Centro Virtual Cervantes
Ana Gimeno Sanz and Cristina Navarro Laboulais
Universidad Polit�cnica de Valencia, Spain
(This review originally appeared in ReCALL Journal Vol
12 No. 1)
The Centro Virtual Cervantes (http://cvc.cervantes.es)
is the Internet-based branch of the Instituto Cervantes, the official
Spanish institution commissioned to disseminate the use and study of Spanish
language and culture around the world.
Since its creation in December 1997, the CVC has rapidly
become one of the most important reference sites devoted to Spanish language
and culture on the WWW, having reached an average of over 100,000 visitors
a month. This increasing number of visitors is primarily due to the great
variety of resources available at the CVC website, which attract both
professionals and the public in general. These include announcements of
cultural events under Actos Culturales, the four discussion forums,
each of which focuses on a specific topic, and the language classroom,
Aula de Lengua, designed for both teachers and learners of Spanish.
The CVC front page enables direct access to the entire
contents which are well structured, and organised in a very user-friendly
manner. The central part is dedicated to current cultural events and is
therefore constantly up-dated. The sections included are listed on the
left and right hand side of the main menu page.
Fig. 1 The Centro Virtual Cervantes home page.
Sections
1. Under the heading Actos Culturales (Cultural
Events) we encounter a list of the most important events related to Spanish
and Hispano-American culture: art, literature, photography, architecture,
historical archives, etc. Thus, we can become pilgrims and delight in
the Camino de Santiago, learn about its legends and admire some
of its magnificent landscapes; we can follow a photographic tour of Spain
by clicking on Paisejes de Espa�a; we can listen to the poet Rafael
Alberti’s voice, or review Luis Bu�uel’s cinematography as displayed
in a recently inaugurated exhibition.
2. The CVC has published a considerable amount of language
teaching materials that are found under Aula de Lengua (Language
Classroom). This section is useful for both students and teachers of Spanish
as a foreign language. It comprises:
2.1. Diplomas de Espa�ol (Spanish Language Diplomas)
includes information, sample examination papers and interactive exercises
with immediate feedback for students preparing to take the Diplomas
de Espa�ol como Lengua Extranjera (DELE), the official language diplomas
awarded by the Spanish Ministry of Education.
2.2. Rayuela gathers interactive language games
and pastimes, published on a daily basis, specifically designed for learners
of Spanish at different levels. Access is available to the entire archive
of activities, which amounts to a total of approximately 700 entries,
which can be selected according to the learner’s level, to didactic
content (grammar, functional, cultural, etc.) or according to type of
interaction (crossword puzzle, hangman, hidden words, etc.). Some of the
pastimes also include an item called Y adem�s… (And in addition…)
which invites learners, in a pedagogically sound way, to give some thought
to the linguistic or cultural features being practised.
2.3. Otros materiales (Other resources) features
a collection of interactive learning materials which aid in practising
specific language items as well as offering samples of spoken language.
2.4. Cursos a trav�s de Internet (On-line language
courses). In this section we encounter a description of the CVC’s
most ambitious project, a full programme of distance-learning courses
known as Curso de espa�ol a distancia. Aimed at young and adult
learners from around the world wishing to acquire full competence in Spanish
through internet-based activities, the courses are designed to offer students
every kind of resource currently available through internet technology.
The courses are based on the general language curriculum offered in classroom
courses at the Instituto Cervantes which distinguish four learning levels:
beginners, intermediate, higher and advanced. Once the courses become
operative, students will be able to register in any of a series of sixteen
modules, four in each learning level. It is expected that a distance-learning
teacher-training course will also be developed.
3. On-line communication and exchange of information
are organised through four specialised discussion forums:
3.1. The Foro did�ctico (didactics discussion
group) focuses on issues relating to language teaching and learning. Teachers
of Spanish from all over the world exchange views and experience.
3.2. The Foro del espa�ol (Spanish discussion
group) is aimed at translators, journalists and those professionally linked
to the Spanish language.
3.3. The Foro del hispanista (Hispanic discussion
group) enables communication between teachers of Hispanic literature,
art or cultures.
3.4. The Foro TIC (ICT discussion group) offers
a means of discussing issues relating to terminology for those who work
in the area of information and communications technology.
