The Cervantes Institute has announced the whole programme for its third International Conference of Spanish as a Foreign Language, which will take place in Alcalá de Henares from 16 to 18 November 2016. The registration period is already open.

More than fourteen million people of all ages are studying Spanish as a Foreign Language. There are 450 million Spanish-speakers (it is the fourth language of the world by number of speakers). Since both the supply and the demand of ELE teachers are high, the training of teachers and the research of the language need to keep on being rigorous and up-to-date.

The Cervantes Institute, as one of the institutions that launched the SICELE (International Certification System for Spanish as a Foreign Language), organises along with the University of Alcalá the third edition of the SICELE International Conference: Research and Innovation in ELE. This biannual conference will be held for the first time in our country, after being debuting in Puerto Rico in 2012 and celebrating its second edition (2014) in Mexico City.

This year’s conference is entitled ‘Evaluación y variedades lingüísticas del español’ (‘Evaluation and linguistic varieties of Spanish’) and it will be held on 16, 17 and 18 of November.

The programme will address three thematic areas: the evaluation and certification of the ELE professor, the linguistic varieties of Spanish and the control of quality standards and good practices in teaching. In a more general context, ‘the progress of SICELE will be made known., and a forum for discussion and analysis will be created, dedicated to the certification, evaluation, didactics, technology and training of ELE teachers in Spanish America’.

The programme, published last June 20 (along with the registration opening), includes speeches and paper of teachers and researchers arriving from international institutions such as the University of Casablanca, the University of Edinburgh, or the Moscow State University, as well as from several Cervantes Institutes worldwide.

The deadline for applications to attend the conference is 11 November. University students will have a 50% discount on the general registration fee (€125 before 17 October; €175 after this date).

The SICELE was born from a purpose grown in the last decade of globally harmonising the criteria required for the certification of knowledge of Spanish as a Foreign Language, looking this way to boost interest in its learning. The Universitat de València is a member institution of the SICELE on an individual basis.

For more information about the SICELE International Conference, you can check its webpage here.