Countries with the Best Foreign Language Education

[bpasseri]

I had this conversation with a friend recently - The United States is pretty abysmal in terms of its ability to teach students a foreign language by the time they graduate from high school. I'm not completely sure why the U.S. doesn't try a foreign model that has been proven to work better (Scandinavian countries come to mind, as they are usually able to speak impeccable English), although the U.S. seems to be unwilling to adopt anything that isn't home-brewed so to speak . I'm not sure exactly how foreign language learning works in the EU, although I'm pretty sure most students start learning English from a young age and then choose an additional language later on? That was at least the impression I got from the foreign language courses I took in high school, although, being American, they clearly were not very good . Does anyone know of any studies about the most efficient way to learn foreign languages? The consensus here seems to be introducing it to students earlier, but everyone seems to throw their hands up as if that is an impossible and unachievable goal. It looks like at least for the foreseeable future the U.S. will continue to relegate foreign language learning to middle and high school and subsequently continue to complain about how impossible it is to learn a foreign language... if only I had grown up somewhere else maybe I wouldn't have to do all this work by myself!!

[DaveBee]

I'm not sure exactly how foreign language learning works in the EU, although I'm pretty sure most students start learning English from a young age and then choose an additional language later on? That was at least the impression I got from the foreign language courses I took in high school, although, being American, they clearly were not very good . Does anyone know of any studies about the most efficient way to learn foreign languages?

There's a country comparison report available for the EU Commission: Survey on Language competencies [PDF], and an associated website SurveyLang.

EDIT
From p.88 of the report linked to above:

Main findings

The key findings from the regression analysis are as follows:
1) Expected negative effects on test results are demonstrated for ‘Onset of foreign language learning’ and ‘Perception of difficulty of target language learning’. This means that an earlier onset and lower perceived difficulty are related to higher foreign language proficiency.

2) Unexpected negative effects were demonstrated for ‘ICT use at home for foreign language learning’ and ‘Perceived emphasis on similarities between known languages’. We expected these indices to contribute positively to foreign language proficiency. Therefore, further research would be needed to investigate what the requirements are for ICT use and emphasis on similarities between languages to relate positively to foreign language learning.

3) Expected positive effects on test results are demonstrated for ‘Number of ancient and foreign languages learned’, ‘Parental target language knowledge’, ‘Target language exposure and use through traditional and new media’, ‘Teachers’ and students’ use of target language during target language lessons’ – at student as well as school level – and ‘Perception of usefulness of target language and target language learning’. This means that more ancient and foreign languages learned, higher parental target language knowledge, more target language exposure and use through traditional and new media and more use of target language during target language lessons are related to higher foreign language proficiency.

4) The effect of the index ‘Compulsory language learning’ is more often negative than positive, suggesting that students who are enrolled in the target language because it is compulsory for them have higher test scores than students who are enrolled in the target language because they chose the subject as an option. However, please note that students for whom the target language was an option and who did not choose it (because of high perception of difficulty, low perception of usefulness or other reasons) are not included in the research population of the ESLC.

5) Several expected effects on foreign language proficiency could not be demonstrated because of low variance of the indices within educational systems (e.g. use of an online portfolio). In addition, some indices have not been included in the regressions because they were constant within educational systems (i.e. all indices at the national level and sometimes at school or student level as well). Of course this does not mean that these indices have no effect on foreign language proficiency. However, comparing the mean test scores of educational systems with e.g. early and late onset of compulsory education is problematic as these educational systems probably differ on many other aspects as well.

[Chung]

Based on my travels, I'd be careful about intepreting the results seen in the English proficiency among graduates of a Scandinavian or even a Nordic educational system. Foreign language instruction isn't synonymous with ESL/EFL, and you shouldn't expect to find that many graduates there who are proficient in a foreign language other than English. You also probably know that North Germanic languages are similar to English, and that helps with acquisition not to mention that English is everywhere, and so it's hard for even the greatest Anglophobe there to avoid passive exposure altogether. In Finland, you can find a few people whose English isn't great, although most Finns in my experience are still fluent in English even though Finnish isn't a Germanic language. Their Swedish on the other hand often isn't as good.

Foreign language instruction for many people is closely tied to going to classes, and the quality of these classes varies not to mention that there's more to language acquisition than having a curriculum that incorporates it. Using Finland again as an example, all Finns learn at least three languages in school: their native language (Finnish or Swedish depending on where they live or what they speak at home), the "other domestic language" (Finnish or Swedish again depending on where they live or what they speak at home), and English (for simplicity's sake, I won't go into the Saami who get instruction in a Saamic language too). In Finland, graduates need to be proficient in Finnish and Swedish per test results if they want to work for a bilingual municipality or national government because employees are required to be able to serve citizens in both official languages.

