Spanish OER & Zero-Cost Resources

Open Textbooks

• Antología Abierta De Literatura Hispana
  By Julie Ann Ward, University of Oklahoma. “A critical anthology of literary texts from the Spanish-speaking world. A focus on canonical authors and an attempt to include voices that have been marginalized. Each text includes an introduction and annotations created by students.”
• Elementary Spanish 1 (Penn State)
  Open textbook for beginners by Ana I. Serrano Martínez of Penn State.
• Hola a Todos: Elementary Spanish I (University of North Georgia)
• La lingüística hispánica: Una introducción
  “This book, still in development, is aimed at Spanish students in American universities and aims to offer a brief and simple introduction to Hispanic linguistics. It includes basic concepts of linguistics, provides essays that cover topics of social interest connecting linguistics with daily life, and exercises to practice the concepts. There are also links to relevant materials available online. The book is created entirely out of written texts and materials shared by mostly undergraduate students and also features the work and effort of student-editors on a long-term open pedagogy project.”
• Leyendas y arquetipos del Romanticismo español, Segunda edición (Portland State University)
  “An introduction to nineteenth-century Spanish literature with a thematic focus on legends and archetypes. It presents Romanticism in the context of nineteenth-century literary and social movements. It is designed as a first anthology for intermediate Spanish students at American universities. Although brief, it includes poetry, drama in verse and short story. The works have been selected for their literary interest and the social importance of their themes. They are all by canonical authors.”
• ¡LIBRO LIBRE!
  A free textbook for introductory Spanish
• OER: Curso de Escritura en Español
  This OER is designed for upper-level Spanish writing courses. The openly licensed website includes peer review training sessions, classroom activities, handouts to guide students’ writing processes, and peer review guidelines.
• Spanish I (Lumen Learning)
• Spanish I: Beginning Spanish Language and Culture
  “This peer-reviewed textbook is designed for the true beginner with U.S. college students in mind. It contains 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.”
• Spanish Language/Clase de lenguaje
  “This collection includes modules (in English and in Spanish) aimed at the AP or introductory college Spanish language classroom. It includes lesson plans, reading passages, and resources that emphasize the Spanish language using culture and historical material.”
• Spanish Wikibook
  “This Wikibook aims to teach the Spanish language from scratch. It will cover all of the major grammar rules, moving slowly and offering exercises and plenty of examples. It’s not all grammar though, as it offers vocabulary and phrases too, appealing to all learners. By the end, you should be able to read and write Spanish skilfully, though you’ll need a human to help with listening and speaking.”

Additional OER

• Cervantes’ Don Quixote Course (Open Yale)
  Open Yale course that “facilitates a close reading of Don Quixote in the artistic and historical context of renaissance and baroque Spain.”
• OER: Curso de Escritura en Español
  This OER is designed for upper-level Spanish writing courses. The openly licensed website includes peer review training sessions, classroom activities, handouts to guide students’ writing processes, and peer review guidelines.
• OpenStax – Spanish Resources and ModulesOpen materials for teaching and learning Spanish grammar, language, and some Latin American Studies.
• Spanish 1 @ Wikiversity
  Free and open elementary Spanish course for English speakers.
• Spanish Grammar in Context
  Video explanations of Spanish grammar with practice quizzes.
• Spanish Resources from COERLL
  Collection of open Spanish materials from The U.S. Department of Education-funded Center for Open Educational Resources & Language Learning (COERLL).

American Sign Language

• American Sign Language 101
  A Google Doc containing instructional videos from ASL instructors and creators across the Web.
• American Sign Language 102
  A Google Doc containing instructional videos from ASL instructors and creators across the Web.
• ASL I & II from Open Course Library
  Explore course materials, including links to freely-accessible videos, for introductory ASL courses.
• ASL 101 resource guide (Lake Tahoe Community College)
  A variety of course materials, including links to YouTube videos and other freely-accessible materials that are not necessarily openly-licensed.
• ASL OER from OER Commons
  A variety of open materials.
• Deaf Culture Resources from the National Deaf Education Center
  From Gallaudet University, “this section of Info to Go includes information and links to resources about Deaf culture and the Deaf community.”

