Pima Community College offers online Spanish classes for college credit. Visit to see the admissions and tuition information. Spanish I through IV are offered each semester. The classes run the traditional sixteen weeks.
Like many of the other colleges that offer Spanish online, Pima uses the Vistas En Linea online textbook. See this for an online tour of the program. The instructor assigns one lesson per two weeks. Six lessons are covered per class. The assignments in En Linea range from multiple choice questions to assignments that require students to record their voice responding to different questions in Spanish. The instructor receives all of the assignments through the En Linea program and grades them.
Pima uses Web Ct for the course home page. This is where students and instructors communicate through e mails and announcements. For each lesson students will meet the instructor in the “Live Chat Room” for a half an hour session. There are two “Live Chat” sessions offered per lesson. Students must attend only one of them to get credit. During the chat the instructor will ask questions that relate to the lessons and provide answers to student questions. As long as students attend these sessions and make an effort to participate credit is given.
Also in Web Ct, students will post a journal entry to talk about their progress and concerns. The instructor will respond and comment on these. The lesson quizzes are given in Web Ct and are available during the last three days of the lesson. The written and oral final are in Web Ct too. For the oral final the instructor will ask three questions per lesson in the “Live Chat Room”. Depending on the instructor, a list of possible questions will be provided before the exam. Along with the oral and written final there is a final paper. Students are required to write a short autobiography in Spanish using the grammar and vocabulary learned in the lessons.
The main difference between Pima’s online Spanish courses and the other ones out there for college credit is the “Live Chat” feature. This required meeting with the instructor let’s you get real time answers to your questions and concerns. Since two of these sessions are offered per lesson you could speak “live” with the instructor once a week. The lesson tests and En Linea work assigned is similar in difficulty to every other program out there. So if you are a student who will want to have live contact with the instructor Pima may be the way to go.
