Medellin, Colombia – Se habla espanol? An estimated 14 million people who study Spanish soon may be able to measure their proficiency with a test language specialists hope will become the Spanish-language equivalent to the widely accepted Test of English as a Foreign Language, or TOEFL.
The International System of Spanish as a Foreign Language – or SICELE for its Spanish initials – was unveiled by Spanish language experts Wednesday in Colombia’s second-largest city of Medellin.
It will be formally presented to King Juan Carlos I of Spain at the close of the educators’ assembly here on Saturday, before the start of the 4th International Congress of the Spanish Language later this month in the Caribbean port city of Cartagena.
The test, developed over four years by language experts from Spain and Latin America, does not seek to impose unifying criteria on the language spoken by more than 400 million people.
“We’ve been very careful about respecting the particular characteristics of each country,” said Cesar Antonio Molina, director of the Cervantes Institute, a network of language schools in 40 countries supported by the Spanish government.
He did not say how the exam will treat vocabulary, grammar and dialects in the more than 20 countries where Spanish is an official language.
Molina told journalists the exam will be superior to national tests, such as Spain’s DELE, and is expected to become a universally accepted reference test.
