Online Spanish courses: Accessibility, Multi-culturalism and Adaptability

Students of all ages and cultures are starting to learn Spanish on line. In our experience of Spanish online tutoring, it is not uncommon to be working with students living across the globe. Therefore, it is crucial for any serious online Spanish course to be accessible to multinational students. It must be multi-cultural and adaptable to different types of learning styles, rather than pressing all students into the same mold. Students’ unique needs, created by culture, gender, age, lifestyle and geography, require a great deal of attention from both the course designers and the teachers. The content of online Spanish courses must be culturally sensitive; what is considered politically correct in one country may be considered highly offensive in another. Although instructors cannot be expected to take into account every last detail of each of the world’s cultures, recognizing that instruction cannot be culturally neutral is the first step in the process of becoming more culturally aware. It is the teacher’s job to respond to the cultural needs of the student and to use, as far as possible, materials that represent more than one cultural viewpoint. When this proves impossible, tutors should encourage students to being their own resources to lessons. Asking students to share ideas from their particular cultural perspectives not only helps students, but also increases the cultural sensitivity of the teacher. In sum, the key elements of a first-class Spanish course online are accessibility, multi-culturalism and adaptability. Without these elements, the course will only be suited to students from a select country, background or culture and the possibilities that online language learning opens up, will not be enjoyed to their full potential.