Teaching English as a Second Language: Ten Ready-Made Lessons

I can't remember what blogger or expat friend of mine said it, but I once heard someone claim that nearly every English speaker who passes through Spain will eventually, at some point or another end up teaching English for a living here. Such was the case for me this last year, when I landed a (great) job at a private institute in Valencia teaching mostly adults (though some kids and teenagers) at the intermediate (i.e. Preliminary English Test, or PET) and advanced (First Certificate, or FCE) level.

I've noticed that many of you expat bloggers and readers out there who are interested in Spain are also English teachers or "auxiliares de conversación" (whether you're "ESL" versus "ESOL" depends on if you're from the U.S. or Britain, but we're all really "TEFL" if doing it in Spain). So I thought I'd share with you here some of the ideas I've had for English lessons. (NOTE: these lessons were designed to aid Spanish speakers from Spain, and some are specifically tailored to them.) While I'm no expert on language acquisition, I spent a fair amount of time making these language tools and I think they work for helping students explore different aspects of the language —be it cultural, grammatical, or whatnot— and, just as importantly, provide a tool for the teacher to escape from the tyranny of the textbook.

If you are curious, these are the two textbooks I used most heavily. They were both pretty good.
The New English File Intermediate was better for explaining the grammar in a simple,
schematic way, and had nice cultural activities, while the First Certificate Masterclass
was better for test-preparation (for the format of the test) and had excellent applied grammar
exercises, especially for phrasal verbs and collocations.

Digression: A funny story about how my wife and I met, and national differences in language learning... My wife and I met in French class in England. (Yes, long story!) On the first day of class, the poor French teacher asked the class, "How many of you know what a noun is?", and most everyone raised their hands. Then he asked, "How many of you know what a verb is?" Amazingly, some Brits didn't raise their hand. Then he asked, "adverbs?" I kept my hand up (barely), but other Americans didn't. And finally, "Participles?", to which my hand dropped, but my wife and other continental Europeans continued to raise their hands... But they now looked at us doofus Anglophones wondering, what planet did we come from that we didn't even know our basic grammar? 

What I learned from this, and from teaching English to Spaniards this past year, is that continental Europeans learn language in a way that is very different from most English-speaking countries. Whereas we use the immersion method for our own language, and thus (ironically) only learn grammar when learning foreign languages, Europeans tend to still learn structured grammar in their own languages, such as sentence-diagramming, verb conjugations, and identifying sentence elements like adverbs or independent clauses. In other words, many of my students understood the grammar-grammar of English better than me, but often without understanding how to actually use it well.

Me want speak English good!

*** Lesson 1: Tongue Twisters ("trabalenguas") to practice pronunciation ***

Pronunciation is often a key challenge for EFL students, but I personally find the pronunciation listen-and-repeat exercises in language books to be quite boring. One day I got the idea to use tongue twisters, which are not only fun and culturally significant (natives are always happy to perform them for you on the spot), but often highlight a particular pronunciation challenge quite effectively. I compiled this list of what I saw as either the most classic of tongue-twisters, or the coolest that I could find online:

Click here to load a PDF I made with tongue twisters.

To make this lesson more than just repeat-after-me, I recommend you look at the links at the bottom of the PDF, which offer great ideas for more interactive tongue-twister lessons. I found that the "disappearing tongue twister" exercise, using "She sells seashells by the seashore" on the chalkboard, was an excellent exercise for Spanish speakers to practice. And for adult learners who would like to take the pronunciation practice home, I highly recommend the website Forvo.com, which hosts audio pronunciations recorded by native speakers for words in many different languages and dialects.

*** Lesson 2: "The History of English in Ten Minutes" and fun proverbs ***

I ran across this excellent video series by the Open University, which in ten chapters, each one-minute long, manages to provide a pretty good summary of the evolution of the English language, many of the most important internal and external influences reshaping it, as well as the origin of many words and popular phrases and proverbs... all in just ten minutes! To give you an idea of which trends it describes, the chapters in the series are: 1) Anglo-Saxon, 2) The Norman-Conquest, 3) Shakespeare, 4) The King James Bible, 5) The English of Science, 6) English and Empire, 7) The Age of the Dictionary, 8) American English, 9) Internet English, and 10) Global English.

"Chapter 1: Anglo-Saxon or, whatever happened to the Jutes?"

"The History of English in Ten Minutes" is an excellent teaching tool, though it moves too quickly for most non-native speakers to be used unaided. I recommend you show it in class, but be prepared to pause the video to discuss specific phrases and proverbs that it describes, and to add your own embellishments. What with my being a trained historian, I used it to talk a bit more about the history of the English language, to encourage them to think about the language as a product of a history and culture that is constantly changing.

For my advanced students, I brought a Dictionary of English/Spanish Proverbs, and asked them to name some proverbs in Spanish for which I tried to give them the English equivalent. (The video on Shakespeare is "chock full" of wonderful phrases and proverbs coined or canonized by the famous bard.) Even if this proves to be too difficult a translation challenge for you or the students, it gets them speaking about colorful sayings in their own culture and thus trying to articulate subtle meanings. And it is also incredibly fun!

