First-year Spanish Resources

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Elementary Spanish I (C-ID SPAN 100)
Elementary Spanish II (C-ID SPAN 110)

  • Yo puedo: segundos pasos (Silvaggio-Adams and Vallejo-Alegre, Milne Open Textbooks, 2021) (CC BY-NC)

    Yo puedo: segundos pasos (Silvaggio-Adams and Vallejo-Alegre, Milne Open Textbooks, 2021) (CC BY-NC) – LibreTexts

    This OER resource enhances second language using the flipped classroom model.

  • Yo puedo: para empezar (Silvaggio-Adams and Vallejo-Alegre, Milne Open Textbooks, 2021) (CC BY-NC)

    Yo puedo: para empezar (Silvaggio-Adams and Vallejo-Alegre, Milne Open Textbooks, 2021) (CC BY) – LibreTexts

    New Spanish OER useful as a resource for beginning Spanish language students. The pedagogical approach incorporates the flipped classroom methodology.

  • Instructor Guide: Tarea Libre I (ASCCC OERI, Moon, Lee, Harmon, and Meléndez-Ballesteros) (CC BY)

    The Tarea Libre project is a comprehensive and accessible Open Educational Resources question bank of 1,400 interactive activities created in LibreStudio and ADAPT for first-year Spanish courses for California Community Colleges. The content can be used via ADAPT or linked to a campus Learning Management System via LTI. This LTI integration seamlessly connects the assigned activities to the grade book streamlining the assigning and grading of homework. Learn more about the project at the archive of the May 5, 2023 webinar “What’s new in Spanish OER: Tarea Libre.

  • ¡Cultivemos! 1 and ¡Cultivemos! 2 (CSU Pueblo) (CC BY-NC-SA)

    Part 1 and Part 2 are designed for first-year Spanish with the goal of increasing oral proficiency according to ACTFL standards. The activities are designed to be versatile for working on at-home, in-class, as solo activities, with partners or groups. Students can use this book as a workbook, and access it on any of their devices while in class. We hope you enjoy the book and your first semester of Spanish at CSU Pueblo! ¡Bienvenidos!

  • Nuestra comunidad latina (Amores and Rodríguez, 2020) (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

    This is an open educational, content-forward resource for first-semester students of Spanish that seeks to foster appreciation of the Spanish-speaking world and contributions of Latinos to American society while developing novice-mid proficiency in productive and receptive skills. The authors, Lennie Amores, PhD (University of Miami), and Janice Rodríguez, MA (University of Pennsylvania), have a combined fifty years of experience teaching college students.

  • Spanish II (Celis, 2019) (License not specified)

    This resource consists of 4 units:

    1. Vocabulary of nationalities, ser vs. estar, days, months, seasons, weather
    2. Vocabulary of food, verb ir, the immediate future, direct object pronoun, irregular verbs, the gerund
    3. Vocabulary of technology, numbers beyond 100, past tense, indirect object pronouns
    4. Vocabulary of city and activities, reflexive verbs, past tense of irregular verbs, verbs like gustar
  • Pluma (Hernández, 2021) (CC BY NC SA)

    PLUMA is a narrative-based language learning program for the first three levels of college Spanish. This program is organically aligned with ACTFL, featuring Can-Do Statements as an organizing principle. It is grounded in narrative-based teaching and learning that evolves from people’s lived experiences and fragments of the history and culture of their countries of origin. Storytelling serves as a model for learners to tell their own stories; it promotes the exploration of deep culture;  it provides a space within which to frame and understand one’s own attitudes and perceptions; and finally, it cultivates intercultural communication. This program follows a carefully scaffolded sequence of targeted comprehensible input and includes formative and summative learning activities and assessments of learning.PLUMA embraces diversified content along with pedagogical practices that guide and assess learners in a non-punitive way as they develop communicative proficiency. Learning is meant to mimic the way we learned our first languages, through recursive loops of contextualized input and feedback, but accelerated because of the life experiences and points of reference we already have.
    3 VOLUMES. 5 eMagazine ISSUES PER VOLUME:
    Volume 1, issues 1-5, prepares learners to communicate in Spanish at the Novice-high level (ACTFL)
    Volume 2, issues 1-5, prepares learners to communicate in Spanish at the Intermediate-low level.
    Volume 3, issues 1-5, prepares learners to communicate in Spanish at the Intermediate-mid level.

