The Internet is changing the way people learn Spanish and other foreign languages.

Back when this site was first started, about a decade ago, the best you could hope to find online as a Spanish student were scattered lessons covering the basics — video was all but unheard of except for the technically most astute, and even audio files took unbearably long to download. Interactivity, aside from basic email, primitive bulletin boards or perhaps command-line chat rooms, was nonexistent.

The days when almost anyone who has a budget will be able to enter a virtual classroom with full-screen interactive video are still a few years away. But this week I had a look at what's very doable now — at a reasonable price and with no hardware requirements beyond a telephone and a typical home computer.

I participated in a one-on-one interactive class taught by one of the teachers for the Multilingual Center, a Phoenix, Ariz.-based language school that offers lessons via telephone and the Internet. Although in some ways the school's setup offers merely a hint of what is to come technologically, I was impressed with how effective something relatively simple can be.

Here's how this school works: You sign up for a regularly scheduled class, typically two days a week but with flexible scheduling for your life circumstances. Shortly before your class begins, you log onto the school's website and call your teacher by phone. Your Internet connection, then, provides the visuals for the lesson, while the phone takes care of the audio. It's very similar to the systems that some companies use to hold workshops for far-flung employees.

The Multilingual Center uses only native Spanish speakers, so you're guaranteed to be dealing with someone whose pronunciation you can imitate. The computer screen becomes the class' blackboard, so to speak, and the teacher can provide anything ranging from simple conjugation charts to complete magazine articles (useful for conversational groups). Meanwhile, you have a few fellow students to work with in conversation, and the teacher can provide you with instant feedback about your pronunciation and grammar.

System requirements are quite modest: The ideal setup is a Windows-based computer made within the past three or four years with Java installed (if you don't have Java, the school provides download instructions). And that's all. It helps to have a high-speed Internet connection, and of course you need to be able to be online and use a phone at the same time.

By using such a simple setup, the school is able to stay out of the computer support business and make classes available at a reasonable price to not just the techies among us.

From what I was able to find, there aren't a lot of schools running similar programs, although there definitely would seem to be a ready market for this type of convenient and easy-to-arrange instruction. Some schools in Central America and Europe have started offering instruction via Skype, a popular Internet-based telephone service. And still others are sure to follow.

Not all that long ago, it would have been a major hassle, possibly involving expensive travel, for the average foreign-language learner to get personal instruction from a native speaker. Innovative language schools are helping the Internet achieve its promise of making our world a bit smaller.