jpvillanueva - New Lesson Publication Schedule

Buen Trabajo!  You guys are the best!

Hopefully the newbie/elementary levels won\'t be TOO \"greatly weighted\" at the expense of the intermediate/advanced subscribers (no offense, but newbie level learn-a-language content is a dime a dozen on the web)... the differentiation that SpanishPod offers is the value presented by the weekly intermediate thru advanced offerings.

Sin embargo, mucho suerte con la nueva direccion de SpanishPod y vamos a ver adonde va!  Si no me gusta... pues, sé donde viven Uds (pero ahora mismo no tengo el dinero para volar ahi)... ja!!

Estoy de acuerdo con casiportento.  Me gustan muchísimo las lecciones upper intermediate,  avanzadas y Del Taco al Tango porque están escritas completamente en español.   Hay muchos sitios web que ofrecen lecciones para principiantes, pero pocos que tienen lecciones avanzadas.  Espero que el equipo de Spanish Pod pueda continuar las lecciones de este nivel con la misma frequencia que ya existe.

Hi folks, thanks for your comments! 

There are no plans to change the current weighting system, which is slightly biased towards elementary lessons.  Other levels will come out in that same proportion as before, only slower.  :)

I must say this is a bit of a disappointment. I look forward to intermediate/upper intermediate lessons.

¡Qué decepción!  I agree with casiporteno.  There are plenty of sites and programs for elementary Spanish.  What made me buy a year\'s membership and renew for another year were your innovative, enjoyable intermediate, upper intermediate, and advanced podcasts, plus extras like amor sin destino.  Now that these will be available only a few times a month, there\'s much less reason  for me to stay involved with Spanish Pod. 

This is indeed a disappointment.

I hope that you guys continue to publish your lessons with the same structure and approach as before.  I always enjoyed SpanishPod because of the approach to focusing on speaking the language, without such a great emphasis on grammar.  You all have greatly enhanced my Spanish as a result of that.  I for one will be completely put off if this site starts to become a haven for grammar phobes.

What has not been officially stated, but could perhaps be infered, is that we will not see much of, or any, Del Taco Del Tango or Pa' Que Sepas episodes.  Please let us know the fate of these shows, as well as Cooking With Tobasco and La Clave.  If these things go away, you all become just another run-in-the-mill podcast site.  IMO, you will have lost your competitive edge. 

Regarding the Intermediate, Upper Intermediate and Advanced lessons.  Yes, you may have a lot of beginners, but there are practically ZERO sites that do a great job of addressing the needs of students at those levels, like myself.  Don't lose site of that market.  It's out there, wating to be tapped and fully exploited.  To date you guys have done the best job of that, but there's still a lot more to be done.  Maybe even a second Spanish Pod site dedicated to advanced students.

Honestly, I thought you guys had a great formula.  My motto:  If it ain't broke, don't fix it.  You need to have VERY good reasons for not following that advice.  

While I agree that the site needs better organization, I really, really believe you need to stay focused on learning through SPOKEN language, not an over emphasis on grammar.  I thought La Clave was the perfect vehicle for dealing with grammar. 

I hope the changes moving forward are in the spirit of the existing methodology you have, and not an effort to change what is clearly a successfull business model. 

Add to what's made you guys the success you are, don't change it. Maybe you guys could give us a better description of what kind of changes to expect, and what's going to stay the same.  Right now you guys are stirring the hornets nest and not really giving us a whole of lot information.

I could go on and on, but hopefully you get the point I'm trying to make.

keep trying and go with what works best.

It is amusing. Many a time I have wished for less background noise in the lessons, but "in the wild" it has done well by me. One must develop that ear that can pick the signal from the noise.

Keep up the challenges, we need to raise the bar.

I have to say I'm really disappointed too. There are so many basic and intermediate podcasts out there and you were one of the few that presented a lot of new material for the upper intermediate and advanced learner of Spanish, using REAL Spanish dialogues from both Spain and Latin America. Thank You.

I hope that you continue to do del Taco al Tango podcasts 100% in Spanish. I love them all, whether it's the SpanishPod team discussing a random topic or you have a guest. Maybe providing more discussions in pure Spanish through del Taco al Tango would be a good way to keep the more advanced learners happy. You could discuss what's in the news, culture, entertainment. Just a thought. 

I am agreeing with those pleading for maintaining the Upper Intermediate, Advanced, Del Tango al Tango, Cooking ..., and all of you mini drama series, whatever level.  I am also hoping you will start up the section aimed at native speakers soon.

This change severely diminishes the value of what I paid for. I am quite unhappy (and I do understand the on-air staff had nothing to do with this decision.)

When I paid for my membership, I was expecting a certain number of podcasts with new content. From what I can understand, the number has basically been cut almost in half. Before, I could expect two or three intermediate or above per week. Now it will be one, maybe.