  • Spanish 3 (Kelly-Glasoe, Soltman, & Flores, 2013) (CC BY 3.0)

    This is an open course with shareable course material including syllabi, course activities, reading, and assessments. Students will learn vocabulary related to celebrations and the stages of life, personal relationships, health and medical conditions and parts of the body, the car and its accessories, computers and electronic products, the parts of the house and household chores and table settings. Students will learn grammatical structures that support sentence formation such as irregular preterits, verbs that change meaning in the preterit, relative pronouns, ¿qué? and ¿cuál?, the imperfect tense, constructions with se, adverbs, distinguishing between the preterit and the imperfect tenses, por and para, stressed possessive adjectives and pronouns, formal commands, the present subjunctive tense and the subjunctive with verbs of will and influence.

  • Spanish 2 (Kelly-Glasoe, Soltman, & Flores, 2013) (CC BY 3.0)

    This is an open course with shareable course material including syllabi, course activities, reading, and assessments. Students will learn vocabulary related to transportation and lodging, days of the week, months, seasons, weather expressions, clothing, colors, daily routine, personal hygiene, sequencing expressions, foods, meals and adjectives that describe food.  Students will learn grammatical structures that support sentence formation such as estar with conditions and emotions, the present progressive tense, the uses of ser and estar, direct object nouns and pronouns, numbers 101 and higher, the preterit tense of regular verbs, stem changing verbs and ser and ir, indirect object pronouns, demonstrative adjectives and pronouns, reflexive verbs, indefinite and negative words, the preterit of ser and ir, gustar and verbs like gustar, double object pronouns, saber and conocer, and comparisons and superlatives.

  • Spanish 1 (Kelly-Glasoe, Soltman, & Flores, 2013) (CC BY 3.0)

    This is an open course with shareable course material including syllabi, course activities, reading, and assessments. Completion of the study of the first-year sequence of basic skills. This course was formerly known as Spanish 101. Prerequisite: none. Students will learn vocabulary related to greetings and farewells, courtesy expressions, college courses, professions, family relationships, pastimes, city places, numbers, days of the week, months and how to tell time. Students learn grammatical structures that support sentence formation, such as nouns and articles; descriptive and possessive adjectives; the present tense of ser, estar, tener, venir, ir, ver and oír; the present tense of regular –ar, –er and –ir verbs; stem changing verbs (e-ie, e-i and o-ue); verbs with irregular yo forms (hacer, poner, salir, suponer and traer); and question formation.

  • ¡Chévere! Introductory Spanish I and II (Small, Escudero, Montoya, and Ed Beck., 2021, State University of New York, College at Oneonta) (CC-BY)

    ¡Chévere! is based on a communicative approach aligned with technology and engages students by fostering diverse literacies, intercultural understanding, and proficiency-oriented language instruction. Content includes culturally authentic narratives, many written by students, exploring various aspects of life and culture in the Spanish-speaking world in contact with the U.S.

  • Beginning Spanish, ¡Empecemos por aquí! Ceciliano and Notman, 2022, Portland State University) (CC-BY-NC)

    Beginning Spanish, ¡Empecemos por aquí! (CC-BY-NC) focuses on Interpretive, Interpersonal, and Presentational communication skills while centering student voice. Activities engage students in real exchange of information on topics that are relevant to adult students. In addition to language acquisition learning outcomes, this text supports learning outcomes in diversity and inclusion, cultural sustainability, and social justice.

  • Spanish I: Beginning Spanish Language and Culture (Dean, 2020) (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

    This peer-reviewed textbook is designed for the true beginner with U.S. college students in mind. It contains 5 themed chapters, which are divided into 8 sections. Each section has its own set of learning objectives, and is further separated into three types of assignments, Para estudiar en casa (with detailed explanations), Para practicar en casa (homework exercises), and Para practicar en clase (paired and group classwork activities). The explanations and primary input are written to be easily comprehensible. The individual exercises are geared towards acquisition of form and function, and the communicative classwork exercises promote interpersonal exchanges between students. The digital copy includes some embedded audio files, and we are developing a website to house many more resources.

