Spanish or French?

Jim Porter has emailed me with an interesting comment based on Chris' post about languages in primary school.  Here it is:

When deciding which language to introduce, a primary school will consider these factors, among others:

1. Which language do the teachers in the primary school have some knowledge of?
2. Which language has the most teaching resources available?
3. Which language does the local secondary school teach?

And the likely answers?

1. French
2. French
3. French

Around 70% of primary schools are teaching a language now, and of that number perhaps 90% are teaching French. I wholeheartedly agree with Chris's piece. Those of us who suggest that Spanish is a more important language than French on a global scale, and that it should be taught more at primary level, need to be patient.

Schools are just starting out with language teaching and it is understandable that they choose a 'safe' option (French) at this stage. A few years down the line, the situation may be very different. Perhaps then Spanish, which as a language to learn has many advantages over French, as Chris points out, will find its way into more primary schools than we could possibly imagine at this stage.

If not, I'll be crying into my tapas.

Comments

[Gareth]

Chris and Jim might be interested in some statistics from our annual site survey, which included responses from over two hundred and fifty UK teachers. They support Jim's figures in that...

almost 30% said they didn't teach an additional language
45% taught French [75% of those teaching languages]
10% taught Spanish [17%]
5% taught German [8%]

The number of schools teaching a second language in 2007 was 70%, compared to just 55% in the 2006 survey.

[danie]

We have had a complaint from a paretn that French is a dying languae and why are we teaching it. our answer is that the only language any of use know other than English is french. the next generation of teachers had a much wider opportunity to learn other languages, we were only ever taught French. We need to be patient