The University of Barcelona offers online versions of its Basic 1 and Basic 2 beginners courses, which you can do during the second semester of 2011-2012 at Parla.cat, a virtual classroom for Catalan language learning.

Once you’ve signed up at Parla.cat, you start your course with the help of an online tutor and in the company of other learners like you. The website offers a wide variety of learning materials and a series of tools that you can activate to talk to other learners.

The 2011-2012 courses will run from 27 February to 26 April 2012. In order to be awarded the certificate at the end of each course, you have to complete all the lessons and work your way satisfactorily through the different exercises and activities that form part of the course. All in all, this means that during the period described above you’ll need to reserve at least 45 hours of your time for the course.

To register, fill in the online form that we’ll be posting here from 23 January to 14 February 2012. Each course costs 40 € but remember that it’s just for students who are studying at the UB (e.g., students in EHEA bachelor’s degree courses, postgraduate degree or diploma courses, or exchange programs) and that you need to be studying during the academic year 2011-12. Finally, also bear in mind that the number of places on the course will be limited.

IT back-up required

To do the Parla.cat courses, your computer will need the following:

• at least 512 MB of RAM memory
• screen resolution of least 1024 × 768
• an ADSL connection of at least 1 MB
• loudspeakers, headphones and mike for audio
• Internet Explorer (6.0 or subsequent versions), Mozilla Firefox or Opera
• Adobe Flash Player 9.0 or 10.0 (to view the course contents and manage the voice files)
• Adobe Acrobat Reader (to open additional documents like manuals or class grammar notes)

Optional extras would include a webcam for the chat activities and a printer for managing your own paper files on the course.

• Parla.cat
• Catalan courses at the UB
• UB Language Services