Title: Cocina del Mundo
URL: http://www.cocinadelmundo.com/
Grade/Age level: any
Example recipe for guacamole with comments from cocina del mundo users around the globe: http://www.cocinadelmundo.com/paises/mexico/ape/5274.html
The purpose of this site is to provide Spanish-speakers with a multitude of recipes from all over the world. The site was designed for native Spanish speakers and not necessarily intended to be used as a teaching tool.
The site has recipes organized by Continent, country, and then type of dish. One can click on a map, find the country they are looking for, and then find the type of dish they want to make. Another option is to search the site for a certain type of recipe. Many recipes have numerous comments left by people who have tried the recipe with their suggestions and questions.
Because the site is not designed for the purpose of teaching a language, there are no external documents or method for assessment or feed back as far as language learning goes.
The website is well organized and has little graphics and pictures that might help the non-native speaker with unfamiliar vocabulary.
The target audience, native Spanish-speaking people who enjoy cooking, would be attracted to this site because of the wealth of information available.
I would use this site for a couple of different language goals depending on the level of my students. One could come here to practice food and kitchen vocabulary. One could use this site to practice Spanish spellings for the names of countries around the world. Most of the recipes present the steps using the verbs in the infinitive form. Students could change the verbs to the command forms one would use to dictate the recipe to somebody. The many comments that people have left about the recipes offer the chance to read authentic language too.
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3 comments:
Hi Eric, I think you could do some really fun activities with that site. Whenever I see a site like that, I think of a translation contest. I do this often in my classes. Make teams, play a song in their native language, then have them translate it into English. It's really hard, but they like it and some of the translations are so funny. I made a rule that if all the teams don't know a word, we can use the dictionary. If one teams knows, then we can't use the dictionary. Anyway, I could see doing something like this with this site. I think you would also get some really funny answers as well. Ok, I'm getting hungry. Later.
Eric,
I think this site is great for Spanish learners because we seldom cover recipes in class. They can be pretty difficult but are filled with lots of verbs and ingredients that we don't use everyday. Also, when the students do hopefully travel to Spanish-speaking countries, they will be familiar with the names of foods and ingredients they will see in the stores, especially local herbs and spices. Food is such as integral part of the people, the culture; it would be a shame to exclude it from the curriculum.
Stefanie
I LOVE those cooking sites :)
I know people who actually do some cooking activities at school. The one that I've heard the most is cookies.
They bring in the ingredients. The students follow a recipe to make the batter, roll out the cookies, use cookie cutters (kids love those), and then the teacher takes those home and bakes them. In one podcast I listened to the teacher describe how he brought in a toaster oven so the students could have the fresh baked cookies.
I love food and I think that it can lead to great discussions on culture.
Dan
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