Destinos: An Introduction to Spanish, also known simply as Destinos, is an educational television program created by Bill VanPatten

Bill VanPatten

Bill VanPatten is a Professor in Second Language Acquisition at Texas Tech University. He specializes in second language acquisition, which he investigates on both theoretical and practical levels, using techniques from psycholinguistics, applied linguistics, and cognitive psychology...

, who was, at the time, Professor of Spanish and Second Language Acquisition at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. The show, designed to introduce viewers to the basics of Spanish

Spanish language

Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

, had two seasons, beginning in 1992. Its 52 episodes are often used for educational purposes in schools and are still broadcast regularly on many PBS stations.

Destinos was produced by WGBH

WGBH-TV

WGBH-TV, channel 2, is a non-commercial educational public television station located in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. WGBH-TV is a member station of the Public Broadcasting Service , and produces more than two-thirds of PBS's national prime time television programming...

 Boston and funded by the Annenberg/CPB Project, with additional funding by the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation

Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation

The Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation was created in 1973 with an $85 million bequest following the death on August 13, 1973, of Geraldine Rockefeller Dodge. Dodge was the youngest child of Standard Oil tycoon William Rockefeller and Almira Geraldine Goodsell....

.
Destinos uses the telenovela

Telenovela

A telenovela is a limited-run serial dramatic programming popular in Latin American, Portuguese, and Spanish television programming. The word combines tele, short for televisión or televisão , and novela, a Spanish or Portuguese word for "novel"...

(Spanish soap opera

Soap opera

A soap opera, sometimes called "soap" for short, is an ongoing, episodic work of dramatic fiction presented in serial format on radio or as television programming. The name soap opera stems from the original dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers, such as Procter & Gamble,...

) format to teach Spanish-language speaking, listening, and comprehension skills.