Updated on January 27, 2025.
We are pleased to offer Spanish language courses in-person only for the 2024-25 academic year.
If this is the first time that you are enrolling in a Spanish course at the University of Toronto: Welcome! We have made some changes in our language course sequence, so any student who begins Spanish studies in Fall 2024 onwards has to complete a mandatory placement test - even if they are true beginners in the language - to ensure that you are enrolling in the appropriate level course. If you fail to do so, you risk being removed from the course. Students on the waitlist should also complete the assessment to ensure they are on the waitlist for the correct course.
We have implemented this process to place each student in the course that we consider most appropriate. Please, keep in mind that it is the Department's decision - through our placement team - to place students in language courses according to your previous knowledge. You are to enrol in the assigned course. If you do not follow the recommendation, you will be removed from the course you selected at any point in the semester.
Students who consider that they have been placed in the wrong course are welcome to reach out for a conversation with their course instructor and our Associate Chair of Undergraduate Studies. If you are found to be enrolled in a different, lower-level course from the one assigned by our unit without this previous conversation, you will be immediately removed from it.
The goal of the placement test is to assess your knowledge accurately. If you claim to know less than you actually do, you are not only committing an academic integrity offense but also disrupting the learning environment for others who do want to improve their skills. Misrepresenting your Spanish language abilities is a serious academic offense. See the Code of Behaviour on Academic Matters:
“The University and its members have a responsibility to ensure that a climate that might encourage, or conditions that might enable, cheating, misrepresentation or unfairness not be tolerated. To this end all must acknowledge that seeking credit or other advantages by fraud or misrepresentation, or seeking to disadvantage others by disruptive behaviour is unacceptable, as is any dishonesty or unfairness in dealing with the work or record of a student.”
If it is discovered that you understated your proficiency, you will be reported to the Academic Integrity office and immediately removed from the course.
Students who have previously completed the language placement test and those who have completed the prerequisite language course in the Department of Spanish & Portuguese at St. George do not need to retake this test.
Instructions for placement test
Updated on January 27, 2025.
Our Spanish placement period for Winter 2025 is now closed.
Please note: We will not offer Spanish language courses in UTSG for Summer 2025. However, some students are eligible to join our Summer Abroad program in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, for advanced language courses.
We anticipate opening our placement period for Fall 2025 and Winter 2026 at the end of June 2025.
If you have any remaining questions about the placement process or your assigned course, please email professor Laura Colantoni - our Associate Chair of Undergraduate Studies - at spanport.undergraduate@utoronto.ca