Arabic

• Arabic Collections Online (NYU)
  Established by NYU Abu Dhabi, the grant-funded “Arabic Collections Online (ACO) is a publicly available digital library of public domain Arabic language content. ACO currently provides digital access to 10,042 volumes across 6,265 subjects drawn from rich Arabic collections of distinguished research libraries.”
• Arabic grammar lessons
  Grammar lessons from Lovisa Berg, Dalarna University available via YouTube.
• Arabic lessons on Spotify
  Audio lessons for beginners available through Spotify. While Spotify offers free access, it requires users to create logins and contains ads.
• ArabicPod
  Free Arabic lessons available through iTunes.
•  Aswaat Arabiyya (Arabic Voices)
  “A web site designed for learners and teachers of Arabic seeking materials for listening comprehension.” Includes listening materials and accompanying materials selected from television stations in Arabic-speaking countries.
• A Hundred and One Rules!
  “A short reference grammar for beginning and intermediate students of Arabic. Created by Professor Mohammed Jiyad of Mount Holyoke College.”
• Free Arabic courses and materials from Live Lingua
  Freely accessible courses, modules, and audio materials for Arabic courses particular to specific regional dialects.
• From MSA to CA: A Beginner’s Guide for Transitioning into Colloquial Arabic
  “This book is for students who have studied Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) for one year or more and would like to learn colloquial Arabic basics. It aims at transitioning learners from Novice Mid level to Intermediate Low through presenting situations useful for living in an Arab country. The book has several features including hyperlinks, practice dialogues with open answers, cultural tips, and more.”

Chinese

• Introductory Chinese textbook
  By Lin Hong of Central Oregon Community College. Available in Word and PDF.

French

• Au Boulot! First-Year French
  “Au boulot! is a two-year college French program [from the University of Kansas] consisting two textbooks, four workbooks including audio set, and a reference grammar guide.”
• Chapeau! First-Year French
  Chapeau! is a first-year college text from the University of Kansas. Includes a textbook (pdf), and workbook (pdf) with 24 accompanying audio exercises (mp3).
• French à la mode
  “This website has activities for French learners at the beginning and intermediate levels. It is also suitable for independent study or practice.”

German

• Deutsch im Blick
  “This textbook is newly revised and includes all 10 chapters of Deutsch im Blick. Deutsch im Blick is a web-based first-year German program developed and in use at the University of Texas.”

Korean

• Beginning Korean Activity Book I
  “[I]deal for learners at the Novice Low to Novice High levels who want to practice writing and pronouncing hangeul, communicate in Korean by creating sentences using basic grammar and vocabulary, and understand and create simple conversations that are useful in everyday conversations. “

Russian

• Между нами
  “Между нами is a free, web-based textbook that provides a comprehensive introduction to Russian language and culture. It is organized around the experiences of four American students, each spending the academic year in a different Russian city. Their interactions with host families, roommates, fellow students and teachers create a universe of contextualized information that motivates the use of the target language in the classroom.”

Languages OER Sites

Multiple

• BBC Languages
  Archived hub of free language learning of over thirty languages from British Broadcasting Company.
• Center for Open Educational Resources & Language Learning (COERLL)
  “[O]ne of 16 National Foreign Language Resource Centers (LRC’s) funded by the U.S. Department of Education. The overall mission of these federally-funded centers is to improve the teaching and learning of foreign languages by producing resources (materials and best practices) that can be profitably employed in a variety of settings.”
• GLOSS (Foreign Language Center)
  Freely accessible language lessons from the Global Language Online Support System of the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center.
• Lingu@net Worldwide
  Hub of freely-accessible language learning materials for over thirty languages.
• LORO (Languages Open Resources Online)
  “LORO contains resources for language teaching available to download and reuse, including those used by the Department of Languages at the Open University, UK.”
• Merlot World Languages Portal
  “Marhaba! MERLOT welcomes all language educators and students of World Languages to access the many OER available in the ever-expanding World Languages Collection. This pioneer community contains thousands of OER, many of them peer-reviewed by distinguished scholars in the field.”
• The Pathways Project
  This project, “an initiative from the Department of World Languages at Boise State University, is a collaborative network of open educational resources (OER) including instructional language teaching materials and professional development created by and uniquely for Idaho’s K-16 language teachers and students.” Resources include
  • Let’s Chat! conversation activity books in French, German, and Spanish
  • A repository of language activities and materials

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