further than learning phrases off by heart, and will allow listeners to develop their confidence in the language. I´ve found, this podcast meets the following optimal conditions for learning a language:
- Interaction/ Negotiation: in this podcast we can find an ongoing dialogue between two people. One of them represents the teacher and another represents the student. It is a good example of negotiating meaning through dialogue.
- Feedback/ Time: the main speaker poses several questions to the listener so that he or she can collaborate in what he is saying. The speaker always lets the listener some time to think and answer. He also provides feedback after each of the questions.
- Comprehensible input: the speaker uses the English language to clarify what he is saying most of the times so that the input is always meaningful to the listener.
- Authentic language/ Task: the videos show very common situations which take place in our daily lives. Native Spanish speakers show how language is actually used.
- Creative language: the videos show different people fulfilling a same task. Consequently, they provide many different alternatives to express a same meaning. They use language in a creative way. It´s not something scripted.
- Comprehensible input: the images in the video help the listener to understand what they are talking about as well as the words that appear on the screen as they are talking, which can help visual learners.
I hope they are being useful for you ;) Finally, I´d like to introduce you my favorite one: http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/spanish/mividaloca/. It´s called Mi vida loca and it consists on 22 episodes. Each episode is a combination of real-action video with language teaching and practice, focused on developing communicative skills. It´s an interactive mistery involving you: a drama in which you will be the main character. It sounds fun. Besides this, there are many reasons why it provides optimal conditions for learning the language:
- Interaction/ Negotiation: I consider this is the most interactive kind of podcast I´ve ever seen as it makes you a character of the story. Furthermore, you can also negotiate new meanings with real people in the section Intrigue in the website. There, people right their guesses about who is suspicios and why.
- Authentic audience/ Task: the actors and real people with whom they interact use real Spanish. What´s more, you will also have to interact with them.
- Creative language: throughout the story we can find a Learning Section within each episode. In the Learning Sections, the eight key words and phrases and main grammar point are presented. These chunks of information allow the student to express himself in a creative way. It doesn´t consist on repeat sentences but on create your own questions and answers to interact with the characters.
- Feedback /Time: listeners of these podcasts can listen to them as much as they like. There are options available to stop them and repeat the parts listeners are struggling the most with.
- Comprehensible input: input is very well clarified through the images that appear on the screen as well as subtitles and translations.
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