Spain’s Cervantes Institute and Mexico’s largest university held talks here Friday on an accord to collaborate in promoting the Spanish language and Ibero-American culture in the United States.
Cervantes director Victor Garcia de la Concha and No. 2 Rafael Rodriguez-Ponga met in Madrid with two top officials from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, or UNAM, Francisco J. Trigo Tavera and Roberto Castañon Romo.
The institute and UNAM began working together in 2003.
Focused mainly on the United States, the new initiative would aim to train teachers of Spanish as a second language, offer internationally recognized certification of competence in the language and create courses on the history and culture of Spain and Latin America.
UNAM has extension schools in the U.S. cities of San Antonio, Los Angeles, Chicago and Seattle, as well as delegations in Canada and China.
The Cervantes Institute is present in 86 cities - including New York, Chicago, Albuquerque, Boston, Seattle and Santa Fe in the United States - across 43 countries.
