Language Instruction in Different Countries

[Mr. Z]

I was wondering about the integration of language instruction in different countries, and was hoping I could here more from people here.

In Israel, there is obligatory English education from the 3rd grade. You can also learn Arabic or French in high school, though some schools only give one choice, or none at all (I assume).

[Astraios]

In the UK it varies by school. At my primary school we learnt French from Year 2 upwards, and there were optional Spanish and Latin classes - whereas at my friend's primary school they only did German from Year 4 to Year 6.

In high school, it started off as:

-- Study French or German from Year 7 to Year 9
-- Pick one of Chinese, Russian, Italian, Spanish, French, or German as a second language in Year 8
-- Study at least one language in Year 10 and Year 11

... and I did German and Chinese, but by the time I left, it had become:

-- Study six weeks each of French, German, Spanish and Chinese in Year 7
-- Pick one of them to study from Year 8 until Year 11.

[Shrdlu]

In Sweden, you start learning English the day you begin school. Later on you can choose to learn either, Spanish, French or German

[vec]

In Iceland, you learn English from the 5th grade (10 years old) onwards, Danish (or optionally an other Scandinavian language if you lived in the countries they were spoken in as a child) from the 7th grade (12 years old) onwards, Spanish, German or French from the first year of gymnasium (16 years old) onwards. Various other languages can be taken during gymnasium, too; adding one or two of the other optional languages, as well as Latin in certain schools, Ancient Greek in only mine, Russian and Esperanto in a couple and Japanese in a couple.

[EDIT: Added ages]

[Yng]

In the UK it varies by school. At my primary school we learnt French from Year 2 upwards, and there were optional Spanish and Latin classes - whereas at my friend's primary school they only did German from Year 4 to Year 6.

In high school, it started off as:

-- Study French or German from Year 7 to Year 9
-- Pick one of Chinese, Russian, Italian, Spanish, French, or German as a second language in Year 8
-- Study at least one language in Year 10 and Year 11

... and I did German and Chinese, but by the time I left, it had become:

-- Study six weeks each of French, German, Spanish and Chinese in Year 7
-- Pick one of them to study from Year 8 until Year 11.

Vaguely similar in my school. In Wales primary schools get less funding and language options in school in general seem to be less exciting than what can be on offer in England (although Astraios might've gone to a public school, I dunno). We did Welsh in primary school, in theory, from reception upwards, but our teachers didn't really know what they were talking about in the main (we only had two who actually spoke Welsh to any degree at all) and my mum, who's a teacher, tells me that until recently there weren't really courses provided to teachers and they were expected to teach it with no knowledge at all, which explains why we had only rare and very basic Welsh lessons until secondary.

In secondary Welsh was compulsory and not streamed up until year 8, after which we were divided into streams based on our ability in Welsh (and in History/Geography, bizarrely; because of timetable arrangements you had to be in the same set for geography/history and for Welsh). We also did either French or German up to year 9, which wasn't streamed at all. Which one you did was decided arbitrarily by which form group you were in, although you could choose to swap if you wanted to be contrary.

In year 9 you choose your options - i.e. what subjects you want to do to GCSE level - and you could choose one out of French or German (alongside a couple of other subjects - the list was pretty restrictive). You also had to carry on with Welsh, with your stream (upper or lower, subdivided into 1, 2, 3 and 4) deciding which level of the GCSE you did (higher full course, foundation full course, higher short course, foundation short course).

[Jetboy]

Having gone to school in the US, in elementary school they taught us baby Spanish (really we just sang songs in the language; I didn't know the difference between <el> and <la> when I left). Then we had more productive Spanish in 4th through 6th grades, and in 5th grade also took Latin (though they've since discontinued that due to lack of time on the teachers' parts). Going into 7th we had to take one of Spanish, French, Latin, and Japanese; I took the third option, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, and hopefully next year in 11th. Once we got the school's high-school, our options opened up slightly; they also offered Mandarin, and two levels of Ancient Greek if you've been taking Latin (I took the first this year and hope to take the second next, if enough people sign up). The basic requirement is 3 years and through level III of one language, and the two middle-school years count for one year, and you have the option of taking more than one language at a time if you want. I do go to a private school, though, so I'm not sure about more general language requirements; I think Spanish is pretty common, though.

EDIT: For clarification, in most schools around here I know, you're 9 when you start 4th grade

[Ulrike Meinhof]

In Sweden, you start learning English the day you begin school.

Is that so? Because I didn't start having English classes until second grade, and my sister not until third. That was 1998 and 2001, respectively.

