Spanish for Adults in Louisiana

Abstract

Louisiana State University has recently organized through its Extension Division groups of classes in conversational Spanish for adults in several of the principal towns and cities of Louisiana. Leaders in various phases of cultural, commercial, and political life in the state not only foresee the need of a conversational knowledge of Spanish in our present and post-bellum relations with the other American republics, but they firmly believe that Louisiana will be one of the principal areas through which travel and commerce between our country and Latin America will pass. This opinion has been strengthened by the recent establishment of direct airplane service between New Orleans and the countries below the Rio Grande. On the cultural side, Louisiana State University has long been one of the principal institutions in the United States where North American and Latin American students meet and study each other's cultural heritages. While the rapidly-growing demand of Louisianians for a conversational knowledge of Spanish was largely responsible for the establishment of these courses, they were organized with several definite aims in view other than local needs. These were: (1) to prepare the men and women now in the armed forces for possible service in Latin America; (2) to equip these same men and women to fit into some place of our post-war relations with the neighboring republics; and (3) to enable various students whose education has been interrupted by the war to study toward the completion of their college degrees while they are still in the armed forces. These courses have been organized through a plan of cooperation with several state and private colleges situated in several parts of Louisiana. The first semester's work is designed to give the students a practical vocabulary covering various phases of everyday experiences. In the more advanced courses this basic vocabulary is gradually expanded and new topics of conversation are introduced. Points of grammar are explained as they arise, but a formal study of grammar is not undertaken until the second or third semesters. Both credit and non-credit students are admitted. Instruction groups are made up of civilians, army officers, enlisted men and their wives, and war workers. These courses are proving so popular that a number of those who have taken the elementary course are now completing their second, third or fourth terms of instruction. These conversational courses really enable students to speak Spanish. A number of service men who are stationed in various parts of the world have written back stating that they have been able to use conversational Spanish most advantageously in many places.