<h6><strong>The Diplomat</strong></h6> <h4><strong>The Cervantes Institute participated in a workshop in Jamaica to analyze the implementation of the Spanish language in the English-speaking Caribbean, a region that has not yet fully leveraged this language as a driver of employability and regional integration.</strong></h4> Last week, the Jamaican city of Montego Bay hosted the workshop "Spanish for Employability." Various linguistic experts from the tourism and trade sectors participated in the workshop. The Instituto Cervantes collaborated with its Secretary General, Carmen Noguero, and the Director of the Cervantes Institute in Albuquerque-El Paso, Silvia Grijalba. According to a press release from the Institute, the meeting discussed how the Spanish language can improve regional competitiveness, addressing challenges, opportunities, and collaborative strategies in education, tourism, and trade. One of the conclusions was that more Spanish speakers are needed in the English-speaking Caribbean. While the growing number of tourists and immigrants and increasing trade ties highlight the demand for Spanish speakers in Jamaica, Barbados, and Trinidad and Tobago, the English-dominant Caribbean region has not yet reached those levels. In many English-speaking Caribbean nations, Spanish is spoken by immigrant communities and local citizens and is increasingly taught in schools, reflecting its growing importance in the region, despite the difficulty in determining the precise number of Spanish speakers due to limited data. Estimates from the Instituto Cervantes indicate that 6,000 Jamaicans are fluent in Spanish and that around 4,000 Spanish speakers (0.3% of the population) lived in Trinidad and Tobago in 2014, although this number has likely increased due to significant Venezuelan immigration in recent years. In Barbados, Spanish is spoken by a small minority, and in English-speaking Caribbean countries, Spanish generally coexists with other languages, primarily English, local English Creole or French Creole, and Portuguese. According to Cervantes, the growing demand for Spanish speakers in Jamaica, Barbados, and Trinidad and Tobago is driven by several key factors, including the tourism and hospitality industries and the trade sector. In fact, in 2022, Spain exported $37.3 million in goods to Trinidad and Tobago, including glazed ceramics, unglazed ceramics, and iron pipes. The Government of Jamaica has set a goal of attracting 250,000 visitors from Latin America by 2030, while Trinidad and Tobago will receive approximately 5,975 visitors from Latin America in 2022, with a significant increase to 7,898 visitors in 2023. In this context, one of the workshop organizers, the Latin American and Caribbean Development Bank (FAC), has proposed developing a strategy for the Promotion of the Learning, Teaching, and Dissemination of Spanish for Regional Integration in the English-speaking Caribbean, which considers historical and current efforts, the capacity of education systems, as well as the economic and social needs of the countries. This plan is based on the systematization of specialized knowledge on foreign language teaching, drawing on the available results of similar programs, the establishment of strong partnerships, and a long-term vision and approach—all topics addressed at the Montego Bay workshop.