*** Lesson 3: Dictation exercises to practice listening comprehension and spelling ***

I sorely underestimated the value of doing dictations in my classes, and only really tried them towards the end of the year when many of my students began to worry about the listening comprehension portion of the Cambridge Exams. I found some excellent guides to giving dictations, many of which were online and I realized (almost too late for my students) would make excellent self-guided educational tools for them outside of class:

Click here to load a PDF I made with dictation exercises.

In this handout, I tried several different kinds of dictation exercises. I read excerpts from classic novels (which www.dictationsonline.com has wonderfully classified by levels to match the Cambridge Exam system). I read sentences with the "-ough" root, to illustrate how the same spelling can change dramatically in pronunciation for different words. And I found a wonderful online exercise playing with homophones (words that sound the same, but are spelled differently), which was fun for how it tested my students' ability to recognize different spellings, but also introduced them to new and unusual words. Lesson learned. These dictations are activities I will now do from the start next year and will return to regularly.

*** Lesson 4: Christmas special... holiday vocabulary and pop culture ***

For holiday fun and classic cultural iconography,
I recommend students watch the 1964 stop-motion
animation short, Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
Chic Soufflé wrote a nice entry in Spanish about it.

I'm a big believer that the only real way people will learn a foreign language is by learning about the culture, partly because language reflects culture and some things really are lost in (literal) translation, and partly because I think students have to be motivated, even passionate, to really learn a language well, and so it helps if you can link the language acquisition to their pre-existing personal interests, hobbies or passions. 

Oh, and I love Christmas! I think Christmas (a.k.a. Xmas, a.k.a. "Navidad") is slightly different in Spain than in the United States. So naturally for the last class before the December holiday break I decided to give my students a cultural lesson on classic English-language (mostly American) Christmas songs, poems and other traditions, which introduces them to a lot of new holiday-related vocabulary. A particularly good one which many Spaniards don't know about is the poem, "Twas the Night Before Christmas," which has lots of new vocabulary ("dash away", "snug", "clatter") and is fun to read together with the class. Few of them know about Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, so I also included the song lyrics for them:

Click here to load a PDF I made for Christmas.

There are a lot of opportunities for constructive digression with this lesson... you can talk about cultural differences in holiday traditions (the Spanish "belén", "El Gordo" lottery or the Three Kings, versus Santa in the Macy's parade), winter/snow-related vocabulary, or Xmas pop-culture that they might not know about. (I try to bring in a lot of less conventional songs, like "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer" by Elmo & Patsy or "Santa Baby" by Eartha Kitt, to play for them, since I've noticed that in Spain Christmas music tends to be more traditional and less diverse than in the United States.)

*** Lesson 5: The Amazing Verb "To Get"... or how phrasal verbs are key in English***

This handout started with a conversation with one of the other teachers at my language institute. He and I were talking at the end of the day about how interesting it was to re-learn English by teaching it to non-native speakers, and he said, "Like the verb, to get. I mean, I love it! Have you thought about all the different ways we use that verb in English?" We started riffing on that theme, and then to wrap up I joked, "Do you get me?" to which he replied, "Get out of here!" That night I talked about it with my wife, and the next morning I sat down and started to make a list. Many hours later, and consulting a few grammar books to construct a loose, informal but helpful categorization, the result was this 4-page handout of examples:

Click here to load a PDF I made on "The Amazing Verb 'To Get'".

I suspect this list is still not comprehensive, and I could have done a more serious job at formalizing it with grammar concepts... but you can have fun with your class for easily an hour just talking about all these different usages and tying it in to larger points about phrasal verbs, how they work (are they "separable", "transitive", or not?) and examples of slang formed from common ones.

 - - - - - INTERLUDE - - - - -

For a laugh, I highly recommend watching this skit by Gomaespuma on "Clases de inglis",

wonderful English-Spanish puns and erroneous explanations of 

how English works according to a Spanish teacher.

 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  - - - - -

*** Lesson 6: Baseball Language, sports language and fun cultural sayings ***

So to give this lesson you kind of need to understand the game of baseball. And it might make more sense to teach it if you are an American. (Any Brits out there want to work up a similar lesson using cricket?) But the fact is that for American English there are a _ton_ of phrases used which come from baseball or sports in general, and for which it helps to have a basic understanding of the game. And I myself love baseball, so one day I decided to teach my students how it works, and then tie it to commonly heard expressions like "be on the ball" or "you hit it out of the park":

Click here to load a PDF I made on baseball and baseball sayings.

Now as you will see, this lesson is currently targeted to adults. Because the best part of it is when you arrive to the section about "getting to 1st base" or "going all the way". Needless to say, there is nothing more fun than talking indirectly about sex in foreign language classes. So this classic American euphemism, which they are likely to have heard in American movies, can be an interesting launch point into other common sexual innuendoes. (But, of course, if you want to adapt this for younger audiences, I suggest you remove those expressions from the handout and skip explaining them!)

