Development & Aid, Education, Headlines, Latin America & the Caribbean

ARGENTINA: Joining the Big Leagues in Spanish Language Training

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Jun 9 2004 (IPS) - Three public universities in Argentina have joined together to offer their own exam to assess and certify the Spanish language proficiency of non-native speakers, with the backing of the Education Ministry – a move that will make this country an even more attractive destination for ”language tourism”.

One of the driving forces behind the project, Cristina Elge, the dean of the language department at the University of Córdoba in northern Argentina, told IPS that the first language proficiency exams will be given in November in Argentina.

The Foreign Ministry has announced that the exams will also begin to be offered by institutions in Brazil, the United States and China.

The idea of forming an academic consortium to evaluate and certify the Spanish language skills of non-native speakers emerged in 2001, and involves the country’s three oldest universities – those of Buenos Aires, Córdoba and the Litoral (in northeastern Argentina).

”Many people who had Spanish language skills came to us to see if they could take an exam to certify their level of proficiency,” said Elge.

After the basic design of the project was approved by the Education and Foreign ministries, the early 2002 crash of the Argentine peso began to drive up demand for language training courses.

”The devaluation (and subsequent drop in prices) led many Canadians, U.S. citizens, and even Europeans to opt for Argentina rather than Spain as the chosen destination for studying Spanish,” she explained.

The Education Ministry estimates that more than 40,000 foreigners came to Argentina last year to study Spanish. Although it is more costly to fly to this South American country due to the greater distances involved, the cost of living is much lower than in Spain, the courses are far less expensive when measured in dollars, and the quality of teaching is comparable.

But one key element was missing: Argentina’s own internationally recognised language certificate. Graduates of Spanish language courses in Argentina ended up taking the DELE exam, which is offered by educational institutions from Spain, still the leader in teaching Spanish as a foreign language.

The Cervantes Institute, which answers to Spain’s Education Ministry, offers language courses in Spain and 20 other countries, and gives the DELE (Diploma de Español como Lengua Extranjera or Diploma of Spanish as a Foreign Language) exam that verifies proficiency in reading, writing, speaking, and understanding Spanish.

The DELE certificate is an internationally recognised official accreditation of Spanish language abilities. The exams are offered at accredited centres around the world by evaluators from the Cervantes Institute or associated institutions, and are corrected by the University of Salamanca in Spain.

In Argentina, the DELE test fee ranges from 60 to 80 dollars, depending on whether the student is taking the beginner, intermediate or advanced exam.

In Latin America, only the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) has developed its own internationally recognised Spanish language proficiency exam, said Elge, who pointed out that ”In South America, we will be the first.”

UNAM grants the EPLE (Examen de Posesión de la Lengua Española or Spanish Language Possession Exam) certificate, which evaluates and certifies the written and oral language skills of those for whom Spanish is a second language.

Both the DELE and EPLE certificates are accepted by universities and prospective employers in Spanish-language countries.

In Argentina, whose exam and certificate have not yet been given a name, ”standard educated Argentine Spanish” is taught, said Elge.

However, the evaluators will allow for other variants of Spanish when correcting the exams, because the language varies widely from country to country and even between regions within a given country.

In the future, the certificate will be required of foreign students applying for admission to graduate level programmes in universities in Argentina.

In neighbouring Brazil, a certificate of proficiency in Portuguese is already required by universities, but Argentina is only now adopting that requisite.

The best-known English proficiency exams are the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), which is based on American English and is offered by the U.S.-based Education Testing Service, and the Cambridge exams offered by the university of that name in Britain.

In Britain, the language training industry has a larger turnover than the automotive industry, according to a study published in 2002 by the ‘Cuadernos Cervantes’ Spanish language magazine, which underlined that teaching languages is good business.

The earnings do not only come from the exam fees, but also from tourism packages designed for visitors interested in ”language submersion” experiences, and from the publication and production of textbooks, cassettes, compact discs, videos and other teaching tools.

Spanish is the official language of more than 20 countries, and the mother tongue of 435 million people in the world, while another 100 million speak it as a second language, according to a study by UNAM.

In terms of international communication, Spanish is the second-most important language after English. But with respect to the number of inhabitants, Spanish ranks fourth, after Chinese (Mandarin – the language of 1.075 billion people), English (514 million), and Hindi (496 million).

Although the gap is not so huge between the number of English- and Spanish-speaking people around the world, in comparison with the production of English language textbooks, tapes, videos, software and other tools for teaching English, the Spanish language training industry is far behind.

”Just imagine what it will mean for us,” said Elge, referring to the possibility of offering Spanish exams in Brazil, the United States and China and having them corrected in Argentina.

The University of Córdoba Language Department, headed by Elge, offers courses to train students to teach English, Spanish, German, Italian, French and Portuguese to Spanish-speaking students in Argentina. But in the 1980s it also began to develop courses to train people to teach Spanish to foreigners.

Out of that experience emerged a new university degree (Licenciatura) and teaching certificate (Profesorado) – the only degree programme of its kind in Argentina – to be offered as of this year for those interested in teaching Spanish as a second language.

Elge said that although the programme is now financed by the state, as soon as the universities comprising the academic consortium begin to charge exam fees – the amount of which has not yet been determined – the project will be self-financing and will start to bring in earnings for the three universities.

”The financial aspect is not our chief motivation, and we are very excited about the intellectual challenge. But we cannot turn up our nose at the fact that sometimes universities have to act like companies to survive,” she said.

The certificate will also make Argentina even more attractive as a destination for learning Spanish, and will help generate increased sources of income for the country through ”language tourism”, the publishing industry, and the development of specific software programmes and other language-teaching technologies, said Elge.