It’s undeniable: when it comes to contact time with students in world language classes, elementary teachers have the short end of the stick.

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(This GIVEAWAY is CLOSED.)

In part one of this brief series, we shared some tips on how you can partner with your school’s computer teacher(s) to maximize language learning time through activities like fun online games.  Here, we share our second tip: why not partner with your school’s library and media specialist(s) to access some of that time, too?  (And scroll down to read details on our giveaway of all eleven of our Storybooks!)

Team up with the library.

In one of my previous elementary situations, I saw my students for 20 minutes per week.  But right after I had them, they went directly to the library.  What did they do in the library?  They quickly chose and checked out books, and at some point, the media specialist sat them down to read with them.  Often, she used an audio version of a book to add a special element instead of just her reading to them all the time.

In this way, even if the school librarian doesn’t speak Spanish, s/he can “tell” the children a story in Spanish and increase the amount of time per week they’re receiving comprehensible input.

But where do you find them?

Some of Alma Flor Ada’s books are available with accompanying CD audio, like this poem collaboration with another popular Latina children’s author, F. Isabel Campoy.  Also, Amazon’s marketplace offers several of the Young Eli Readers Abuelita series with a CD, like this one.

As another option, why not record yourself reading the stories that fit best with your curriculum and asking the librarian to play the audio while showing the book?  SourceForge’s Audacity tool is free, downloadable audio recording software that’s fairly simple to use.

Don’t stop there.  At Calico Spanish, we’re all about supporting teachers with the engaging, comprehensible content that supports and enhances their classroom teaching and also fits in their school schedule reality.  In our Stories for Schools / Homeschool program, each level is accompanied by three or four full-color Storybooks.  The content in each Storybook supports one to three of the lessons in the curriculum.

Not only have we recorded audio for the Storybooks, we’ve also provided each as a Storybook video.  In the video, our native-speaking narrator tells the story as the children watch the “pages” flip.  Now, we’re excited to release the first Storybook video from Stories Level B as one of our first non-song content videos freely available on YouTube.  Level B is called “I Love My Family,” and this first Storybook is titled El cumpleaños de Pepe.  Check it out here:

Could this video help you leverage your children’s school library time to increase their comprehensible input time?

What about the full set of eleven Storybooks from Levels A through C?  We want to send one teacher a set as our New Year’s gift!

• Level A, “I Am Special,” includes three Storybooks ($19.99);
• Level B, “I Love My Family,” includes four books ($28.99);
• Level C, “I Live Here,” also includes four beautiful picture books ($29.99).

In this giveaway, you’ll get all eleven Storybooks.  And what’s more, you’ll have access to the audio tracks that we’ll be making freely available on our website.

To enter, simply leave us a comment here, on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram letting us know how you incorporate stories into your Spanish class time (get one entry for each platform you use to send us a comment).

Let’s do it! Will you be our big winner?