King of Spain approves universal examination for Spanish

King Felipe of Spain on Wednesday gave his approval to the International Service of Evaluation of the Spanish Language (Siele), which aims to provide a universal examination for Spanish.

An agreement was signed at the College of San Idelfonso in Mexico City, signaling the start of Siele activities along with the director of the Cervantes Institute, Victor Garcia de Concha, the rector of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, Jose Narro, and the rector of the University of Salamanca, Daniel Hernandz.

The institutions will promote the global examination in Spanish featuring the culture of the entire Spanish speaking world.

The exam consists of reading and listening comprehension, written expression and interaction and an oral examination.

The Siele, which is inspired by the TOEFL examinations for English, will begin from the start of the next academic year.

Some 120 examination centers are planned in Brazil, 100 in the United States and 60 in China. It is estimated a minimum of 300,000 students will sit the exam in the first three years with this figure rising to 750,000 in five years.

"If we want our language to be confirmed as the second most spoken language in the world, we have to look beyond short term vision which is centered on our individual countries and put our shared resources to common use to achieve an object which will benefit us all," said Felipe. Endit