Today, October 12, the United Nations celebrates language Spanish Day. The UN initiative focuses on promote, supporting and raising awareness about multilingualism and multiculturalism; specifically, about development and the use of Spanish in different parts of the world. language Among the multiple perspectives from which this reality can be approached, I would like to focus on the teaching of Spanish as a foreign language (ELE) at the university.

Only 2.8% of students are international students at Spanish universities according to the study'International Comparison of the Spanish University System', which the lecture of Rectors of Spanish Universities (CRUE) published in 2015. When it comes to studying degree program in another country, students prefer the United Kingdom, which receives 17% of foreign students with respect to the total number of students enrolled in its universities. Spain ranks last in all of Europe in this category, although it occupies the first position in issue of Erasmus students who come for one semester or academic year, but not to study the full degree program .

There are several reasons for this. For example, English as a global language or the top positions of Anglo-Saxon universities in international rankings. In addition, it is worth noting how little care has been given to teaching Spanish as an academic discipline compared to English in the American university. The issue is not only that the Degrees should be bilingual, i.e., more professors trained to teach in English, but also that there should be serious academic programs that integrate the teaching of Spanish as a foreign language within the university itself and its Degrees.

From the international student's perspective, teaching Spanish at the university level is not a couple of basic conversation courses in Spanish or a review of grammar. Spanish courses should teach sophisticated communication and interpretation of academic and non-academic texts. The programs should prepare student international students in a short period of time to study at the university level. The challenge is important and for this we must be clear that the teaching of Spanish is a field of study in itself, where psychology, anthropology, linguistics and pedagogy converge.

The Spanish university has to encourage international students from different Degrees to learn Spanish language and culture well. language This is something that is common in American universities where English proficiency and the Departments of teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) play a central role for the many international students who go to study in the USA.

The University of Navarra is an example within the national panorama, since 19.9% of the student body students at Degree are foreigners. One of the reasons for this international outreach is that the UN understood early on the importance of English in the degree program, as well as the teaching of Spanish for international students. Thus, since 1954 it began to offer Spanish courses. The efforts were coordinated in 1967, and were structured with the creation of the high school of language and Spanish Culture (ILCE), which in 2017 celebrates its 50th anniversary.

The study of ELE at the university is in the process of becoming a strong and recognized academic research field . The ILCE at the University of Navarra has been working along these lines for years and the ELE programs will be a piece core topic in the rise of an effective and successful internationalization for international students. The 50th anniversary of ILCE will be a catalyst for efforts to place research in the field of ELE as the cornerstone of internationalization at the university and its student body.

In these times when everything goes through English, are we not forgetting that Spanish as language of knowledge and learning is core topic in the internationalization of the university (and society in general)?