And for advanced students you can take the baseball discussion to another level by introducing them to the classic poem, "Casey at the bat", published by Ernest Lawrence Thayer in 1888. Baseball is rightfully called "America's national pastime", not because it's the most watched sport (today American football or basketball probably trump it), but because it's part of our national DNA, so to speak. Thayer's poem is a classic because of how it takes the baseball-game quintessential moment of tension, "the bottom of the ninth, two outs and three runners on base", and transforms it into a broader cultural metaphor about hubris, human struggle, and defeat. Reading the poem to your class will not only introduce new vocabulary but will also teach them a classic American literary text.

Disney adapted the poem to this equally or even more famous 

cartoon version, Casey at the Bat, released in 1946.

*** Lesson 7: Latin and Greek expressions used in English ***

This lesson still needs some work. At the moment, this is just a list of commonly used Latin (and some Greek) phrases that appear in English. It was prompted by my observation that it is more common in English than Spanish to leave certain ancient, fixed expressions in the original Latin rather than translate them to the native language. (This is probably because Spanish and Latin resemble each other, so translating to Spanish doesn't alter the expression much.) The reasons for why these phrases appear in English are manifold, ranging from the entry of legal language ("alibi", "addendum", and "de facto") or scientific language (psychoanalysis: "alter ego") into pop culture to the popularity of "Greek culture" in America, by which I don't mean Greek Americans, but rather fraternities and sororities ("going Greek"?: "alma mater", "alumnus"). But the result is that one encounters a lot of Latin in English, though pronounced differently and sometimes used in a way that is not a linear translation of the phrase:

Click here to load a PDF handout listing common Latin phrases or expressions in English.

Your Spanish students will recognize many of these phrases, but it is still useful to cover them for a variety of reasons: 1) they will not know which expressions English-speakers tend to say in the original Latin, and which we translate, 2) they will probably have seen, and been confused by many of the commonly used abbreviations (for example, "e.g.", "AM" and "PM", "etc.", "P.S."), and 3) they will want to know how you, a native-speaker, pronounce them, which is not the way they might have said it. Also, many of these expressions have cultural nuances in how they appear in popular usage, which you can elaborate on.

It's funny. In English we say "It's Greek to me" when we mean, "I can't understand it at all."
But in Spanish they say, "Me suena a chino" ("It sounds like Chinese to me").
Apparently, every language culture has it's own idea of what a cryptic language
would be, a subject which this blogger wrote up a nice entry about here.

Ideally, you could combine a discussion of these phrases with a discussion about the Latin and Greek prefixes and suffixes that populate the English language. For example, "pre" and "ante" mean before, such as "prequel" whereas "post" and "seq" mean after, such as "sequel". (I have to express a debt of gratitude to my 9th Grade English teacher for this inspired idea, which is his... He really "blew our minds" with this lesson way back then!) Eventually I'll add that to this lesson plan, but for now I direct you to these webpages for a list of examples: Wikipedia's entries on "Latin words with English derivatives" and "Greek words with English derivatives".

It's all relative: Here's a flow chart posted by a UPenn language blog,
which shows the flow of "It's [as confusing as] language X to me" for different languages.
Notice how nobody considers English to be incomprehensible.

*** Lesson 8: "To Be" Versus "To Get", applied grammar ***

This lesson is specifically targeted to Spanish speakers learning English, or English speakers learning Spanish, and centers on the structural differences in the two languages in how they attempt to distinguish between provisional, superficial descriptive statements and deeper more permanent statements using the verbs "To Be" and "To Get", in English, and Ser/Estar and Ponerse in Spanish. I attempt with this handout to systematically explain and explore the parallels between Ser/Estar and Be+past participle (p.p.)/gerund. And then move this discussion on to a parallel structure, where "To Get" works with p.p. and gerunds for descriptors much the way "To Be" does, except it means "to become", much the way Ponerse, Volverse (and similar reflexive verbs) do in Spanish:


Click here to load a PDF handout explaining differences between verbs To Be and To Get.

This was what the board looked like after I taught this topic of "-ed"/"-ing" adjectives
used with "to be" and "to get". I brainstormed some opinion/emotion verbs that use it,
and had students practices talking about things they find annoying, upsetting, or disturbing.

("Oh, no, I've gone cross-eyed!") I don't know how well this grammar lesson translates to paper, so please let me know if you are still confused by what I'm saying here. I wish I was better at sketching, because then I could draw for you the stick figures I draw for my students on the chalkboard, to illustrate some of the comparisons I'm making. Maybe one day, if I get inspired and organized, I can work up a video explanation of it, since mastering these verbs is foundational to speaking both languages well.

The Pre-Existing Conditional tense in America:
This cartoon is just excellent on so many levels... A laugh for any of you who
have ever taught the conditional tense to a non-native speaker.
And (tragically) a laugh for any of you Americans who have ever tried to
explain to all others the U.S.'s non-universal, private healthcare and insurance system.

