One of six official languages of the United Nations and -- along with English -- official language of the Organization of American States, Spanish is spoken by over 350 million people worldwide, some 30 million in the United States. The official language of twenty nations, it has become a vibrant cultural source of expression in the United States, to which increased media and marketing attention attest. In fact, Spanish was spoken in what is now United States territory a

century before English was, and gave names to former Spanish colonial regions and cities such as Colorado and Los Angeles. The largest Spanish-speaking groups in the United States today are peoples of Mexican, Cuban, Puerto Rican and Dominican heritage. At all levels of public and private education, Spanish is the most widely-taught second language in the United States.

Spanish is a romance language originating from Latin, with major influences from Arabic and the indigenous languages of the Americas. As is the case with any widely-spoken language, Spanish exhibits regional variations in pronunciation, vocabulary, pronoun usage, tense preference and other aspects; however, all dialects of the language are mutually intelligible. Many of the world's major literary voices, including ten Nobel Prize winners, wrote and write in Spanish: Cervantes, Lope de Vega, Calderón, Montemayor, Góngora, Quevedo, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Galdós, Martí, Unamuno, Clarín, Darío, Lorca, Machado, Cela, Avellaneda, Matute, Neruda, Concha Espina, Castellano, Vallejo, Gambaro; Borges, Paz, García Márquez, Valenzuela, Laforet, Garro, Allende, Rosalía de Castro, Pardo Bazán, and Menchú, to name just a few.

The Spanish Program at the University of South Alabama offers beginning, intermediate, and advanced-level courses to fulfill the language requirement and the requirements for a major or minor in Spanish. The beginning-level courses (131 and 132) focus on acquisition of the four skills - listening, speaking, reading and writing - with emphasis also on cultural awareness. Students who recently completed two or more years of High School Spanish with a grade of B or better should enroll in the accelerated beginning course (134). The intermediate-level courses (231 and 232) build on previous skills levels while reviewing and amplifying grammatical points and vocabulary. There is also an accelerated intermediate course available (234). Advanced-level courses are offered in conversation and composition (333), grammar and composition (334), commercial and technical Spanish (335), Hispanic cultures and civilizations (431), and the following literary areas:

La mayoría de nuestros estudiantes aprenden español como segundo idioma, sin embargo acogemos con gusto a los alumnos hispanohablantes en los cursos de los niveles 300, 400 y 500. También existe la posibilidad de trabajar como "tutor".