On this matter of needing to learn both official languages (i.e. Finnish and Swedish) in addition to English, the truth is that many Finns whose mother tongue is Finnish will actually come out of the system more likely to be fluent in English rather than Swedish because of the relatively low utility of the latter compared to the former. On the other hand, many Finns whose mother tongue is Swedish will come out of the system more likely to be trilingual because of the usefulness of all three languages in their lives (e.g. Swedish at home and in their Fennoswede environment, Finnish for dealing with the Finnish-speaking majority, and English just because it's everywhere). Among Finns who speak Finnish natively, mandatory Swedish is a little bit of a sore point every now and then given how it's a relic of when Swedes (and Fennoswedes) comprised the elite of society before the First World War and how it's now overwhelmed by (international) English.

In other parts of Europe, it's not that different in that if you run into someone who is fluent in a foreign language now, it'll likely be English. However, there are plenty of exceptions, and geography is important. For example, older folks who speak a foreign language, might speak say Russian or German better than they do English. If you're in Ukraine, Russian is the most-frequently known foreign language. In western Ukraine, it's common enough for students to be fluent in English, Russian and Ukrainian but eastern Ukraine is such that many people there are monoglots of Russian, even if their allegiance and citizenship are Ukrainian. This is tied to which language(s) they use in daily life, and history. Students who've gone on Erasmus or similar exchange programs might be fluent in the language of the country where they did their semester(s) outside their native country. However, only a minority of students do such things. With a foreign language being just another academic subject for many people, it's understandable that only some people will excel. Others will go through the motions much like how someone's who's not keen on algebra or biology won't always excel in that subject, and would drop that subject at the first opportunity.

In general, what you're asking about relies a lot on anecdotal evidence, since it's one thing to know or have reports showing what the mandates are for foreign language instruction. It's another to know how effective that instruction or even which country's educational system places a high priority. Do you rely on test results? Do you rely on surveys of people evaluating their own abilities? The links provided by DaveBee are good but note that they're Europe. I haven't seen or found anything comparable for other parts of the world.

[zenmonkey]

Does anyone know of any studies about the most efficient way to learn foreign languages? The consensus here seems to be introducing it to students earlier, but everyone seems to throw their hands up as if that is an impossible and unachievable goal. It looks like at least for the foreseeable future the U.S. will continue to relegate foreign language learning to middle and high school and subsequently continue to complain about how impossible it is to learn a foreign language... if only I had grown up somewhere else maybe I wouldn't have to do all this work by myself!!

The consensus is that the best teacher of languages is political, economic and social pressures of small countries with large historical movements and strong language identities in-country with significant cultural exchange with other countries. And immigrants.

It isn't so much where you were born but the family, social structures and identity politics at work. My family was mostly born "south of the border" form you but I grew up in a multilingual micro-culture that resulted in every single one of my high school friends was trilingual or more. On the other hand, large swaths of Americans have absolutely no need for multiple languages and may only command the most basic concepts of a second language. For me, embracing diversity of culture and love of languages is also accepting that variability.

Some current research does suggest that there is not a critical age to learn a language (relative to school years) and it is more about time spent at task.

[Tillumadoguenirurm]

I had this conversation with a friend recently - The United States is pretty abysmal in terms of its ability to teach students a foreign language by the time they graduate from high school. I'm not completely sure why the U.S. doesn't try a foreign model that has been proven to work better (Scandinavian countries come to mind, as they are usually able to speak impeccable English), although the U.S. seems to be unwilling to adopt anything that isn't home-brewed so to speak . I'm not sure exactly how foreign language learning works in the EU, although I'm pretty sure most students start learning English from a young age and then choose an additional language later on?

I have no idea how they do it in Sweden or Denmark, but the main reason that so many Norwegians speak English is because of all the English speaking tv-shows or movies, all of them subtitled instead of dubbed. Same for music - it's all in English. Second language education in school is actually really really bad and I know that up until at least 10 years ago it wasn't even compulsory (edit: in compulsory school/except for English). Look elsewhere than at Norway at least.

Edit: added except for English...

[leosmith]

The United States is pretty abysmal in terms of its ability to teach students a foreign language by the time they graduate from high school

It's my opinion if you were to use this mythical "US highschool method" in European schools, the results would be similar.

This post reminds me of a certain get rich fluent quick polyglot who used to level heavy criticism against the "grammatical method". He made some interesting points, but the problem is hardly anybody uses this method. The methods used in the US are pretty advanced imo, at least they were in my highschool 35 years ago, therefore it must be true.