*** Lesson 9: "English Pronunciation" Poem by G. Nolst Trenité***

I ran across this wonderful poem during the course of the year, and decided to torture read it to my students. It is a great poetic critique of the English language's idiosyncratic tendency to butcher complicate the relationship between pronunciation and orthography. I would hope that students found the poem entertaining, and enjoy learning some new vocabulary and pronunciations. But I suspect it will also frighten them a bit:

Click here to load a PDF handout for the "English Pronunciation" poem by Trenité.

Of course, it is also just darn fun to attempt to read out loud. I bet you will, despite your best native-speaker effort, manage to mispronounce at least one or two words. Which is why you can direct your students to this video of a British speaker reading it, for them to practice listening to it...

*** Lesson 10 (for kids ages 5 to 10): "In the Jungle" ***

So this final lesson is a quick activity I threw together one day "to mix things up" a bit with a 9-year-old kid I was giving private tutorials to. He was a sweet kid, and though probably a bit old for the lesson, he ended up really enjoying it. It was a short vocabulary exercise on the Jungle. Kids love this s**t stuff, and chances are yours will already know most of the animals' names in English. But you can use this as a springboard to discuss other animals, or talk about plants versus animals, or whatever.


Click here to load a PDF handout on Jungle vocab and "Lion Sleeps Tonight" lyrics.

After discussing the vocabulary, my student especially enjoyed singing along with me to the classic song, "The Lion Sleeps Tonight," whose lyrics I included on the handout. He loved the video version which I've posted below with a singing hippo. After we watched it together, I had him sing the lyrics, and I sang the "wimoweh" accompaniment. It was good fun. He was requesting the song for weeks afterwards. Whether it was the most instructive lesson is hard to say, but at this age I think the main challenge is making English-acquisition exciting and fun, and it was hard to top this song for that. (I'd place it up there with the "Head, shoulders, knees and toes" for a younger age-group.)

Spanish kids may recognize this song, but have probably never had the chance to sing-along to it.

And that's it for activities I developed this past year. (Addendum: However, the following year I developed 5 More Ready-made Lessons which you can find at this post here, and a "part 3" post with 5 more lessons.) If I come up with new ones I'll be sure to post more in a later entry. I very much welcome any and all TEFL readers to post their feedback on these lessons, or descriptions or links to their own tricks-of-the-trade or lesson ideas. The best teaching is done in an open community of collaboration and criticism, so consider this an open call for that!

I should close by making a plug for my language institute employer:
the American Institute in Valencia is one of the oldest in town.
It has great teachers and offers great rates!

_____________ADDENDUM: FURTHER TEFL RESOURCES_____________

In the spirit of reducing redundancy and the work of new TEFL recruits (why reinvent the wheel?), here I'll add and periodically update a list of web resources that I (or others) have found useful in teaching English to foreigners and specifically to Spaniards. They are listed in no particular order. [A special thanks to Spanish Sabores for this section, since I got many of these initial ideas from her series of posts on "Language Assistants", and in particular her post on "11 Best TEFL Resources"! There is also her 2013 updated and very thorough compilation of links, "Required Reading for Future English Teachers in Spain".]

• BBC Learn English – Recommended by Spanish Sabores as "the best", I have to agree that it is a very solid resource for all levels and ages, and very professional.

• The Internet TESL Journal – Again, I only discovered this now-dormant website recently through Spanish Sabores, but wow! With 15 years of posts from many different people, it is full of ideas and useful suggestions for lesson plans, techniques and games of use to the English teacher.

• Oral English Activities [found by Spanish Sabores] – As a native-speaker, getting students to practice speaking is your number one job here in Spain, so this site and its many ideas for speaking exercises is really great.

• Dictations Online – The name says it all. This is a great stop for getting dictations to use in class.

• ESL Base [finder: Spanish Sabores] – Another great all-around resource for teaching English, complete with useful worksheets to print out and use with your students.

• America's Library – This Library of Congress website, designed for American students, is a perfectly good resource to use for your Spanish students when talking about U.S. history or culture.

• To Learn English – Very obnoxious web format and images, but this site has some really nice interactive exercises, such as the homophone one I mentioned above in dictations, or a Pride and Prejudice video with fill-in-the-blanks exercise that is nice.

• British Council's Teaching English – This is up there with the BBC site for solid, professional web resources for teaching English.
• Common Errors in English Usage – Frankly, this is a list of typical mistakes that even native English-speakers make, but I think it can be useful to pass along to your EFL students. The list is from a book by Paul Brians, Common Errors in English Usage (2008)... and it lists some more online resources for ESL:
          – Curricular Resources for English as a Second Language
          – ESL Online Help Desk Washington State University 

Road Trip Spain: Art on the Autovía Mudéjar, Route A-23

This roadside sculpture nicely evokes the Autovía Mudéjar
iconography of highway meets Mudéjar star.

I've long been struck by all the art sculptures one encounters along the streets, roundabouts, and highways of Spain. America, for all of its "On the Road" car culture, can't beat Spain for its public investment in decorating its byways with visual spectacles designed by Spanish artists. My Spanish family and I frequently take road trips out of Valencia, many of which utilize a particularly well-decorated highway, the Autovía Mudejar or A-23, which runs from Sagunt to north of Huesca, and which features sculptures and tile decorations much of which invoke the "Mudéjar" art tradition of the moors who stayed in Spain after the reconquista. The highway links up to a variety of wonderful day-trip jaunts and "pueblos con encanto", such as Sagunt, Albarracín, and Linares de Mora, among others.

