The Instituto Cervantes founded in 1991 under the auspices of the Spanish Foreign Ministry, is a public institution dedicated to the teaching of Spanish and to bringing knowledge of the culture of spanish-speaking countries to the rest of the world. With centres in four continents, the Instituto Cervantes is the largest worldwide organization committed to the teaching of Spanish. The Centro Virtual Cervantes, the Instituto's flagship on the Internet, not only provides abundant information on the Spanish Language and the culture of Spanish-speaking countries, but also makes available a wide variety of activities and reference works for the teaching and learning of Spanish.
The Instituto Cervantes just started the Spanish Online Course: Aula Virtual Español (AVE) on the Internet. Students can enroll through the different centres of the Instituto Cervantes or through the accredited centres worldwide.

The Instituto Cervantes' Spanish Virtual Classroom is an Internet-based educational infrastructure set up to provide Spanish courses. These can be completed in different ways: attendance, semi-attendance and distance.

On AVE courses students:
• Learn to express themselves properly in Spanish in a variety of situations.
• Study all aspects of the Spanish language: grammar, vocabulary, phonetics, spelling
• Discover the broad, sociocultural reality of the Spanish-speaking world in all its richness and diversity.

Design Team

The Spanish Virtual Classroom project was developed by the Department of Technology and Language Projects, of the Academic Directorate of the Instituto Cervantes, and the Cervantes Virtual Centre. AVE relies on the academic advice of a team led by Humberto López Morales, Secretary General of the Association of Academies of the Spanish Language. TANDEM, Escuela Internacional de Madrid, and the University of La Rioja, also participated in creating the Spanish Virtual Classroom. The University of Alicante developed the Information Technology.