[Jim]

There are a couple of interesting maps here showing the number of foreign language studied per pupil in various European countries.

[Cavesa]

Why do you always blame the grammar method, which is no longer used in most cases? Actually, the important factor now are the shortcomings of the communicative method.

I sometimes wish the old method was still used, because many teachers and courses are avoiding logical and structured approach too much and therefore make it harder for the logical thinking students. Now there tends to be much more memorisation, which leads to rather short-term results and quick loss of the "skills". Plus it makes languages just as boring to many students as memorising geography data. These days, a good teacher is the one who doesn't shy away from the hard parts of teaching. The one who not only tries to make them speak, but actually teaches them the basics they need for speaking. Even if that means a lot of extra work, finding supplementary resources, and explaining stuff.

With the modern methods came improvements, yes, but their impact was negated by the lowering of the expectations.

When I see my younger siblings and their coursebooks (published by the Cambridge press, so supposedly good ones (Who isn't in awe with everything with the Cambridge label is considered a backwards and uneducated individual these days), I don't know whether to laugh or cry. We were supposed to actually learn stuff, when we were 9. They are supposed to parrot boring lessons presented in colourful modern looking overpriced leaflets. And these coursebooks and methods are probably in most european countries, since "Cambridge" or "Oxford" are labels of luxury and above criticism. Parents believe schools in this, because they don't have the personal experience with this kind of teaching, they usually only have the bitter memories of the grammar method. I could talk longer (too long) about all the problems thes new and "communicative" approach brings, when it is applied too much and without reason.

The problem is with the amount and quality of teachers too. Le Monde writes about lacking teachers often, in the Czech Republic it is even more true. The job lost prestige, and isn't well paid, so vast majority of language teaching (and teaching in general) students are those who didn't get accepted anywhere else. The faculties cannot choose much. In some cases, it is pretty obvious later, that such people shouldn't have ever been admitted to university in the first place, as they are worse at the langauge than the highschoolers and not too bright either. We had some such students "teaching" us at highschool as part of their practical education. Their problem was not lack of experience, it was lack of knowledge and skills. And the arrogant ignorance of how bad they were. There are awesome exceptions among teachers and teaching students, but the overall level is bad. And the better part of the students goes to private schools or other fields, not to the main educational current.

The other "half" of teachers are natives. Usually those natives who wanted the langauge teaching life style, to be admired just for having been born to the right native langauge, and/or to escape their previous failed carreers in the home country. They get a CELTA course and go. Too bad they so often suck at teaching. And the kids will always be to blame for their incompetence, as they have no choice or defense.

The only fault of the grammar-translation method was the absence of the internet and all the resources on it, of all the immersion opportunities. It was one half of a good process, that lacked the other half. The main fault of the modern method in schools is chaos, underestimation of the students, and the inefficient and too cautious approach to the "hard" parts of learning. Grammar based method is no longer to blame, at least in most European countries. Going to the other extreme is.

Another systemic problem is lying about the levels. Very often, the state organised exams have a different cefr label on paper and different level in reality. This is true not only in the Czech Republic, but obviously in the UK too, from the usual teenage learner questions around the internet. I highly doubt we are the only ones. I really doubt the "Maturita" is interesting to any employers. The reliable international exams are.

The situation seems to be more or less similar across Europe, based on information from people studying in them and on judging their level. Yes, you can say those are just anecdotes, but there are dozens of them and too similar to each other. English is taught much better than the rest (which is a pretty stupid decision of most governments. Or a clever one, meant to make moving to richer and less distant German or French speaking countries harder for people) but still there are even university students who absolutely suck at it. And those are supposed to be the elite. Other language knowledge is an exception.

The level of individual students only partially depends on the schools and the country's curriculums, and much more on their social background and family. Yes, some get good teachers, some get worse. I was in an elite and difficult highschool that taught in general much better (but still there were some horrible teachers. But still, almost half my class has foreign degrees now), and there are international schools. But the usual schools produce bad results. The students who trully learn a language, and therefore will twist the results of any comparation studies, are usually those whose parents realise the importance of languages and can afford private classes, stays abroad, and so on. Plus the students who consume a lot of media in English. That is another huge part of the disparity between ESL and other language learning.

I believe that, at least in Europe, it is not about the country and the obligatory schools. It is about ambition and priviledges of the individuals.

[Jbean]

It's pretty hard to learn a language in a classroom setting. You can learn grammar and vocabulary to be able to read adequately, but putting sentences together on the fly is a much more difficult skill to learn in a large group or by oneself. You really need to interact with a competent speaker of the target language for many hours if you want to speak fluently. I'm fascinated by stories of people who learned to speak a language from watching TV, but I'm not sure that would work for me even if I were a better consumer of TV.

