Learn about the Executive Director of Instituto Cervantes New York and his latest initiatives

New York, NY   Today, on the 405th anniversary of the passing of author of Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes, we remember and celebrate his legacy. Perhaps the greatest ambassador of Spanish language and culture we have ever seen, he has inspired the Instituto Cervantes, a global non-profit that promotes the study and teaching of the Spanish language and culture.  To that end, the Queen Sofía Spanish Institute spotlights the current Executive Director of Instituto Cervantes New York, Richard Bueno Hudson.

We sat down with Richard and asked him about the latest from Instituto Cervantes New York. He remarked that “in these difficult times we were able to continue fulfilling the Institutional Mission of Instituto Cervantes; the promotion of the Spanish language and the culture of Spanish-speaking countries by designing and producing new challenging online programs online. I am really proud about this, since we got involved in projects at a time of uncertainty and uneasiness. It kept us united in roles demanding skills that we would not have thought of until this moment.”

Richard is deeply involved in the Instituto’s cultural and academic programs. He spoke to us about exciting activities such as  “A Portrait of the streets of New York: Past, Present and Future, which extols and praises the Hispanic side of the city of New York’s population and Cooking with Cervantes, a hands-on cooking program streamed from Spain and New York, which combines Spanish gastronomy, language and culture.”

Additionally, he is working on an Ibero-American Current Affairs Forum; a meeting Forum with specialists in linguistic, cultural, scientific, technological, political, social fields, etc., dedicated to Ibero-American countries, which showcases specialists in different fields who are successfully developing their profession on New York Stages. In the video series The Way they See us: Images of Spain from Abroad, Instituto Cervantes shares a vivid depiction of how non-Spaniards who devote their professional and personal lives to Spain see us, and in Cómo hablamos y cómo lo enseñamos, a joint endeavour of Instituto Cervantes New York and The Consejería de Educación in Washington, teachers of Spanish debate different methodological aspects and offer tips that might come in handy when teaching Spanish to speakers of other languages.

We learned more about Richard and his passion for the Spanish language and the mission of Instituto Cervantes. Throughout his illustrious career, he served with the Instituto Cervantes in many capacities and at many other locations worldwide such as the Madrid Headquarters, Manchester, New York, and Chicago. His areas of expertise lie in language teaching, teacher training, the coordination of teaching teams and management of international projects of certification and online education, including the direction of the SIELE project, an Ibero-American language certification joint project of IC, UBA, UNAM and USAL. His areas of research and specialization focus on the acquisition and teaching of second and foreign languages, on the certification of foreign languages, on phonetics and on the varieties of the language.

Additionally, Richard has been the Executive Secretary General of the SICELE Association, Vice-president of the Executive Committee of ALTE, the Association of Language Testers in Europe, and the Permanent Secretary General of the International Conferences of the Spanish Language. Finally, we learned that he is a member of the Advisory Committee of the Observatory of the Spanish Language and Hispanic Cultures in the United States at Harvard University, and a member of the Advisory Committee of Routlege as well as of Geres.

Richard holds a PhD in Spanish Language from the University of Salamanca, and a BA in Modern Languages from the University of Oviedo  in addition to postgraduate studies.

To learn more about the programs listed above, visit the Instituto Cervantes website and Youtube channel