CEPE’s 365 model. “All over the world, all year round, all day long”

COMMUNICATING
The contemporary world demands more communication than ever. To communicate means to put in common a subject, an object, a living being, by means of an instrument that is both extraordinary and imperfect: language. In my book El lenguaje y la literatura en tiempos de pandemia (UNAM, 2021) I recall the paradox of languages that Octavio Paz had already seen: language is a human aptitude that can only take shape in particular, specific languages, sometimes very different from each other. Languages allow us to communicate, but they do so in dynamic environments, yes, and yet they are limited by borders, natural or political, by the specific number of speakers or by their greater or lesser mobility.

The Spanish language is one of the most widespread in the world, basically thanks to the daring and often reckless exploratory and conquering activity of a handful of people who, from the end of the 15th century —1492, as is well known— set out on a quest across the Atlantic seas in search of new routes for trade and, closely linked to the latter, for culture, that is, for the spirit, thought, art and daily life.

Today the language of Miguel de Cervantes and Juan Rulfo is spoken in more than twenty countries as an official language or as a timely assistant in countless dialogues. Latin America, the Caribbean, parts of Africa (Morocco, for example) and Asia (the Philippines) bear witness to the daily practice of a linguistic system that has meanwhile reached the highest possible levels of quality and is a vehicle for literary, scientific, technical, everyday, tourist and other expressions.

For all these reasons, Spanish is attractive to speakers of other languages: because of the extension of this great vehicle of rapprochement and encounter and because of the specific weight of cultures that have great dynamism and become part of one of the twenty largest economies in the world, as is the case with Mexico.

World history has a lot to do with languages. Generally speaking, a language helps to create a national identity, a sense of belonging, a community that is not only linguistic but also political. This is very good in itself, except if that identity, that sense of belonging and that community become enclosed within its walls and end up feeling far superior to its neighbors.

More than once over the millennia, armies whose soldiers have no language in common with their opponents have fought each other. It would seem as if mute armies had no other way of “communicating” than violence. Humanity realized this millennia ago and has sought to bring peoples closer together through such laudable and noble tasks as translation - Peace praises it as a bridge that corrects the problem of isolation between languages and cultures - and, of course, the learning and teaching of languages and the training of teachers to instill very precise and up-to-date knowledge through valid and up-to-date pedagogical techniques. Thus, translating, learning, teaching a language and preparing to train the teachers of the future are tasks that contribute to peace, as they make it possible to build bridges and links between linguistic islands.

Specialists know it well: Russian and Ukrainian are close languages. At the same time they are different, as are Spanish and Portuguese. Inevitably a language contributes to identity, belonging, community, and Ukraine is as much a country as Hungary, Poland, Germany, France. This is true of the differences between Russian and Ukrainian.

Simultaneously, in terms of similarities, Russia and Ukraine are in an unbeatable position to intensify their ties, as already do those marriages where one spouse is from one country and the other is from another country. These marriages contribute to peace as much as do those who translate, teach or learn languages. Humanity needs these rapprochements, which in themselves are natural and even necessary due to the intense contemporary commerce.

Trade is inherent to the human species. Material wealth and even cultural wealth are linked to the greater or lesser rate of exchange of goods and services in the world: more exchanges, more wealth, at least material wealth. From the “silent” armies of violence, we have moved on to the “multi-speaking” dialogues of trade. Since at least the two world wars, and especially since the second (1939-1945), it has become very clear that territorial conquests by invasion are a hangover from the past, causing only untold suffering and counterproductive effects for those who promote violence in one sense or another, with one justification or another. Contemporary “conquests” are carried out through the “soft” powers of diplomacy, trade and culture. In the latter we include the arts, sciences, technologies for life, entertainment, sports and of course the teaching and learning of languages, among other clearly fertile and beneficial activities.

And this is how one country can reach another by means of attractive factors that make the distant familiar, that make the disturbing homely (Heim in German), that make the disturbing (unheimlich: the lack of home, the lack of shelter), that make the foreign fraternity and sorority. The Russian language is the language of three or four of the best storytellers of all times, it is the language of admirable composers and painters, it is the language of those who achieved the most valuable vaccines and of those who have contributed amazing advances in mathematics and astronomy, it is the language of the best chess and of many great movies. It does not need violence to become attractive to the new generations, many of whom wish to learn Russian. The Spanish language can also boast monumental achievements in various disciplines and has a long way to go - like Russian, Ukrainian and indeed all the others - in such fields as the arts and sciences, commerce and tourism.

