FSI Spanish Programmatic Course

With over 477 million native speakers, more than English and second only to Mandarin Chinese, Spanish is, without doubt, one of the world’s most important languages. Furthermore, unlike English and Mandarin, the number of speakers is set to grow over the coming decades, making it one of the most useful languages you can learn.

With relatively simple basic grammar and pronunciation that presents few problems for speakers of English, it is also considered one of the easiest languages for native English speakers to pick up. This means, if you have never learned a foreign language before, Spanish is a great place to start – and if you already speak another language or two, you will be able to add Spanish to your collection without too much effort.

Since it’s such a popular language to learn, there is an abundance of study resources to turn to. However, few of them are as comprehensive as the materials provided by FSI, making this free online Spanish course a great place to begin.

Course Details

What are FSI Programmatic courses?

The Foreign Service Institute, FSI, is a branch of the US government that is charged with providing diplomatic staff with the training they require to function effectively in their posts abroad.

Part of this includes language instruction, and the FSI Basic courses are at the heart of this. These are six-month intensive programs designed to give US diplomats a relatively high level of language proficiency before they are sent to work in foreign countries.

However, for some key languages, Programmatic courses were developed to give students a basic knowledge of the language before beginning the Basic course. The goal was to prepare students for the demands of the more intensive Basic course, allowing them to progress more rapidly and achieve a higher level of success.

What is the structure of FSI Spanish Programmatic?

First published in 1967, The FSI Spanish Programmatic Course was one of the earliest examples. It is designed to take students through the material contained in the first units of the Basic course in greater detail, giving them an in-depth knowledge of the language they would then cover in Basic.

It consists of 50 units that require around 100 hours of study, and it has been designed specifically to be suitable for use with or without a teacher. Each unit is accompanied by an audio recording containing all the new language that is presented in the unit as well as drills and exercises for practice. However, unfortunately, the recordings for units 46-50 are currently not available.

Studied alone, this course will give you a good grounding in Spanish that will allow you to cope confidently in a range of common situations that you may encounter in Spanish-speaking countries.

Alternatively, if you are planning to tackle the more comprehensive Basic course, studying Programmatic will give you a good foundation in the language, allowing you to benefit even more from the Basic materials.

Note that the pronunciation used in this course is that of Latin America rather than of Spain.

How can you use the FSI Spanish Programmatic Course?

Since the FSI Spanish Programmatic Course has been designed for autonomous study, you can work through the course more or less as you find it. You simply need to listen to the audio while working through the workbook, following the instructions you are given.

Programmatic courses take you through the materials slowly and thoroughly, and in the early units, there is a heavy emphasis on pronunciation. For example, the first unit is devoted entirely to pronunciation while Unit 2 includes a recording of almost 30 minutes that teaches you only four sentences.

This means that while you can use these recordings to work on perfecting your pronunciation, many people might choose to spend less time on this aspect, instead preferring to focus on the dialogs and drills. This is perfectly acceptable.

However, note that the study method relies on drilling and repetition until you can repeat the sentences fluently and without hesitation. This means if you want to get the most out of this course, you should spend enough time on each unit to master the language rather than racing through and trying to finish the course as quickly as possible.

Remember, finishing the course doesn’t equate to being able to speak Spanish.

Taking it further

Volume 1

Student Text

Workbook

Instructor’s Manual

Unit	Audio
Unit 01	Tape
Unit 02	Tape
Unit 03	Tape
Unit 04	Tape 1 · Tape 2
Unit 05	Tape 1 · Tape 2
Unit 06	Tape 1 · Tape 2
Unit 07	Tape 1 · Tape 2
Unit 08	Tape 1 · Tape 2
Unit 09	Tape 1 · Tape 2
Unit 10	Tape 1 · Tape 2
Unit 11	Tape 1 · Tape 2
Unit 12	Tape 1 · Tape 2
Unit 13	Tape 1 · Tape 2
Unit 14	Tape 1 · Tape 2
Unit 15	Tape 1 · Tape 2
Unit 16	Tape
Unit 17	Tape 1 · Tape 2
Unit 18	Tape 1 · Tape 2
Unit 19	Tape 1 · Tape 2
Unit 20	Tape 1 · Tape 2
Unit 21	Tape 1 · Tape 2
Unit 22	Tape 1 · Tape 2
Unit 23	Tape 1 · Tape 2
Unit 24	Tape 1 · Tape 2
Unit 25	Tape 1 · Tape 2

Volume 2

Student Text

Workbook

Instructor’s Manual

Unit	Audio
Unit 26	Tape 1 · Tape 2
Unit 27	Tape 1 · Tape 2
Unit 28	Tape 1 · Tape 2
Unit 29	Tape 1 · Tape 2
Unit 30	Tape 1 · Tape 2
Unit 31	Tape 1 · Tape 2
Unit 32	Tape 1 · Tape 2
Unit 33	Tape 1 · Tape 2
Unit 34	Tape 1 · Tape 2
Unit 35	Tape 1 · Tape 2
Unit 36	Tape
Unit 37	Tape
Unit 38	Tape
Unit 39	Tape
Unit 40	Tape 1 · Tape 2
Unit 41	Tape
Unit 42	Tape
Unit 43	Tape
Unit 44	Tape
Unit 45	Tape