Good morning everyone and Happy Monday! We hope that everyone had a great weekend. Today I wanted to share a great resource for learning English for students whose first language is Spanish. Pumarose is a bilingual website that is designed to help Spanish speaking students learn the English language and phonetics quickly and easily.

Pumarose content is sorted into 5 categories: Beginner, Intermediate, Civics , History, and the Roles and Functions of the U.S. Government. One of the things that I really like about this resource is that the words are spelled phonetically below the actual word so that the students can see the difference between the spelling in English and compare it to how the words should sound. Each sentence also has a tiny ear icon next to it so that students can listen to the sentences as well.

Another great thing about Pumarose is that the “advanced” level focuses on U.S. civics and history. In my experience, once my students are beyond the intermediate level of English, they really become interested in focusing on obtaining their citizenship.

Pumarose offers simple yet effective lessons that can easily be worked into a class lesson if your whole class is of Spanish speaking descent, or simply offered as a resource for students to practice with independently outside of class as a supplement. Since my current classes have students from all over the world who speak many different languages, I offer this as a resource for independent study. The students who have used it have given it two thumbs up thus far, citing the phonetic breakdown of English sounds and the use of their native language as being the most helpful things about the site.

If you serve a high number of Spanish speaking students, give Pumarose a try and let us know what you think! If you have any comments, questions, or feedback please feel free to email us at info@literacyconnexus.org. As always Happy Teaching!

Taynim Johnson