[jmcd]

People should probably put what sort of age people are at for a particular grade.

In Scotland you got English throughout and, depending on which year you came to the high school (it was alternating), French or German in the first year (~12). In second year (~13) you got both and in 3rd (~14) and 4th (~15) year you do either 1 or 2. In 5th (~16) and 6th (~17) years you can do one, none or both. I did French in the first year and both til 5th year after which Other schools offer Gaelic (as either first or second language or both), Spanish, Italian, Latin, Ancient Greek, Mandarin and Urdu. In fact, there was at least one person who did Urdu Higher as well but I'm not sure how it would've worked out for anyone else to do it tbh. You can also do Russian but only as extra-curricular.

[finlay]

Lemme see. I had an evening French class when I was 5 (with other 5 year olds) but that wasn't part of the school curriculum; when I was 11 (P7, final year of primary school*) I had a weekly German class which they were trialling at my school or something. When I went to secondary school I had French and German for the first two years; after that, you had to do at least one modern language for the next two years to Standard Grade (my school only offered French, German and Spanish), so I did German, but I also did Latin. Then we didn't have to do a language anymore so I quit German, but kept Latin to the Higher grade for the year after that, and then for my final year I only did half of the Latin advanced higher grade because I found the literature aspect too difficult. We also had to English up until S5* (age 16), but it was, again, a literature-based rather than language-based class. (but I actually kept doing English in S6 as well)

*in Scotland they number things differently from England – you have 7 years of primary school, which is age 4/5-11/12, numbered P1-P7, followed by 6 years of secondary/senior school, which is age 11/12-17/18, numbered S1-S6. In England & Wales there are various systems – I think some have middle schools, but it's generally 6 years of primary, 5 of secondary, and 2 optional years of "sixth form college" at the end; and the school years are numbered 1-11. They also have an extra year called Reception before Year 1, which I've never quite understood. And the years are cut off slightly differently, so that you start Reception at age 4, and finish sixth form college at age 18 – you can finish your entire schooling at age 17 in Scotland because the age cutoff is different, you see... The two years of college in England are like the last two years of school in Scotland (which are also optional), but they're generally in a different institution, and as far as I know, you can't finish after the first year of college with a worthwhile qualification in England – you get AS levels which are only worth half an A level – whereas you can finish S5 in Scotland with a Higher qualification which is actually worth something. I suppose it's all worth mentioning.

[Shrdlu]

In Sweden, you start learning English the day you begin school.

Is that so? Because I didn't start having English classes until second grade, and my sister not until third. That was 1998 and 2001, respectively.

Well, I atleast had it so. Dunno about the rest of Sweden.

[Drydic]

Yeah what Jetboy describes is amazingly extensive for American foreign-language education. Most states, you're only required to squeak by with two years of it (and each year doesn't have to be the same language ). And at the end of those two years, you're barely able to hold a conversation.

[LinguistCat]

In the part of America I live in, when I was going to school, one could start learning a foreign language in 7th grade (maybe 6th depending on the school). This is usually Spanish, with maybe French or German. At the charter school I went to in high school (somewhere between a public school and a private school), they had Latin for 7th and 8th graders. High school (which I started in 9th grade at a public school) is more likely to have more options.

Two years of one language are required to get into a four year collage directly after high school, and it's better if you have 3 or 4 years. Two years of language OR one year of language and one year of art or music OR two years of art or music are required to graduate from high school if one just wants to get their diploma or go into a two year college.

[Declan]

In Ireland, you start Irish when you start school, but proficiency at 12 (when you leave for secondary school) isn't great, but it's fairly natural for most people. In secondary school, you start a foreign language (French, German, Italian/Spanish in order of popularity) and study that for 5 or 6 years depending on whether you do an optional Transition Year. Not doing English is impossible for Leaving cert., not doing Irish extremely unusual and not doing a foreign language (i.e. the four mentioned) rare as it is normally required for entry to most universities. Proficiency after 14 years of Irish varies from B2 bordering on C1 at times to A1, and the course has been changed recently so that the requirements for an A1 (90% to 100%) are totally different to when I did it! Proficiency in the foreign language varies from A1 to maybe B1, perhaps a B2 occasionally.