The 434 kilometer trajectory of the Autovía Mudéjar highway.

On the day I took most of these photos, there were a lot of cars like this one on the road
with bikes on top... Cycling team cars from La Vuelta a España cycling race,
moving bikes from the Jaca stage the day before to the Alcañiz site for that day's race.

Of course, the most famous highway decoration in Spain is the Osborne "toro", the highly popular bull logo billboards originally used to sell Osborne's sherry, left up all across Spain even after the government banned all other highway billboard advertising in 1994. The bull transcended its commercial roots to become a staple of Spanish national iconography. This kind of advertising-turned-pop-culture is more akin to the Route 66 Americana one finds back Stateside.

But in Spain, and especially along the Autovía Mudéjar highway section between Zaragoza and Huesca, one finds works of sculpture planted there not for profit, but solely for the edification of highway drivers. Some are quite impressive, others merely elegant embellishments to the scenery, and many are just plain humorous.

On a recent trip up to the Spanish Pyrenees and the Valle de Tena, me and the family once again drove along this visual feast, and I decided to take the opportunity to photograph some examples. Here are some photos of sculptures that I managed to photograph despite driving by them at 120 kmph...

Many of the sculptures and embellishments follow a decidedly Mudéjar design...

For a period of the highway, the overpasses are marked with these Mudéjar stars.

There is also a segment of the A-23 highway where one can see a wide variety of tiled or clay displays under the overpasses, on the side. Though these were much harder to capture in a photograph while on the go...

I got a kick out of this shrub design at one point along the Mudejar highway...

Then there are the curious, abstract art sculptures...

These sculptures, for example, which I took to resemble palm trees.
Note the painted underpass art on the left.

This sculpture looks like a cigarette in cigarette holder. Not sure why it was chosen for highway art.

This one near Zaragoza reminds me of a dancing fiddler.

I thought this sculpture was particularly cute and ingenious...
looking like an old-fashioned road signpost.

This post-modern shape on the left marks a highway exit roundabout

While I'm at it, it's worth mentioning other joys that come with driving the Spanish countryside... above all the scenic landscape...

So this is where all that "aceite de girasol" comes from...

Nothing more Spanish than windmills on the horizon...

And occasionally there were some real gems of sculptures to be found...

I liked this twist on the Osborne bull.

This region is famous for its "Jamón de Teruel", so it's only natural
that one sculpture would take up the jamón itself as an inspiration.
What a riot suddenly seeing this jamón looming large on the side
of the road.

My particular favorites along this stretch of highway were two of San Jorge (patron saint of the Crown of Aragon) killing the dragon, one located just north of Huesca and the other just south of the turnoff for Albarracín...

The Huesca San Jorge, shown killing the dragon that is attacking his horse

The Huesca San Jorge shown from a different angle

The other San Jorge located nearer to Albarracín, which nicely blends into
the rocky terrain along the highway.

And this is just a sample of one stretch of highway. I don't include the many other sculptures I've seen which decorate the Valencia city's roundabouts, or curiosities of other Spanish roads and highways traversed.

I propose to my readers that we make a game of it, much like my earlier "Great Granada Hunt" game. Have you discovered great "Road Art" in your local regions of Spain? If so, email a photo of it to me or a link to your blog post on it, and I'll include it in this post (with proper credits and linkbacks) in a "Viewer's Choice" section. Thanks!

It's the Little Things: Spain's True Wealth

I'm not exactly known for my brevity, but there are these little things I keep coming across, these beautiful treasures of Valencia, or of Spain, that I want to share. And I'm going to have to learn to share them without going on and on and on... Oh drat! There I go again.

For example, I recently came across this incredible video about "The birds of Spain" (for info on the types of birds shown in the video, read here), whose breathtaking footage was perfect for lifting me out of a funk from those (trivial) day-to-day problems:

The birds of Spain from Wildglimpses on Vimeo.

The video was made by one Raúl Tomás Granizo, a young Spanish freelance wildlife filmaker and nature photographer whose video exploits you can follow at his Vimeo Wildglimpses page or his personal webpage, Wildglimpses.com. One of Spain's many treasures is its biodiversity, particularly in birds because the Iberian Peninsula is a crossroads of sorts for birds migrating between Europe and Africa.

Having recently returned from the Pyrenees, I was also smitten with this other video by him, "Pyrenees, the mountains of light", shot mainly in my beloved Valle de Tena:

Pyrenees, the mountains of light from Wildglimpses on Vimeo.

Raúl, I'm a fan! Keep sharing these wonderful nature videos!

I share them with all of you out there who are reading as a salve for all the bruises and burns you might be feeling from the continued onslaught of overhyped negative press about Spain's economy. These videos kind of put it back in perspective... they remind us of Spain's true wealth.

