Welcome to The Spanish Cave, a place where work and play merge to create joyful, meaningful–and therefore valuable–learning.
Hi there! I am currently doing a MASSIVE haul and review of all images/gifs on this site. If you are a photographer and feel that I have used your photo(s) without permission, please send me a message through my Contact page, with the URL of the page on my site in question, and I will gladly remove it. Thank you for your patience!
¡Hola a todos! I am “Señorita M.”, a Spanish teacher who is passionate about writing, languages, online privacy, and minimalism. This website is a collection of linguistic (primarily Spanish) and cultural resources and a documentation of my teaching journey. Thanks so much for visiting!
THE CAVE: More than fifteen years ago, at the beginning of my teaching career, my boss walked me to my new room and explained my job quite succinctly: “Teach Spanish”. There was no curriculum, no book, nothing to follow–I was on my own. While some would be overwhelmed by such a task, I was excited to begin with a blank canvas. The idea of a Spanish Cave came several years later, when I was moved to a tiny classroom and we started calling it La cueva/The Cave. Have fun exploring the virtual version of this cave!
Table of Contents
- HOME
- FAQ Page: frequently asked questions and answers about language
- THE PATO SHOW: Season 1 of The Pato Show
- Adult Class: Duolingo posts & resources for parents
- Curriculum: narrative-form explanation of major units
- Archives: all the posts in list-form for easy navigation
- Blog!: all blog posts
- Culture Projects: culture-related info and projects
- TRAVEL GUIDE: travel guide to all 21 Spanish-speaking countries
- Classroom: lesson highlights, ideas for teachers, quarter summaries, summer packets
- Linguistics: links & articles about language(s)
- Prose & More: inspiration, random prose, and travel-related posts, including my own photo collages
- RESOURCES
- Movies & Cartoons: movie trailers, authentic films, Pocoyo links, cartoons in the target language, and a few documentaries
- Canciones/Songs: songs, rhymes, and more
- Recetas/Recipes: a growing list of recipes
- Chistes/Jokes: both authentic and translated comics and links
- Holidays: posts about holidays in other countries
- The Virtual Cave: newsletters
- ARTICLES
- Endangered Languages: articles about endangered languages
- Multiple Languages: articles about hyperpolyglots, the bilingual brain, and the untranslatable
- Tech/Education: articles about technology and education in today’s world
- Linguistics: articles about linguistics
- TEDx: TEDx videos and articles
Quotable Quotes
“We should learn languages because language is the only thing worth knowing even poorly. If someone knows how to play the violin only a little, he will find that the painful minutes he causes are not in proportion to the possible joy he gains from his playing. The amateur chemist spares himself ridicule only as long as he doesn’t aspire for professional laurels. The man somewhat skilled in medicine will not go far, and if he tries to trade on his knowledge without certification, he will be locked up as a quack doctor.
Solely in the world of languages is the amateur of value. Well-intentioned sentences full of mistakes can still build bridges between people. Asking in broken Italian which train we are supposed to board at the Venice railway station is far from useless. Indeed, it is better to do that than to remain uncertain and silent and end up back in Budapest rather than in Milan.”
POLYGLOT: HOW I LEARN LANGUAGES– book in PDF, by Kató Lomb
Bulletin Board Fun
*”Bulletin Board Fun” slides are credited to James Chapman.
COMMAS: “Rabbit hunting.” vs. “Rabbit, hunting.” “‘Let’s eat Grandpa!’: Use commas. Don’t be a psycho.” This Is How Confusing Life Would Be Without Proper Punctuation– Fun Article!
La cueva de español 