Listening Activities for Lower Level Spanish Classes

I like to include listening activities in my Spanish classes as much as I can.

It can be seriously challenging to find good listening activities for lower-level students, though.

Textbooks only have so many (good) listening comprehension activities, and it can be tricky to find recordings of Spanish speakers who speak SLOWLY and CLEARLY.

Here are five great websites that I've found and used in my Spanish 1 and 2 classes:

1.  Quia

There are listening activities for Level 1 HERE and for Level 2 HERE.

Click "Start now>>" and you will see 10 multiple-choice listening activities.

Each time you reload the page, it will give you new activities. (Good news if you want more options, bad news if you want to bookmark the page and go back in the future for particular recordings.)

There are probably 30 listening activities that Quia randomly picks and loads on the webpage.

Quia provides multiple-choice questions for each listening activity, so you can use those or make your own!

I like to go through and listen to all the activities and record the ones I want to use in class. 

I used Audacity to record them, which is a free program you can download on your Mac or PC. It's super easy to use, and then you can save the recordings to your computer and use them year after year.

2.  123TeachMe

There are listening activities for Novice Low HERE.

There are 39 "groups", and each has two audio recordings.

I just go through and listen to a bunch of them and record the ones I want to use in class.

These recordings show up in the same order every time you load the page, so you can pull up the website in class and play the recording(s) you want.

The website includes a question for each recording, so you can use that one or create your own!

3. University of Texas

A reader sent me this link, so many thanks to Amanda B! 

The University of Texas at Austin has Spanish proficiency exercises, organized by Beginning, Intermediate, Advanced, and Superior. 

You can choose various topics for each level, and then there are several speakers from different Spanish-speaking countries, so your students can hear a variety of accents.

You could easily pull this website up in class and play the recording you want, or record in advance whatever you want students to listen to.

4. Easy-Spanish.org

A reader sent me the next 2 links, so many thanks to Robin P!

This website has videos that will redirect you to youtube (so you could also just search "Super Easy Spanish" on youtube). 

There are 3 categories of free videos - Street Interviews, Grammar & Vocab Videos, and Videos for Absolute Beginners, and there are close to 300 videos total.

I suggest you click the links (or just search "easy spanish" on youtube) and check out all the video options. Topics range from how to tell time in Spanish, to what people in Barcelona are reading, to imperfect subjunctive verbs. 

I have personally only worked in schools that block youtube, so if you also work in a school like that, then this won't be a good option for you unfortunately.

5. SpanishListening.org

Thanks again to Robin P for letting me know about this website!

This website has over 400 videos with native speakers from every Spanish-speaking country, so you can really let students hear a variety of different accents. 

The videos tell you if they are designed for Beginner, Intermediate, or Advanced, so you can make sure you aren't previewing videos that your Spanish 1 or 2 students don't have any hope of understanding.

Unfortunately, you do have to click on the videos to see what the person is talking about, so you might have to click around for a while before you find something you can use this week and not some time next year.

I hope these ideas have helped you include more listening activities with native speakers in your lower-level classes!  Where else do you get good listening activities?  I'd love to hear other suggestions!