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Till the sixties, most secondary school students, used
to study French (no languages were studied in primary
school). Only some educational centres, generally
private (and elitist!) dare to offer English in their
curriculum, but most of the time as an alternative.
This situation had to do with the continuing
obligation of studying Latin in Secondary school,
which made the learning of French, a language of the
same 'family', easier, especially with respect to
grammar or even syntax and vocabulary.
On the other hand, the political and historical
situation helped to increase the teaching of French
and worked against everything connected with Anglo-Saxon
culture, including the language.
However,
from the seventies the opening of Spain to tourism and
a certain liberalization of the country, among other
circumstances, favoured a rise in the esteem and
necessity to learn English, which increased gradually,
and at the same time eclipsed the strength of the
French language from then on.
The
continuing changes of the educational system has set
up the compulsory teaching of English from 8 years old
with three hours a week till the course prior to going
to University, where the students only have two hours.
Simultaneously, the educational system offers the
alternative of choosing another language for Secondary
school students from 11 on. This second foreign
language in most cases is French, and very rarely,
German or Italian.
What's
more, knowing English has nowadays become a must in
Spain and has reached the point that extra-curricular
study of English is relatively common.
This current situation is greatly due to the
difficulties of moving from a language with only five
vowel sounds (Spanish) to one with considerably more
and the corresponding pronunciation chaos this leads
to.
Finally,
in spite of the Anglo-Saxon domination of the
communication and entertainment media, dubbing into
Spanish, or the official national languages, is almost
total.
Yet
in Internet and ICT in general, the hegemonic position
of English is having an enormous influence because of
its simplicity and generalised use, which in the long
run should favour an increase in the practise of
English though the final consequences of this remain
inevitably unknown.
In
you want to find out more about this topic the
following links will be useful:
http://www.eurydice.org/Documents/Fiches_nationales/FrameSet_Fiches_Nat.htm
The Official Educational System in Spain.
http://www.eurydice.org/Publication_List/En/FrameSet.htm
Foreign language teaching in schools in Europe.
http://mec.es
Ministry of Education and Culture.
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