To rant about it slightly, there is a big problem in that all Irish students (including native speakers) do the same course, so there is always conflicting complaints of it being too easy as well as too hard and "off-putting". Furthermore, it seems to be thought that making the Oral component worth 40% of the final grade (instead of 25% for me) and seriously reducing the amount of poetry and literature read will make Irish more popular, when that is just nonsense! The real problem, as I see it, is that there is no appetite for languages other than English in Ireland, because in fairness, the reality is that once leaving school, they are almost never encountered. It's a shame.

[Dewrad]

In the UK it varies by school. At my primary school we learnt French from Year 2 upwards, and there were optional Spanish and Latin classes - whereas at my friend's primary school they only did German from Year 4 to Year 6.

In high school, it started off as:

-- Study French or German from Year 7 to Year 9
-- Pick one of Chinese, Russian, Italian, Spanish, French, or German as a second language in Year 8
-- Study at least one language in Year 10 and Year 11

... and I did German and Chinese, but by the time I left, it had become:

-- Study six weeks each of French, German, Spanish and Chinese in Year 7
-- Pick one of them to study from Year 8 until Year 11.

Some seventeen (eek!) years ago, the system in the UK was that you didn't do a second language until Year 7. At my school, you could choose one of French, German or Spanish, and Latin was compulsorary. In Year 8, you had to pick another modern foreign language in addition. Come GCSE time (year 10), you had to do at least one modern foreign language, and had the option of dropping Latin and your second foreign language.

(I, of course, took Latin, French and German to GCSE and did the Italian GCSE in an after-school club.)

[finlay]

In Ireland, you start Irish when you start school, but proficiency at 12 (when you leave for secondary school) isn't great, but it's fairly natural for most people. In secondary school, you start a foreign language (French, German, Italian/Spanish in order of popularity) and study that for 5 or 6 years depending on whether you do an optional Transition Year. Not doing English is impossible for Leaving cert., not doing Irish extremely unusual and not doing a foreign language (i.e. the four mentioned) rare as it is normally required for entry to most universities. Proficiency after 14 years of Irish varies from B2 bordering on C1 at times to A1, and the course has been changed recently so that the requirements for an A1 (90% to 100%)

A1 is beginner, and C2 is mastery – you sure you've not got the numbers back to front?

[Xephyr]

Yeah what Jetboy describes is amazingly extensive for American foreign-language education. Most states, you're only required to squeak by with two years of it (and each year doesn't have to be the same language ). And at the end of those two years, you're barely able to hold a conversation.

"Required"? Hah. At the school I went to, taking two years of very, very rudimentary foreign language was one of the requirements for the equivalent of "graduating with honors", and in those two years for me of high school German we never even covered the past tense. Normal graduation requirements didn't include any foreign language classes at all. Jetboy must have gone to some elite school or something-- Ancient Greek in high school what the fuck?

[Nannalu]

A lot of the high schools near me in Australia have French, Spanish, Japanese, Arabic or sometimes German.

[Yng]

"Required"? Hah. At the school I went to, taking two years of very, very rudimentary foreign language was one of the requirements for the equivalent of "graduating with honors", and in those two years for me of high school German we never even covered the past tense. Normal graduation requirements didn't include any foreign language classes at all. Jetboy must have gone to some elite school or something-- Ancient Greek in high school what the fuck?

Yeah, language GCSEs here are a total joke - and have become even more so since I took my last one a year ago (Spanish - which I got an A* in without knowing any more than very basic words, incidentally, having just memorised a few core phrases to cut and paste words from dialogue/written questions into) since they got rid of the oral exam, the only halfway difficult element, and replaced it with 'oral coursework'. In French we covered the present tense for regular verbs, 'to be' and 'to have' and a few other miscellaneous grammar points - we memorised the 3sg conditionals of a couple of verbs, for example, so we could say 'my ideal school would be...' and so on - but we weren't taught how to conjugate verbs outside the present tense and the past participle.

[Astraios]

Yeah, language GCSEs here are a total joke - and have become even more so since I took my last one a year ago (Spanish - which I got an A* in without knowing any more than very basic words, incidentally, having just memorised a few core phrases to cut and paste words from dialogue/written questions into) since they got rid of the oral exam, the only halfway difficult element, and replaced it with 'oral coursework'. In French we covered the present tense for regular verbs, 'to be' and 'to have' and a few other miscellaneous grammar points - we memorised the 3sg conditionals of a couple of verbs, for example, so we could say 'my ideal school would be...' and so on - but we weren't taught how to conjugate verbs outside the present tense and the past participle.

They didn't want me to take A-level French because I hadn't done the GCSE. I should totally have followed their advice - I only ended up with 98% overall.

