Uruguay is a small country that does not have a long tradition of teaching Spanish as a foreign language to students worldwide. Each year, only a small number of linguistics students graduate from the Universidad de la Republica and we are proud to say that some of them have come to work with us at Academia Uruguay. From the outset we have been extremely selective in choosing our teachers as they form the basis of our work. To put it simply; without a high level of teacher performance, students are dissatisfied.
We also regularly invest in teacher training. We have even developed a training program we now offer to prospective Spanish teachers from outside the academy in collaboration with a local university. Some graduates of this challenging annual program have now become part of our staff.
All our teachers are experienced and most have worked with us over several years. Many of them speak more than one language and some have lived abroad for extended periods, hence they can understand the challenges our students face when learning a new language. The number of teachers varies around approximately 10 at any given moment.
Our academic coordinator, Soledad, does the job of assessing students’ proficiency, assigning and evaluating groups and teachers, preparing and selecting study materials, exchanging of information with other schools in the network of Latin Academies and collaborating with the Instituto Cervantes, etc.
Soledad works mostly with student relations. She is a graduate with a Bachelor of Linguistics from the University of the Republic (UdelaR) and has a Masters in Applied Linguistics in the teaching of Spanish as a Foreign Language from the University of Jaén (Spain). Before becoming coordinator she worked for many years as a Spanish teacher. She has worked in research, published articles and has participated in numerous international conferences. Soledad is also the director of the undergraduate program in Teaching Spanish as a Foreign Language in Uruguay, a joint program between Academia Uruguay and the Latin-American Centre for Human Economy (CLAEH). Last but not least, she is the social media manager of Academia Uruguay online.
