Germany and the Goethe-Institut want more Spanish people to learn German in school

Monday, April 04, 2011

Some info from an article here in Spanish. It seems that there is a recent increased interest in the German language in Spain, but because the autonomous communities themselves are the ones that decide which languages are to be studied, most are turning to the Goethe-Institut instead of public schools.

Germany wants autonomous communities in Spain to facilitate the learning of the German language in public secondary schools to a level consistent with the political, economic and cultural relations between the two countries.

The director of the Goethe-Institut in Madrad said that the work opportunities that Germany presents to unemployed people in Spain have resulted in an increase in demand in the past two months of places in the Goethe-Institut to learn the language. However, there is still a limited supply of places and teachers in public schools where German can be learned as an optional language, and the jurisdiction here to change that lies with the autonomous communities.

"I would prefer to have fewer people enrolled in the Goethe-Institut, but more people learning German in high school", said the director.

In Spain only 75,000 people learn German, some 1% of the student population. Meanwhile there are 6,000 students enrolled at the Goethe-Institut in Madrid, Barcelona, Granada and San Sebastián.

In Spain there is no obligation to learn other languages besides English, which differs from most European countries. Spain, along with Portugal and Cyprus, has the lowest percentage of students that choose to study German.

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