Pueblos con Encanto: Valle de Tena and Towns in the Spanish Pyrenees

August is the unofficial, official vacation month in Spain, and this year our family rented a house in the incredibly quaint and rustic town of Lanuza, Aragón, nestled in the majestic Valle de Tena, which is formed by the Río Gállego that flows from the top of the Spanish Pyrenees down to the plains of the Huesca region. "Turismo rural" (rural tourism) is a popular pass-time among Spaniards, second only to beach tourism, and Valle de Tena has much to offer the city dweller who is interested in escaping the noise and pollution of urban spaces for a quieter, natural setting.

Valle de Tena, as seen from "Pico Pazino". On the left is Sallent de Gállego,
and the very small town towards the right, opposite on the lake, is Lanuza.

The town of Lanuza is itself an interesting locale, with an interesting backstory. In 1977, the townspeople of Lanuza were forced by the government to vacate, because their town would be covered by the water from a new reservoir ("embalse") created to generate electricity. Not willing to give up so easily, the Lanuzans fought a legal battle to secure the movement and reconstruction of their town further up the hill, above the new waterline. From 1992 to 2012, over the course of twenty years, the town, like the mythical phoenix, was born anew and slowly re-inhabited. You can see a list of the original townspeople and the layout of the original town on several commemorative plaques and guides mounted in the church.

The dam which created all the problems for Lanuza, as seen from the town.

When the reservoir waterline is low, as shown here, you can see
the remains of the old highway bridge that led to the old Lanuza.

Photo of newsclipping on Lanuza's rebirth, from Trimbolera's blog.

Lanuza follows the classic Pyrenees pueblo style of brick buildings
with black slate roofs. Very picturesque!

Panoramic shot of Lanuza today as seen from the lake shoreline.

We got a special tour of the reconstructed church and school house by a local blogger, El bosque de trimbolera, whose blog, named for a local tree, is one of the best online sources of news and happenings in the Valley. She showered us with local hospitality, even inviting us into her house after the tour for some cheese, bread and wine. (Ah, Spanish hospitality!) Needless to say, after its legal battles and reconstruction, the townspeople have an especially strong pride in keeping up town traditions and unity. Our visit was on the eve of the annual, important August 25th festival, so the older generation was teaching the town kids the important tradition of the "paloteau" musical dance with sticks in the afternoons next to our house. We had just missed the Festival Pirineos Sur, a sizeable international rock music festival which Lanuza, despite its small size, somehow manages to host in July.

Here you can see the outdoor venue next to Lanuza complete with floating music stage,
where the Pirineos Sur festival takes place. (Photo from Trimbolera's post on it.)

Lanuza town decorated with flags on the eve of its August festival

A great place to eat in Lanuza is the Bar El Frondón. Named for the hillside next to the town, it's a center of activity for the locals, and worth a food stop even if you aren't staying in town. Given that it had wireless internet, I was a regular there and made friends with the bartender. (It was here where I watched the exciting Spain-USA Olympics basketball final.) The sandwiches are truly excellent and, amazingly enough, it has an incredible brownie, a rarity in Spain in my opinion. Plus I got great free insider advice about what to do in the valley. (The cook was a hunter and thus an incredible guide to what are the best trails to hike.) If you are looking for a quality place to stay in the valley for a good price, I highly recommend the Hotel La Casueña, whose name comes from the name of one of the pasture areas of Lanuza that was covered by the lake. (You can read a nice blog entry on this hotel in Spanish here.) They also offer superb, gourmet dinner meals.

Bar El Frondón: the central artery of Lanuza.

One of the best brownies that I've tried in Spain,
a surprise discovery in this humble pueblo bar, El Frondón, Lanuza

The elegant Hotel La Casueña located in Lanuza, by the lake and with mountain views

"Trenza", a traditional pastry to try in Valle de Tena

Of course, Lanuza is tiny. So if you want a slightly livelier more populated option, but one that still has that Pyrenees smalltown vibe, you can always head over to Sallent de Gállego which is a mere 12-minute jog (I know because I ran it) or 20-minute walk from Lanuza, and has a bit more to offer in the way of supermarkets (which is to say it has them) and bakeries. Two good spots to eat here are Restaurante Garmo Blanco, worth the ascent of its formidable staircase to have lovely views and eat exquisite food, and Restaurante Casa Martón, which has a great outdoor patio and serves more homey fare. As I've said before, a key element of "Pueblos con encanto" excursions is to sample the local breads and pastries. Pretty much anything you find at the Panadería La Tahona de Roxanna will be worth it, but the traditional pastry to try in this region is the "trenza" which makes for a tasty breakfast. (If you visit La Cuchara Curiousa's blog post on Valle de Tena, the food photos will have your mouth watering for more.)

The town square of Sallent de Gállego

Though this was where all the action was, including a practice wall for climbing.

The ascent to Restaurante Garmo Blanco

Garmo Blanco is worth the stair-master ascent for the nice rooftop views inside,
including a view of Pico Pazino

For more typical fare, Casa Martón, next to the river, also offers delicious food

        What to do in the valley:

You need to spend at least a minimum of a week here to enjoy the valley, and you could easily spend more if you want to try everything it has to offer.