[Yng]

They didn't want me to take A-level French because I hadn't done the GCSE. I should totally have followed their advice - I only ended up with 98% overall.

They wouldn't let me take Spanish or German at A-level without the GCSE, despite the fact that I demonstrated a knowledge of the basic functions of cases and already knew how to decline the articles and the more regular nouns and conjugate verbs in the present and the past participle - more than several of the AS students. Annoying, that was.

[Gulliver]

At my (English) primary school, we did about a year of French, but it was mostly singing songs and naming colours and was eclipsed by about the first three months of secondary school.

At secondary school (ages 11-16) we studied both French and German off the bat, I think for two hours a week each, and were then offered multiple choices to drop one language. I was one of 3 pupils studying both at the age of 15.

There was some toying with teaching Spanish at the school, and I did a year of it, but it was so disorganised that nothing really became of it when I was there.

In the UK generally, the education system is set up to make you start to specialise at about the age of 15, so those who weren't interested in languages did not do them. I think only half of my year did a language to GCSE (exams you take at 15/16 when leaving secondary school). Languages, it should be noted, were advertised as an easy choice because the grades were more generous.

My cousin, who is now 12, goes to school in Wales and is educated "bilingually". Last time I talked to him about it, he knew random Welsh phrases, but not what they meant. When asking to go to the toilet, he was just as likely to ask to take off his jumper.

[Yiuel Raumbesrairc]

In Quebec, it depends on which school you go :

French language schools :
English is now mandatory from first year, but it used to be from fourth year. Starting the seventh year, you have special groups who can take a third language, Spanish. English remains part of the curriculum for all that time. Starting the 12th year, with Cégep, you only have to do one year worth of English class during your whole time (2 or 3 years). You can take one year worth of another language, though languages are usually limited to Spanish and German, and if lucky, Italian or Mandarin. (I was luckier, and got Japanese, but that was kind of exceptional). I went to a Cégep that had a particular rule : if we demonstrated a good proficiency in English, we could even skip half the year worth of class of English. Which I did. Then, nothing more.

English language schools :
Pretty much like French schools, but replace English with French. However, in the past, French would have started one year earlier.

Native language schools :
For the first years, all classes are given in the native language, if possible, but starting third grade, French or English slowly replace the native languages. The second language depends on which community you are part of.

So, in Quebec, if you want to be proficient in a language other than English, you have to do a special degree either in Cégep (they do exist) or university (which I did for Japanese).

[Majortopio]

In Denmark (although it varies a grade or two), you start learning English anywhere from 3rd to 4th grade (I believe it's 3rd grade mostly nowadays) and keep learning it until Gymnasium (16-19), where you can choose if you wish to continue having it or not after the first year.
Obligatory French or German (some - mostly private - schools offer Spanish I believe) is started anywhere between 7th and 8th grade I believe, depending on which/what kind of school it is. You are required to choose between, again, French, German or Spanish when you start Gymnasium and take it for either 2 or 3 years, depending on which level you take it on.

[Qwynegold]

In Sweden, you start learning English the day you begin school.

Is that so? Because I didn't start having English classes until second grade, and my sister not until third. That was 1998 and 2001, respectively.

My class had English from 4th grade on (age 9-10). But those who were one class further up from me already started at third grade. They also seemed to have had the possibility to study another language somewhere between 4th and 6th grade, I'm not sure exactly when. We did not get to choose any other language besides English. From 7th grade on you get to choose between German, French, Spanish or extra English. Then there's also Swedish for immigrants and home language (I had Finnish all the way from 1st to 9th grade. Everyone is supposed to have the right to study their mothertongue as their "home language", which makes me wonder what they'd do if there was someone who wanted to study like Dzongkha or something.)

[Åge Kruger]

In Sweden, you start learning English the day you begin school.

Is that so? Because I didn't start having English classes until second grade, and my sister not until third. That was 1998 and 2001, respectively.

My class had English from 4th grade on (age 9-10). But those who were one class further up from me already started at third grade. They also seemed to have had the possibility to study another language somewhere between 4th and 6th grade, I'm not sure exactly when. We did not get to choose any other language besides English. From 7th grade on you get to choose between German, French, Spanish or extra English. Then there's also Swedish for immigrants and home language (I had Finnish all the way from 1st to 9th grade. Everyone is supposed to have the right to study their mothertongue as their "home language", which makes me wonder what they'd do if there was someone who wanted to study like Dzongkha or something.)

They get someone in to teach that one person Dzongkha on a very slim position (like 5% of a normal position).