FEALAC 25years fealac

Short Term Training Course / Internships

Colombia offers Spanish courses for tourist guides and undergraduate and graduate students from FEALAC East Asian countries to be undertaken in Colombian universities with proven high quality standards in language education for foreign students.

ELE FOCALAE aims to strengthen mutual understanding, trust, political dialogue and friendly cooperation between Colombia and East Asia through the teaching of Spanish as a foreign language and the promotion of the linguistic, cultural and touristic values of Colombia.
The initiative seeks to develop three components to achieve this goal:
- On the one hand, it helps tourist guides to improve their interaction skills with Spanish-speaking visitors. In addition, it aims to position Latin America and the country as an important destination for learning Spanish in beneficiary countries and among people visiting those countries.
- In the educational area, it seeks to foster academic mobility in a double way through the participation of undergraduate and graduate students. It is hoped that they will contribute to mutual knowledge from the academy, as well as to the generation of lasting ties between institutions of higher education of the two regions.
- From the cultural point of view, it seeks that beneficiaries have the opportunity to know the different Colombian and Hispano-American cultural expressions through gastronomy, typical dances, landscapes, etc. Their presence in the country is very enriching so that our nationals get to know other traditions and cultural expressions.

Participants have expressed satisfaction with the training received in Colombia. In the overview survey applied for the 2016 version, 98.3% of students provided a positive opinion of their experience. Regarding the quality of the Spanish courses, 76.7% of the participants said they were excellent and graded them with 4 to 5 points over 5. Qualitative testimonies about their time in Colombia also show satisfactory outcomes resulting from the initiative.

In addition, from 2016 to 2017, applications increased in 32% and from 2013 (when the initiative was developed for the first time) to 2017, they have increased in 74%. In total, 283 scholars have been beneficiated from the 1127 candidates Colombia has received.