As for us, we want to make a modest but very concrete contribution to the teaching of Spanish on a global scale. That is why we created the CEPE 365 Model within the framework of the Institutional Development Plan 2019-2023 of the UNAM. This plan indicates as substantive tasks of the CEPE the increase in the number of people who learn Spanish in our physical or virtual classrooms and certify their mastery of the language through our measurement and diagnostic instruments.

ALL OVER THE WORLD, ALL YEAR ROUND, ALL DAY LONG
In January 2020, Rector Enrique Graue Wiechers honored me by appointing me director of CEPE. From that moment on, I designed and shared a work program: the CEPE 365 Model. In conversations with Dr. Rosa Esther Delgadillo, then the new General Secretary, and Luis Miguel Samperio, Academic Secretary, the latter synthesized the model in a motto: “All over the world, all year round, all day long.”

Contemporary experts know that a wise combination of a healthy and solid internal structure and a permanent link with the outside allows a house of studies to address numerous issues and tasks, without producing an administrative structure that is very difficult to manage. At CEPE we seek to increase the links with the world consolidated over the decades and successive directions of the Center.

When the coronavirus pandemic was formally declared in March 2020, we realized that our incipient preparations for a leap into online education were more timely than ever. The Spanish language and Mexican cultures have been the vocation and essence of CEPE for one hundred years (José Vasconcelos founded the Summer School in 1921, which in 1981 adopted its present name). For ninety-nine years the teaching of Spanish and our cultures had been fulfilled and enriched directly in the classroom, in a live and simultaneous dialogue, face to face, between teacher and students. Suddenly, other types of didactic interaction were imposed and we had to prepare ourselves to learn and apply them.

CEPE has always been committed to keeping up to date in several key areas: language teaching, teacher training, culture, history, art, social sciences, literature. All these human activities are disciplines with a long theoretical and practical experience. Overnight we had to move from the physical classroom to the virtual classroom and teach from there the vast, rich, fine field of language in the context of cultural manifestations: Spanish at CEPE Ciudad Universitaria and in years at CEPE Polanco and Spanish, English and French at CEPE Taxco at Alarcón, Guerrero. As had been done for ninety-nine years, we had to continue promoting knowledge and passion for the language of Cervantes and Rulfo, through immersion in the most diverse cultural manifestations in Mexico. Among these manifestations, history, art and literature condense and transmit a very broad set of knowledge and visions of the world from our territory and from our borders.

Finally, what is the CEPE 365 Model? It retakes and expands the substantive functions of the Center, resignifies its mission and vision, gathers the accumulated experience, incorporates the diverse contributions of the academic staff, is framed in the PDI2019-2023 of the university, adapts and adopts the modalities of online and distance education making use of information technologies, incorporates a robust publications program and seeks the broad and intensive collaboration of the university’s branches in Mexico and abroad to promote its academic offerings.

In summary, CEPE 365 intends to offer relevant and quality educational services in Spanish and Mexican culture, all day, all year round and in as many countries as possible. That is why our motto is: “All over the world, all year round, all day long”.

And what is our strategic objective? We want the CEPE to be a national and international reference within our teaching disciplines, to be echoed in Latin America and in many other regions of the world. We want it to be an instance that, together with other entities and institutions, represents, teaches and positions the Mexican variant of Spanish and Pan-Hispanism in the world and before international organizations in order to achieve a cultural and socio-cultural exchange in which our language is both means and end. That is why using our means and our end places us in the international dialogue.

We also intend to make CEPE an editorial reference for educational materials (printed and digital) that address both teaching and the two disciplines that are developed in the Center: learning assessment and teacher training in Spanish as a foreign language and Mexican culture. Our teaching and work methodology is identified in them.

Likewise, part of our objectives is to make CEPE a university entity that offers educational services throughout the year in face-to-face, online and virtual modalities, and that constantly updates its offerings; an entity that supports UNAM’s international presence.

The model has an academic operation that is carried out during the three hundred and sixty-five days of the year. It is offered in different national and international locations. It includes an educational chain of Spanish and culture for foreigners and culture for Mexicans in which students are trained and certified, educational materials are developed and teachers are trained and certified.

The CEPE 365 Model was developed in the diagnosis carried out among teaching communities and is open to all the considerations that may be made along the way. For this purpose, we shared workshops for the updating of technology management and for the development of online teaching materials, by two sister entities of the UNAM, the General Directorate of Information Technology and Computing (DGTIC) and the Coordination of Open University, Educational Innovation and Distance Education (CUAIEED). The invitation to participate was extended to all faculties and may be renewed and expanded for future activities.

This is how we are reasonably optimistic about the future of our entity.

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