• Skiing & Formigal

What Valle de Tena is probably most famous for is its skiing. Indeed, among the few names I recognized when I first arrived here was Formigal, a well-known ski-resort town with multiple ski slopes during the winter season, and which regularly features in the snow reports in the national weather forecast. As it was off-season in August, I didn't do much there this visit. Unlike many other Valle de Tena towns, Formigal seemed a bit touristy and un-pueblo-like. My mother-in-law described it as "la Cullera de esquí" (Cullera being a typical mass-ified Mediterranean beach town south of Valencia). Still, for snow and ski-slope lovers this is a great destination. My wife and I are eager to get back some winter in the future just to see how the terrain is transformed by the "white stuff".

Formigal ski slopes in peak season (not my photo)

We got a kick out of this advertisement for Lacasitos, the Spanish equivalent of M&Ms.
I can only imagine what this ski lift area must be like at peak season,
because in August it is deserted.

Off-season, this sign next to the Anayet ski lift entrance suddenly becomes significant

The cows take over the ski area, to graze to their heart's delight

• Hiking (or, what to do here when it's not ski season)

Our August trip was completely and utterly defined by hiking excursions ("senderismo"). We did a trail on our first full day there and were hooked! The air was fresh, the mountain scenery majestic, the nature incredible (with curious mountain flowers like the "cardo del sol" popping up all over the mountainside), and the pasture-scenery serene. Here I list our favorites trails in or near the valley (none required equipment, just sturdy legs) and photos I took of the highlights... However, there are hundreds of trails in this Valley to loose oneself in, of all levels of difficulty.

The "Alto Gállego" valley lies along one path of the Camino de Santiago, and many
good hiking trails are also officially marked trails of the famous "French Way" pilgrimage.

- - Pico Pazino - -

This trail is an ideal Day One hike to do. Its ascent is a bit of a challenge towards the top, but it gives you a great view of the entire valley, and there is something about arriving to the top of a mountain that just feels very satisfying. A return trip takes about three hours.

The first real landmark on the trail up is this large "chimenea" (chimney).

The trail leading up to the peak.

Formigal and Peña Foratata, and lots of great views of the other valley towns on this trail

The view of the other side of the mountain, from the top of Pico Pazino

Tiny Lanuza, as seen from the top of Pico Pazino

- - O Saldo (from Escarilla) - -

This hike is pretty family-friendly, and the start is right next to the small town Escarilla and thus easy to access. It's key feature is a waterfall (or "el salto" in Spanish and "o saldo" in aragonés) at the end. Again, this is about a two and a half to three hour trip in total.

View of the town Escarilla, as you head up the O Saldo trail

This was probably the most trafficked trail we took, with large groups of families hiking it together

And this is the final destination, the waterfall

I'm not sure if you are actually supposed to swim in it, but it looked like fun

- - Anayet - -

This hike was a bit more challenging, but was probably our favorite trail of all of them... the colorful rocks and the magical glacier lake at the top were magical. And the trail wasn't as heavily trafficked as many of the others, which made it that much more special. Overall, this took us five hours, and we could have spent much more time at the top than we did (due to a thunderstorm).

Red cliff tops towered over this trail, which followed a stream up to its source.

Piles of rocks, the universal trail mark, and the red & white mark for
"Gran Recorridos" marked this valley trail

What made this hike magical was the beautiful blend of red rocks covered with this green moss or something

And pretty mountain streams all around

But the glacier lake plateau and Pico Anayet above it, at the top of the trail,
was breathtaking. This is above 2000 meters high!

- - Ibón de Respomuso - -

While the hike itself was not as spectacular as the Anayet, this trail had one undeniably awesome feature: a bar at the top. After a three-hour ascent you reach an incredibly large lake and the "Refugio de Respomuso" sitting next to it. You can book rooms in the Refugio for overnight stays (something we plan to do next trip), and it has a bar where you can order a fresh pint of San Miguel beer. (I've never tasted better beer in my life! My wife laughed when she saw it was San Miguel's, which has an advertisement campaign based around the idea that you can find it wherever you go.) Expect this trail to take about six hours, there and back (and not including the beer time at the top).

The area at the start of this trail, a 10-minute drive from Sallent de Gállego,
looked like a popular picnic spot for locals.

Cows crossing trails, a common fixture here

Water running across trails, a common fixture here

We weren't so tired as to not appreciate the humor in one of these signs, 
which read: "Refugio de Respomuso: S.O.S. y BAR"... 
In other words, up at the Refugio (refuge) you could get 
both first aid treatment and beer!

Lots of wild rasberries and strawberries starting to appear along the trail,
Three more weeks (~mid September), and there would be plenty of ready-made
trail snacks to be had.

When we got near the top of the trail, we were surprised to see this dam,
which it turns out creates the reservoir for Respomuso.

The Ibón (glacier lake) de Respomuso at 2000+ meters altitude.

