Curious to know what the situation is now with regard to language learning at second level education?

Hello all.

So I’m out of the school system quite a long time now and I was curious to know has much changed in second level education with regards to language learning?

I took Spanish for the leaving cert, but felt it was very poorly taught for the most part, coupled with the fact that out of a class of about 30 students only a handful seemed interested in the language.

I got private classes outside of the school system with a native Spanish speaker who had lived here for over 20 years. I eventually got to c1 level but had it not been for the private lessons and an interest in the language I would probably have left school with only basic Spanish skills. I am a blind person too and I guess you could say I probably picked it up a little better than some of the other students.

I am still in contact with the Spanish teacher to this day. She is currently teaching leaving cert Spanish at a local secondary school and she told me that the curriculum has not changed much in the last 10, 15 years.

I know the situation here with regards to language learning is not great but I have been told that the situation in the UK with regards to language learning is even worse than Ireland and one of the worst in Europe, probably due to lack of insentives/necisity. I use to work in the US as part of my university work placement, and I was told only about 20% of American students take a foreign language at secondary school level. I worked in Florida and despite Florida having a large Hispanic population I met very few English speaking Americans who had a second or third language.

Looking back I guess the one thing I learned from my experience in the school system is that putting 30 odd kids together in a class that is not based on interest, and a curriculum that is for the most part based on rote learning just does not work. I am no expert whatsoever on teaching but I have often felt we have had some of the most overcrowded class sizes in Europe which has lead to a whole host of problems that do not have easy solutions.