Each discussion group has its own Notice Board (Tabl�n
de Anuncios) that gathers information about forthcoming events such
as conferences, seminars and courses as well as a number of links to interesting
sites for each of the target groups. Thus, the didactics discussion group’s
notice board includes a section describing proposals to set up tandem
learning between fellow students from different countries which can be
very useful for teachers interested in telematics.
4. Under the heading Obras de referencia (Reference
works) we encounter a vast number of documents. Among them are:
4.1. An electronic version of the most recent and complete
critical edition of Cervantes’ Don Quijote de la Mancha with
hypertext links, accompanying bibliography and lexicon.
4.2. An archive of Spanish grammar, Archivo Gramatical
de la Lengua Espa�ola, unique in its kind in that it gathers Spanish
language quotations organised from a grammatical point of view and presented
as a database to facilitate searches. It contains over 100,000 examples
ranging from the earliest stages of the Spanish language up to today,
extracted from diverse sources.
4.3. The Instituto Cervantes’ 1998 and 1999 Annual
Reports on El espa�ol en el mundo (Spanish in the world) which
cover issues in relation to the reality of Spanish language in today’s
world and comprises an essential tool for individuals and institutions
directly related with Spanish.
4.4. Hispanalia comprises a database of institutions
and cultural organisations existing in Spanish speaking countries.
5. Lastly, another interesting section is called Oteador
(Watcher). It comprises a comprehensive search engine specially designed
to assist in searching for specific information relating to Spanish language
and culture.
Fig. 2 Exercise from the Diplomas de espa�ol section.
Ergonomic aspects
When visiting the Centro Virtual Cervantes we
get a very good impression of speed, ergonomic aspects and ease of navigation.
Its graphic user interface has been carefully designed and its contents
are classified in a coherent and comprehensible way. The links to other
related sites have been meticulously selected and are listed according
to relevant areas of interest.
The site’s title bar, located at the top of the
screen, also serves as the main menu bar giving access to all the sections
described above. Once a section has been entered this menu bar shows the
different subsections included in a given section, in addition to a link
to its main index. Becoming familiar with the site’s navigation takes
very little time although an aid is included under the heading Instrucciones
de navegaci�n (Navigation Instructions) for those who may need extra
help. The only element that permanently remains on screen is the CVC logo,
linked directly to the main contents page.
With regard to the didactic materials, we would like
to point out the high quality of the sample examination papers available
for those preparing for the official Spanish language diplomas, and that
of the pastimes. The latter have been carefully designed to adjust to
the web environment therefore enhancing their suitability for learners
of Spanish. All the pastimes include a very useful introduction explaining
the main goal of a given activity and the activity proper (crossword puzzle,
association exercise, etc.) is found further down the screen and accessed
by moving down with a scroll bar. Some of these explanations, however,
are necessary in order to successfully carry out the activity, therefore
one has to continuously scroll up and down the screen to read the pertinent
information. We suggest that another means of presenting this information,
such as a floating window, could be used to avoid this constant scrolling.
The advantage of a floating window is that it can be dragged over the
screen so as not to interfere with our work and allow us to concentrate
on the activity.
Another interesting feature found in the Diplomas
de espa�ol section is the effort that has been made to include feedback
when an exercise has been completed either correctly or incorrectly. This
undoubtedly allows students to reinforce their acquired knowledge. The
learning environment created is in all senses adequate for its goal.
Since the entire CVC site is in Spanish, autonomous learners
of Spanish at beginners’ level could perhaps feel a bit lost since
all the explanations and instructions are written in Spanish. Tutors therefore
have an important role to play here since all the materials included can
also be used as a complement to more traditional classroom teaching. Students
will no doubt benefit from carrying out a great variety of activities
that focus not only on Spanish language but also on cultural aspects of
Spanish speaking countries.
Fig. 3 List of pastimes organised by content.
Conclusions
The CVC site definitely makes the most of all the new
features available in ICT and WWW technology and offers learners and teachers
of Spanish as a foreign language a world of resources, ranging from virtual
cultural events to on-line courses, which are coherently organised and
carefully designed.
We highly recommend this web site to anybody interested
in the Spanish-speaking world and more so to those who would like to learn
more about Spanish language and its linguistic and cultural diversity,
whether as learners, teachers or people working in related fields.