The Refugio de Respomuso next to the ibón.

This is what heaven looks like... at least after you've been hiking up
a mountain trail all day and discover this Refugio bar at the end!

Burros (a.k.a. donkeys) hanging out at the Refugio. I was trying to figure out
how they got the beer up here, and my best guess is that these poor guys had to carry it up.

• Teleférico from Panticosa to Rincón del Verde

For those less able to hike, there is another option: the cable car lift ("teleférico") at the town of Panticosa up to the adjacent mountain valleys, Rincón del Verde. The teleférico ride is quite fun, and at the top there are various "miradores" linked by a convenient bus ride. So you can see magnificent views without wearing yourself out.

The view of the town Panticosa as you take the cable car lift.

Rincón del Verde is also a ski area, those these ski lifts weren't in use while we were there

The Mirador de Panticosa at the top of the cable car lift.

The Ibón de Asnos, where the bus drops you off at the top.

Cute!

Ascending the short trail around the Ibón de Asnos to reach the final mirador.

There are apparently groundhogs ("marmotas") in the Pyrenees.
I didn't see any, but saw lots of suspicious holes like this
around the mirador.

The mirador de los valles

Be sure to bring your binoculars on this trip, since there is a lot of bird watching,
especially different kinds of birds of prey in the area!

• Town hopping, Sight-seeing

While Lanuza and Sallent de Gállego have a special place in my heart, the truth is that there are many quaint and beautiful small towns in the valley, and one fun tourist thing to do is hop around and visit them. There is a cute chapel sitting on a hill, "Ermita de Santa Elena," which is worth a look, and the well-off-the-highway town of Hoz de Jaca has a mirador-jaula (lookout cage) which is perched in the edge of a cliff over the valley, and whose open metal framework underfoot will test the courage of anyone with a fear of heights. There are many more towns worth mentioning, but I encourage you to hunt for them yourself.

A little ermita on the side of a hill welcomes you as you arrive to the
Valle de Tena by car.

You can barely make out the green mirador cage (in the center of the photo) sitting on the cliff's edge.

• Outdoors "adventure" tourism

And as with any outdoorsy nature area, Valle de Tena offers ample opportunity for horseback-riding up mountains or through forests and pastureland. And one can go white-water rafting nearby or kayaking on the lakes and rivers in the valley.

        Incredible Day Trips:

Don't confine yourself to the Valle de Tena. If you have a week or more here, be sure to consider one or all of these excellent day trips by car.

• Ordesa National Park

About an hour's drive from the Valle de Tena is the Parque Nacional de Ordesa. If you are ever an hour's drive from this national park, you _must_ find time to visit it. I've written much more about it in an earlier post, but just want to reiterate that it is incredible!

• El Castillo de Loarre

About an hour south of the Valle de Tena is a magnificent castle, the Castillo de Loarre, and one of the most complete 11th century castles in Spain. It was the backdrop for Ridley Scott's movie, Kingdom of Heaven (2005), and is worth a day trip to see. While you're there, I recommend dining at the Hospedería de Loarre, which offers quality food.

Picture-perfect Loarre Castle

A good set for a medieval movie about knights

The view of the town, Loarre, from the castle on the hill above

Every time I get a chance, I make sure to order this typical dish, "ternasco",
when anywhere in Aragón where it's from. It's delicious!
I ordered this for lunch at the Hospedería de Loarre.

• Cross the border into France and the French Pyrenees

Lanuza and the Valle de Tena are only minutes away from the French border. (Indeed, you can visit Portalet, a border town which still has the old highway border gates —no longer in use— and go shopping at the many markets there which sell local products from the two adjacent countries.) Just on the other side of France there are a lot more potential day trips, though here I'll only mention a few.

- - Pasturelands and Vallée d'Ossau agrarian goods - -

When we first drove across the border, the road turned a corner and suddenly (a mere 10 minutes into France) the view opened up onto a large, broad valley which could have been the poster for agrarianism, with herds of cows, horses, and goats roaming free at the foot of giant hills and mountains. We decided to return another day to park and stroll around. One quickly discovers that hopping into France's Vallée d'Ossau to buy certain goods — artesanal honeys, mustards, and jams — is a big local industry, one which my belly and I both recommend.

Cross the border and you see tons of signs advertising "Fromage" and "Greuil",
one of many typical agrarian foods to be found in the French valley.

- - Le Petit Train d'Artouste - -

If you have kids with you, then everyone I talked to recommended this ride. The Petit Train d'Artouste boasts being the highest train in Europe in altitude.

- - Pau, and other quaint French Pyrenees towns - -

Cross the border and you will immediately see that French Pyrenees towns look very different from Spanish Pyrenees towns. By all accounts, one of the most beautiful to visit is Pau. You can take advantage of the excursion to dine here on the French cuisine.

I will miss you Valle de Tena... Lanuza, Pico Pazino and all. But I promise I'll be back again soon!

Crescent moon over the Pico Pazino, seen from Sallent de Gállego

Vivid, stormy sunset behind Formigal and the Peña Foratata, as seen from Lanuza