Arts NewsK-12 News

The arts take center stage with Spanish-language videos

Learning about the arts takes center stage in KET’s Artsville video collection. And its Spanish-language videos are earning praise from an educational outreach coordinator in Arizona.

“Teachers in our area’s largest school district love these resources!” said Cheryl Gerken, educational outreach coordinator with Arizona Public Media.

The videos, along with educational materials, are available free to educators nationwide online through PBS LearningMedia. The Artsville collection provides educational resources for music, dance, visual arts, and drama teachers.

The high-quality animations, including the Spanish-language versions, were created for elementary through middle school classrooms. However, Gerken believes they would also work for high school Spanish language classes.

Gerken knows what she’s talking about: She is a former bilingual teacher and librarian in a dual-language immersion K-5 program in Tucson.

“We have a robust arts program in many schools: Opening Minds through the Arts, orchestra and mariachi programs, as well as Dual Language Immersion programs,” she said. “Music, dance, and arts teachers utilize these with their students, but the quality of the Spanish makes them perfect for immersion classrooms as well.”

The Spanish versions are high quality translations made by native speakers, so they are authentic to the language as it’s actually spoken. Moreover, the Spanish is not merely dubbed over the English language version—the animation itself is altered so that the animated characters’ mouths are synchronized to the Spanish words they are speaking.

The inclusion of a Spanish transcript and Spanish closed captions make this educational resource accessible to a variety of audiences—both students who are learning Spanish and English language learners who need resources in their primary language.

Currently there are six Spanish language videos:

  • Las familias de los instrumentos musicale (Instrument families)
  • Arte visual (Styles of visual art)  
  • Los elementos de la danza (Elements of dance)
  • Etiqueta del público (Audience etiquette)
  • Estructura dramática (Dramatic structure)
  • Las cuatro voces (The four voices)

Three more Artsville videos will be produced in the coming year, with Spanish versions of each.

Visit the Artsville collection on PBS LearningMedia.