From my point of view, this seems like bait and switch. Praxis should offer those of use who signed up under the old plans a way out. I have asked for this in a private message yesterday, but have not received a reply.

Yo también. I'm here for the intermedite and advanced lessons. With fewer of those, I wouldn't renew.

Should the dialogue be read at least once at the beginning more slowly and more clearly than 3 times at normal speed?

I first thought that it would be helpful not to start off each lesson with 3 readings of the dialogue at normal conversational speed.  Why?  Because I often get only some of the dialogues.  Normal speed can be very, very fast for us foreigners, and often not so clearly articulated.  So I felt the time hearing them 3 times at the beginning was wasted on me.  However, I now realize that it is a brilliant idea that you struggle to listen a few times to the opening dialogues.  Then you explain it with excellent and very clear articulation.  Finally, when you hear the dialogues 3 times at the end of the lesson, you really start to understand them! 

eldavid, that is exactly the reason I've chosen not to have an artificial-speed reading in the podcasts.  A slower reading might make the learner more comfortable initially, but as a teacher, I believe that a) natural-speed input is better for building listening comprehension chops, and b) ambiguity creates a NEED, which is later filled by the analysis that comes afterward. 

As a classroom teacher, I know that if I present the information pre-chewed, my students roll their eyes and think, uh, another thing I have to learn.  I usually end up re-teaching it.  However, if I'm able to create a need somehow, the students absorb it quicker. For example, when I start to present the preterito, I might ask them what happened on American Idol the night before; at first they're unable to express it, then I show them the preterito, and then we revisit the American Idol recap with the proper forms. 

Creating a need is an old teacher trick.  I think that in ed school they have a technical term for it, but I don't remember it anymore. 

Anyway, thanks eldavid for bringing this up!

JP, while i agree that learning at speed is really important and slowing down the dialog really wrecks the rythym and feel of the language. Indeed the meaning may be lost if couplets of phrase become disconected.

However especially for the Newbie and Elementary where the ear is still being developed,  a careful pronunciation of new/key words prior to the lesson reading might be helpful. (no explanation, just read the vocabulary list and enenuciate)

Also for the intermediate and advanced  and in the Taco al Tango when You are featuring jerga, a preface to the lesson listing the terms coupled with their meanings would be real helpful. Extend the key word idea. Regional pronuciations and usage can really confuse sometimes. Like - Welcome to Taco al Tango, todays guest/topic will be. Here are some words to listen for. . . . . . .  

. . . .  and now,  ---( on into the soundtrack. )

It strikes me that the Taco al tango is really kind of close to the advanced media idea. It just lacks the disection of the language which an advanced course would give.

Great suggestions, cobre!

Yes, I agree! How 'bout the SpanishPod crew record discussions in Spanish on del Taco al Tango and add a little review of the jerga as Cobre suggests and everyone will happy again! 

And I like hearing those that speak Spanish as a second language (JP, Carmen) participate as well. If they make a mistake (rarely!) you could correct them, and this would help us! Or they could ask about certain words/phrases during the discussion which they realize may be more difficult for a non-native speaker to understand. 

Les pido su perdón.

La introducción del "Taco al Tango"s  que son todos en español  debe estar en español.  cómo -  Bienvenido a Taco al Tango, el invitado de hoy / tema será.  He aquí algunas palabras para su debería escuchar . . . . . . .

. . . . y ahora, --- (en para la banda sonora.)

First, let me belatedly add that I too am pretty disappointed in the news of reduced content.  As with most of the commenters above, I joined for the intermediate and advanced podcasts, and the news that there will be fewer of them definitely makes me rethink whether I'll renew my membership.

I want to stress that you guys do a fabulous job on your podcasts. I'm pretty familiar with what else is out there, and your podcasts have definitely been well worth the subscription cost.  I feel that to de-emphasize them in favor of grammar/exercises is a mistake.

On another note, a small suggestion: On your French podcast reviews, you generally go over perhaps 9-10 new vocabulary words, whereas on the Spanish podcast reviews you only review 5 new vocabulary items.  Any chance on upping the number of target words in your review podcasts here?

Por último, estoy de acuerdo con docmolly (arriba) en cuanto a unas discusiones con todo el equipo en Del Taco al Tango.  JP, tu nivel de español (¡y de francés!) me impresiona muchísimo. No nos importaría si de vez en cuando Liliana (o tú, o quién sea) corrigiera a alguien en el podcast.  La mujer de Ben Curtis (de Notes in Spanish) le corrige todo el tiempo en sus podcasts, y lo importante es que nos muestra que los errores son inevitables; hay que aceptarlos y seguir adelante.  En eso se aprende y se mejora.