Subscription Services for Spanish Class That Are 100% Worth the Money

¡Hola profe!  I hope that you had a great weekend and that you had the opportunity to do something that you really enjoy!

Has this ever happened to you?  You’re looking for a supplemental subscription service for your classroom.  You research all the options and think you have the best one.  However, after a while, you realize that you either don’t use the service that much, or that it isn’t supporting your curriculum as much as you’d hoped.  

I have definitely been there myself, and so I know how disappointing it can be to spend hard-earned money on a resource only to determine that it’s not for you.  Since it’s the time of year where we might start thinking about what we’d like to purchase for our classrooms this year, I thought I’d share 4 subscription services that have been game-changers for me and are TOTALLY worth the money:

#1 Bablingua

Bablingua is an awesome site featuring tons of authentic audios and videos, as well as some readings and other printables.  Videos are organized by both proficiency level and vocabulary or grammar topics.  The videos are filmed in Spanish-speaking countries (mostly Spain) and all have corresponding activities in PDF format or Google Forms.  

These videos are fantastic for exposing your students to native Spanish-speakers and different accents.  If students struggle to comprehend the Spanish (i.e. from Spain) accent, Bablingua can provide TONS of practice to help your students gain confidence in this area.  There is also so much culture to be seen in the videos!  The site has so many videos to choose from on virtually any topic you could think of, and new content is added regularly.

I’ve had a Bablingua subscription since 2019, and no lie, I use it every single week.  There are videos appropriate for Spanish I students all the way through AP Spanish students.  Using these videos has greatly increased my students’ listening comprehension skills!

If you’re on the fence, Bablingua offers a 7-day free trial!  If you’re interested, you can activate yours by using the link above!

#2 Boom Learning

Boom Learning is the site that hosts Boom Cards, which are self-correcting digital task cards.  I love Boom Cards because students get immediate feedback and, since you as the teacher don’t have to manually grade students’ work, you save time!  You can use Boom Cards with a free account.  You’d be able to assign Boom Cards decks to your students, and they will receive that immediate feedback about their answers as they work through the decks.   However, with an upgraded membership, your students’ results will be saved for you to review at your convenience.  You can view the data by individual students or by the class as a whole, which is also nice.

Get a FREE deck of Boom Cards on weather and seasons below!

Interested in more Boom Cards decks?  Check out my favorites here!

#3 Language Lab Platform (Live Language Lab, Extempore, Charlala, etc.)

Assessing students’ speaking abilities in Spanish can be a daunting task.  It can be time-consuming to hold individual conversations with students regularly, requiring you to prepare something extra for the other students to work on, and, if we’re honest, some classes do not do well with too much unstructured time.  

So if you’re looking for a way to get a clear snapshot of your students’ speaking abilities, let technology be your friend and get a subscription to one of the following:

• Live Language Lab.  Live Language Lab can be a wonderful tool to record your students’ spoken Spanish.  My favorite part about it is that, once students are logged in, YOU have control over their activity on the platform – you can push out audios, start and stop them, save and close files, and more.  No more students forgetting to press record, saving audios to the wrong place, or any other number of technical issues that can arise. 
• Extempore.  Extempore allows you to ask your students questions verbally or in writing and have them respond right on the site.  This is great because you can ask students individual questions if you like, or you can have them complete a full simulated conversation by uploading a continuous audio file.  You can create a limited number of assessments for free before having to purchase a plan.
• Charlala.  Charlala has a lot of cool features, one of them being the ability to record your students speaking Spanish!  Like Extempore, you can upload a few assessments for free before needing to upgrade your membership.

If you want to know more about how these sites work, check out my blog post with video tutorials here!

#4 Gimkit

Of all the sites out there that can be used to gamify learning, Gimkit is by far my favorite.  You have the option to create multiple choice or fill-in-the-blank questions, and you can include pictures to prompt your students within your questions.  You can also browse kits that have been made public by other teachers and import them (or parts of them) into your own kits, saving you time!  

There are also SO MANY different games to choose from, and new games are released from time to time as well.  My students personally like to play the 2D games because they can earn points to buy new skins for their avatars to wear.  This gives them an additional incentive to do their best when answering the questions!

With an upgraded membership, you can create classes and assign kits for homework.  I often assign kits as optional practice assignments before tests or quizzes to give students an extra way to review.  

I hope this was helpful!  If you have any questions about the services mentioned in this post, leave me a comment below and I’ll get back to you ASAP!  Have a wonderful week, profe!