[blaurebell]

Cavesa wrote a pretty thorough response that points out a lot of the relevant mechanisms and I agree with it entirely. I only have some minor points to add from my personal experience of having learned languages in Germany. There I was pretty much tortured with grammar translation only, with very little speaking in class, and to be quite frank with you, this is exactly the reason why I have such a high level of English. I learned it before all this fancy interaction stuff and was dealing mainly with fill in the gaps exercises, endless drills, endless vocabulary lists, dragon like teachers who were scary enough to make us do our homework and so on. At some point I also broke my leg and because I was so insanely bored sitting at home, I actually did all my English grammar exercises because those were more interesting than daytime TV. Our parents also tried to trick us into learning more by buying us language learning software for DOS! This software didn't even have a graphical user interface and those were simply more fill in the gap grammar exercises. I loved computers, so I actually spent hours with this. None of that dumbed down reception only Duolingo stuff, basically it was whole exercise books full of grammar exercises ported onto a computer. And then all our computer games were in English in general at the time, so we actually wanted to learn it. We went on school trips to England and when I was 14 my parents sent me to England for 3 weeks in the summer where I already ended up in the advanced class with kids who were much older. Not many kids want to spend their summer with more classes, but I loved it. So, for me, grammar translation was actually extremely effective and I'm glad I didn't have any of those modern dumbed down classes.

That said, I also had a Latin course based on grammar translation and I made it a game to get As in my exams without actually learning anything. I simply wasn't interested in Latin and we all hated it. With Latin my language classes were a complete failure and many kids also came out of English class with absolutely no English whatsoever. I always thought that the English classes in Germany are fairly effective, because they definitely worked for me and my friends, but later I realised that a lot of people actually don't speak English at all in Germany. Some of my friends who didn't go to a school leading to higher education don't even understand slowly spoken dumbed down English! I figured this one out because a friend who didn't speak any German was met with a wall of helpless silence when we went to a concert with some of my German friends who didn't go to university. And in the end, if I can make it through 3 years of Latin with As without learning anything, other people may cheat their way through 5 or even 8 years of English classes.

The difference between me and those who didn't learn was clearly one thing: I actually wanted to understand English and had good reasons to learn it. Most kids don't even understand why they have to learn it, when TV and books are translated anyway. Lots of people fall through the net, never really learn, never really want to learn and blaming the method is misguided. Part of the reason why school in general is such a failure for many is that nobody gives them any explanation WHY they have to learn all this non-sense. An awful lot of people can't interpret probabilities or know how to solve a simple equation, they don't need it. I forgot 99% of the dates I had to learn by heart for history class because I never needed them again, and I'm actually interested in history. And geography? I learned more from Google maps and youtube than from 5 years of geography class! Same goes for physics, youtube is much better at that than any of my teachers in school! English? Even those who learned it in school tend to forget it over the years, because all media is translated and people simply don't need English in Germany unless they travel a lot. Why learn it if you don't need it? The only way to get a kid to learn is if you give them the right incentives. I had computer games as an incentive when there weren't as many translations yet, and nowadays we can just turn all their TV watching and game playing into L2 exposure and buy them only L2 books. That's actually very new though. I simply couldn't get my hands on English language content when I was a kid and buying books in English was still difficult!

Why does social background still matter? Because parents play an awfully big role in their children's education. If your parents don't own a single book and tell you that you're wasting your time with all that education, how on earth are you ever going to understand why you have to learn English in school? If the greatest ambition of your parents is for you to become "someone with a real job", a plumber, a carpenter, then you'll have a very hard time to get out of that. One of the most intelligent people I know, a university professor who speaks several languages now and studied philosophy, was put into an apprenticeship at age 15 against his will. His parents simply refused to pay for his A-Levels. He had an awfully long way to go to get to his professorship. And social mobility usually doesn't reach very far up either. Most people I know who come from working class backgrounds and got a proper education - usually against their parents' wishes -, ended up becoming teachers, because they simply had no other role models! Role models are awfully important in education. Why do I understand 4+ languages? Because my mum understands 3 languages and my dad 4+! Why am I a voracious reader? Because my parents are as well!

And then there is also the problem that learning "how to learn" isn't all that easy, especially if you come from a background that doesn't encourage you to read. Sure, we have Coursera and other education platforms on the internet now, but you have to know English, you have to know how to read academic publications, how to get information out of lectures, how to research additional resources and so on. All the information on the internet is also entirely useless if you don't know that it's even there. For us it all seems easy, but for someone who has maybe read 5 books in their entire life possibly in a native language that isn't English, the information on the internet might just as well be inaccessible altogether.