Announcement of an exchange group in England.
The Diplomat. 14/07/2018
The Spanish language will become the most studied foreign language in the United Kingdom in less than a decade and is even about to overtake French in the British pre-university exams, according to a British Council report.
The Language Trends Survey 2018 report, drawn up through interviews with 1,500 state and independent schools across the country, indicates that although the next UK exit from the European Union could have a «negative impact» on the teaching of other languages, «the growth of interest and demand for Spanish negates the proposition that language teaching in English schools is in fatal decline».
In these circumstances, the report notes that «there has been a decline in numbers taking French and/or German, but Spanish has increased rapidly over the past few years to become England’s second modern language».
Therefore, continues the report, the Spanish is rapidly growing in popularity in British secondary schools and is set to overtake French as the most-studied language by 2025.
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Castilian language could overtake French and German around 2025, with the UK already outside the EU
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Between 2010 and 2017, GCSE entries for Spanish went from 58,230 to 90,544 and this summer the figure rose by 8%. On the other hand, French dropped by 1 per cent to 120,605 and German rose by 3 per cent to 43,260.
At A-level, 17 and 18 years old), Spanish remained broadly stable, with 7,705 entries. But French and German saw significant decreases, from 8,610 to 7,945 and 3,440 to 2,890 entries respectively. In terms of primary education, three quarters of British schools teach French, 23% teach Spanish and only 3% teach German.
According to the Daily Mail, the rise of Spanish could be due to the increase of Spain as a holiday destination. According to the travel agency TripAdvisor, Spanish coastal cities such as Gran Canaria, Benidorm, Lanzarote, Ibiza, Tenerife and Mallorca are among the top ten British tourist destinations.
Besides, youngsters may also perceive it to be more useful than other European languages because it can be used in Latin America, and some experts have even said the language’s popularity may have been boosted by Latino pop stars – such as Luis Fonsi, whose 2017 song Despacito is the most watched YouTube video ever.