  • ¡Naveguemos juntos! (2021) – LibreTexts (CC BY-NC 4.0)

    This ASCCC OERI-supported resource was authored by Mario Barrio de Mendoza, Karla Gutierrez, Hsing Ho, Ching-Ping D. Lin, and Anaid Stere Lugo. (2021, Libretexts, CC-BY-NC 4.0)
    ¡Naveguemos Juntos! Navigate with Us! welcomes you to the Spanish-speaking world and its language. This OER is designed to provide students access to interactive activities in order to reinforce the acquired knowledge of the basic Spanish vocabulary and grammatical points. The activities presented in each chapter are contextualized and interconnected through the Spanish language and culture. This text was created for students taking the first year of Spanish; intended as an introductory Spanish course that covers levels 1 and 2 at community colleges. Instructors can use it as is, download a PDF of all the activities, or incorporate it in the LMS of their college (including Canvas). Furthermore, instructors have the option to adapt, edit, modify, and create their own version by using the LibreTexts’ Remixer tool. The goal of this OER is to help students access these free activities while saving them hundreds of dollars in costly homework platforms offered by commercial textbooks.It is with great hope that the content provided in ¡Naveguemos Juntos! fulfills the academic expectations across the community colleges in California.

  • Libro Libre (Huebener);

    Libro Libre (Huebener) – LibreTexts (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
    Libro Libre is an introductory Spanish OER textbook.  It consists of 10 chapters.  Each chapter contains cultural reading, vocabulary, grammar, activities, and end-of-chapter goals.

  • Introductory Spanish II (Lumen)

    Introductory Spanish II (Lumen) – LibreTexts (Licenses vary; resource requires review prior to use)
    Spanish 2 was designed and developed by the Spanish department at SUNY Oneonta in cooperation with Lumen Learning. Introductory Spanish II is the second half of a comprehensive introductory Spanish sequence, providing guidance and practice in reading, writing, listening to, and speaking Spanish. Each module includes thematic vocabulary, sequenced grammar instruction, numerous self-check drills and exercises, open-form communicative activities, scaffolded writing assignments, and reading passages exploring various aspects of life and culture in the Spanish-speaking world.

  • Introductory Spanish I (Lumen)

    Introductory Spanish I (Lumen) – LibreTexts (Licenses vary; resource requires review prior to use)
    Spanish 1 was designed and developed by the Spanish department at SUNY Oneonta in cooperation with Lumen Learning. Introductory Spanish I is the first half of a comprehensive introductory Spanish sequence, providing guidance and practice in reading, writing, listening to, and speaking Spanish. Each module includes thematic vocabulary, sequenced grammar instruction, numerous self-check drills and exercises, open-form communicative activities, scaffolded writing assignments, and reading passages exploring various aspects of life and culture in the Spanish-speaking world.

  • Hola a Todos: Elementary Spanish I (Stone et al, 2018) (CC BY 3.0)

    This textbook is composed of original instructional materials created for the OER-based course, and the team is working to create a full open textbook at a later date. Grammar and vocabulary pre-class activities, lectures, and post-class homework are included within these seven chapters:

    1. Introduction
    2. La Universidad
    3. La Familia
    4. El Tiempo
    5. Libre La Casa
    6. La Salud
    7. Comidas y Bebidas
  • Elementary Spanish I (Serrano, 2016) (CC BY-NC-SA)

    For both, the teacher and student alike, this Spanish I book is intended for a first-year, college Elementary Spanish I level. It also attempts to make the study of a language in this case, Spanish, more than another required subject. Eliminating the artificial limitation of the traditional textbook, offers the teacher and the student the ability to tailor the content to their own needs. Also, this book tries to show the value of learning a second language from a high-quality pedagogical criteria at a low-cost solution.

  • ¡Bienvenidos! Spanish Language Textbook (Farmer et al., 2020) (CC BY 4.0)

    University of West Georgia textbook for Spanish I, II, and III. 
    Chapters include:

    • Capítulo 1: La clase e información personal
    • Capítulo 2: ¿Cómo eres? ¿Qué haces? ¿Qué te gusta?
    • Capítulo 3: ¿Cuándo vas a tus clases?
    • Capítulo 4: La tecnología
    • Capítulo 5: Familias y profesiones
    • Capítulo 6: En la ciudad y el pueblo
    • Capítulo 7: En tu tiempo libre
    • Capítulo 8: En la tienda de ropa
    • Capítulo 9: ¡Qué rico!
    • Capítulo 10: La casa y el hogar
    • Capítulo 11: Cultura y medios de comunicación
    • Capítulo 12: ¿Te sientes bien?
    • Capítulo 13: ¡A viajar!

Using an OER resource that is missing from the list above? If so, please let us know.

This page last updated March 30, 2023.