Distance Education in the Philippines

Riding the LRT, one can see several ads on the train with Spanish text on it. Apparently, these ads are from Instituto Cervantes de Manila. Quoting their website:

Instituto Cervantes is a worldwide non-profit organization created by the Spanish government in 1991. It is the largest organization in the world dedicated to the teaching of the Spanish language and increasing knowledge of culture in Latin-American Countries. At present, Instituto Cervantes has 65 centres in 20 different countries.

I’ve been wanting to learn Spanish for quite some time now. My mom even thought of enrolling me on some short courses offered by the UP College of Arts and Letter, Department of European Languages. In fact, my first choice college course when I applied in UP is European Languages. Then, we thought of enrolling to Instituto Cervantes de Manila.

I was surprised to know that Instituto Cervantes de Manila joins the distance education bandwagon along with some state universities. Instituto Cervantes de Manila takes the learning of Spanish online through their Aula Virtual de Espanol (AVE).

The Instituto Cervantes´ Spanish Virtual Classroom is an Internet-based educational infrastructure set up to provide Spanish courses. These can be completed in different ways: attendance, semi-attendance and distance.

I’m still thinking if I would be taking the regular classes or the online classes. It is just great to see that different institution here in the Philippines are now offering distance and open learning.

For more information about Instituto Cervantes de Manila, you can visit their English website. You could also visit their office at 855 T.M. Kalaw St. 1000 Ermita, Manila, Philippines or call them up at 526-1482/85.