Teaching Spanish Through Distance Education: Implications of a Pilot Study1

ABSTRACT At national and state levels, there is a current emphasis on expanding foreign language programs in order to enable ALL students to achieve high standards in linguistic and cultural competency. While school districts across the country attempt to begin language instruction in the elementary grades, many lack adequate resources to employ additional staffing. Distance education programs are increasingly being proposed as a means of compensating for a lack of district‐level resources. This article 1) reviews research findings of studies dealing with distance education programs; 2) describes the results of a distance learning study implemented with elementary school students learning Spanish; and 3) identifies the questions that must be addressed as our profession attempts to evaluate the effectiveness of distance learning in current foreign language programs.