“Those who are studying now will set the intellectual tone of the country. “University is and should be a priority area,” says Peyró. “You would have to add the number of people who are taking an actual degree in Spanish to this figure,” says the director of Cervantes, London, Ignacio Peyró. Besides specific language studies, the most popular language to take as a subsidiary subject is Spanish with groups of more than 150 students in 60 universities across the UK and a total of almost 14,000 students, according to a report from UCML-AULC, Language provision in the Universities in the UK, 2016-2017. Interest among higher education students is growing. The Cervantes Institute has long been waging a campaign to establish Spanish in British universities. “Languages are not being given priority in a curriculum which is already very packed, with increasingly fewer teachers trained in foreign language teaching, fewer international exchanges and external language exams that are considered more difficult than other subjects,” he says. Mark Levy, head of English programs at the British Council in Madrid, points out the problem is deeply rooted. Twenty-five percent of teachers in secondary state education and 15% in private education are aware of the negative impact on the students regarding motivation to learn a European language or a foreign language in general.” The language that has taken the brunt of the indifference is German, with 16% fewer students signing up.Īccording to the report, “Brexit threatens to broaden the socioeconomic and academic divide. At General Certificate of Education (GCSE) level, the numbers opting to take a foreign language have fallen by 19% since 2014. They are also concerned by the dramatic nature of the drop. Apparently, the level of difficulty of exams accounts for the move away from languages, but teachers at low-income schools are more concerned about parents dissuading their children from pursuing languages than the lack of resources available to them in schools. These figures have emerged from the British Council report, which includes a study of teachers and students of both primary and secondary age. Ignacio Peyró, director Cervantes Institute London There is a feeling that it is easier and of course it is a language that is used on account of the large number of tourists coming to Spain
0 kommentar(er)
