Le 'Doormat'

[Diana]

From this mornings Telegraph Colin Randall in Paris writes:

French witters and Academics fighting the encroachment of English awarded their annual 'English Doormat' title to Claude Thelot, author of a report calling for the language to be as compulsory in schools as French and maths.

Diana

[letrangere]

Realise I should be asking this elsewhere but what is the norm for teaching English in French schools?  Presume it's currently widespread but is it compulsory anywhere or do pupils always have a choice of another foreign language?  And are foreign languages compulsory, and which is the most popular?  Somehow I would have assumed English.  M 

[Tourangelle]

I think Thelot was a bad choice, the guy who chose 'can you feel it' as the official song for the French football team has a lot more to answer for. 

Anyway, for languages in schools I think his proposal has now been altered to a second language, rather than particularly English.  In response to MJW, English is not necessarily the first language learnt.  It could be German.  In fact it could be almost any major European language.  They are starting them younger though, but it is not necessarily very coherent.  A friend's child did Spanish in cm1, English in cm2 and this year started German in 6eme.....  English is, I think the most popular choice, and there was talk at one stage that there were too many German teachers and that they might have to convert to teaching French!

[SaligoBay]

Out of about 200 children in my son's 6ème (first year of collège, 11-yr-olds), only 12 are doing German, all the rest are doing English.

Out of those 12, 4 are already anglophones, so English really wasn't an option for them.

Can't do Spanish until 4ème.  Haven't even heard of anyone doing Italian round here.

Every school is different in terms of funding and availability of teachers - they talk about a national curriculum, but it's a figment of someone's imagination!   

 

[Pucette<P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3>Pucette<FONT><P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt">"Qui ne connaît pas la campagne lhiver, ne connaît pas la campagne et ne connaît pas]

At my local collège English is the only second language. I think the same is true at the local agricultural college.

I have met some people who learned Spanish or German but not English.

At local lycées German and Spanish are both available.

Someone I met recently studied English for ten years and Spanish for two; he can get by in Spanish but struggles in English. He put it down to the personality of the teachers (the Spanish teacher was a native speaker).