ASSAT eyes higher proficiency level

Spain is one of the ten largest economies in the world and there are about 406 million people worldwide speak Spanish.A MOU was signed between the Government of the Philippines through its Executing Authority, the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) and the Government of Spain through the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports, the Instituto Cervantes (IC), and the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation for Development (AECID).

The partnership was carried out to strengthen the capacity of TESDA to provide Spanish language training to Filipino job-ready workers and in response to the growing demand of BPO for qualified Spanish speaking call center agents.

Spanish training involves three years of training in Spanish Language and Spanish as a Foreign Language Methodology (ELE), and Hispanic Cultures and it aimed for teachers to achieve B2/C1 level in Spanish.

Hence, in April 2011, DepEd and TESDA started collaborating for the participation in the Spanish training programme. It includes intensive course training for 180 hours at Instituto Cervantes in Manila and distance learning modules through the Virtual Spanish Classrooms (AVE). Instituto Cervantes is a public institution created by Spain to promote and to teach the Spanish language and culture worldwide.

The collaboration was enhanced in the summer training course in April 16 – May 24, 2012 and in April 10 - May 25, 2013 with the participation of another 12 TESDA participants from different regions and from LGU Vigan.

Moreover, they joined the III CELEAP held in Ateneo de Manila University together with the exceptional, dedicated Spanish Trainers of Instituto Cervantes all over Asia.

In November 2013, after a month of stressful, tiresome preparation, fortunately, the following participants passed the DELE (Diplomas de Español como lengua Extranjera) level A2 examination, to wit: Mr. Cesar T. Pedro of TESDA NLSI, Taguig City; Ms. Faida H. Latip of TESDA LSI, Zamboanga City; Ms. Marites N. Caballero of TESDA LSI-Regional Training Center, Batangas City and Ms. Irah May M. Gaballo of TESDA LSI-Agusan del Sur School of Arts and Trades, Caraga.