How much emphasis or importance is placed on a child in school having a good level of English?

17 comments

1. It is seen as important by most people, seeing how useful it can be in general and a requirement for some jobs. It has also grown more important in school. I started English in third grade (year four) of elementary school, but it has since then been introduced from first grade (year two)

2. its quite important to pass in English, English is one of our offical languages and you cant go to University if you have failed English (including other subjects like Maths, Maltese and you need 1 science subject passed)

3. English is usually considered one of the three most important subjects in Germany, together with maths and German.

   At least in my experience, paying for extra English lessons after school is rare, though.

4. It’s one of the three mains – Slovenian, Maths and English have the most lessons, are the only subject taken throughout the whole of elementary, middle and high school and are part of every external examination (at the end of each stage of education). It’s considered important and parents often enroll their kids in extracurricular English programmes before and durin school and pay for extra tuition for those who struggle.

5. There’s an obligatory English exam after the primary and high school.

   I think you also have to have at least B2 level when graduating university.

   (It applies to one foreign language in general but usually it is English)

6. Im on my 30s, when i was studying in Galicia, the importance of having good english was 0. I mean, some of my classmates barely know the to be verb forms and they aproved anyway. Basically not even the teacher used english on class so… In fact i really doubt those teachers had any idea about english.

7. In Spain, the two major subjects are Maths and Spanish. English is a close contender for third place, if pared up against French.

   English is taken seriously here, however, students don’t give a damn about it… Until they realize that they have no other choice when they reach highschool.

8. From own experience vast majority of students fly through English classes. Its a “walkover” class.

   Danish kids these days almost all speak English before formal lessons in school.

   English is so ubuiquitous its almost impossible not to effortlessly learn it. Extra tutoring is rare, extra tutoring in English i even rarer

9. As a mostly English speaking country, its generally assumed that the child’s first language will be English. Our english classes are basically just about literature and writing styles. There’s still a heavy enough emphasis on it as it’s one of three mandatory subjects throughout secondary school (the other two are maths and irish) but plenty of students don’t really care that much about it and would put more emphasis on maths, science or business classes.

10. >Are there parents that refuse to do let their kids learn it?

    My parents did not *refuse*, but strongly encouraged me not to. Their reasoning being that I will probably never learn Dutch (and German, which I picked as third language) if I don’t do it in school, but I will have a lot of opportunities to learn English later in life.

    I agree with them. We are so overexposed to the language that learning it is not an option, it is an inevitability.

11. Studying English is not obligatory in Finland but practically everyone does it. We must pick an obligatory foreign language in early elementary school (starting 1st grade now, 3rd grade when I was in school). It’s usually English but can be some other language as well (I had German). Then later in the elementary school we can pick a voluntary foreign language (that’s when I started learning English). In the beginning of 6th grade everyone starts learning our other national language (Swedish for Finnish speakers and vice versa). After that it’s possible to pick another voluntary language in 7th grade and yet another in high school.

    Having a good command in English is considered quite crucial. Not so much for school but for life. I’ve never met anyone who’d have had extra lessons in English but I know some who have had English language immersion in kindergarten.

12. English is considered an important *language* to learn, but not necessarily an important *subject*. As in pretty much everyone feels that it is useful and often even crucial to be able to communicate in English, but it is rare to feel that the kid should have especially good grades in English lessons. Or have any linguistic interests towards the language. It’s more of a tool than a desired end result of itself. And the English lessons are even often seen as pointless by part of the class who already have their skills at a high enough level to use English on the Internet comfortably, and they just don’t care about the grammar nor the linguistical side.

    While your 1st foreign language exam results are often used for uni entrance, they are not always used and there are usually other subjects, that are more crucial to get into the programme you want. I feel that usually peoples results in, say, physics exams, vary more than peoples results in their English exams, so you focus on the former. It is also fairly uncommon to continue your studies in a directly English-language related academical field, as studies in medicine, natural sciences, social sciences etc are more common than linguistics. So, sure, you have to read some articles or books in English, but even people who speak basically no English are able to cope with that: google translate, ask for a paper/book in Estonian etc.

    Edit: special paid lessons for English or anything else are not common at all. It’s only something you do on the last year with the hardest subject (usually Maths) if your kid is somewhat ermh intellectually challenged.

13. With Swedish and Maths, it makes up the three most important subjects in school, the ones you absolutely need to pass to move on to higher education. I’ve never heard of anyone getting tutors in English for their kids, only maths and that was because their kid was more advanced than other kids in his class.

14. So I am in my 30s so this might be a bit outdated.

    However.
    In sweden they dont share the result of specific schools in the basic level (below uni/collage) so every school is “equal” in that sens.
    I guess one could assume”troubled” areas in the bigger citys have lower quality etc. But other then that you go for the best geographical placed school.
    At least in my area of the nation.

    Also never heard of anyone with private tutors in english.

    English is one of our core/major subjects in sweden. So failing that will make it very hard for the student to graduate at all.
    The school might force you to quit the 3rd language course to focus more on english, if they feel you might not make it.
    Failing english = more or less no graduation

    some trivia.
    To graduate every student need to be able to swim 300m and have passed the “ice lake test”
    The test is like, they give you the icepegs you should bring when ever you are on ice, then “throw” you in the water and expect you to make it up on stable ground by using the pegs to drag yourself up. Fully clothed and all.

15. Extremely important, specially from the viewpoint of students. Most kids I know also took english lessons in private schools additionally. People under 30 here speak English very well, probably in top 3 countries from my places I have been to (anecdotal) along with Germany and Slovenia. It might be because we start learning English since we are 6 years old at school and we are a small country, so there isn’t a lot of media available in Macedonian (also the reason why many people know Serbo-Croatian without learning it at school).

16. English is the most common foreign language to learn in Polish schools and also the most common foreign language that’s learned in Poland in general. I learned English for the entirety of my education, which was 12 whole years.

    Many parents who care about their children and can afford it, make them attend extra classes in language schools or hire a private tutor. English is a global language without which you have incredibly limited horizons and many people understand that.

    But it would be weird if parents refused to let children learn English. Other languages? Yeah, a lot of people think that it’s something useless if you “live in Poland where people speak only Polish”. I’m an avid foreign language learner and more often than not people think I’m weird for “wasting my time like that”…

17. It’s only taken seriously if you go to uni or if your future job needs it. To get your degree in Hungary, you need to get at least a B2 in any language. Other than that you can get away with no second language.