“English is still on the March” by Michelle Caruana-Dingli. 

Every now and again, I question whether our profession will be around in 10 years time; I believe recent reports indicate that we definitely will be. It would be great if you would write in with your comments on this subject. 

40 percent of Europeans “know” English and a further 16 per cent of EU citizens are native speakers. 

Recently a special report was commissioned to analyse the attitudes of members of the European union towards languages, especially the learning of them. More that 15,900 people gave their opinions in the EU survey. These were mainly on: 

      (1) Looking at the role of the Mother tongue. 

      (2) Foreign Languages known and usefulness.

      (3) Use of the foreign language.

      (4) Learning or improving foreign languages. 

      (5) Motivation to learn languages. 

      (6) Importance of speaking foreign languages. 

      (7) Difficulties in learning a foreign language. 

The report is rather comprehensive. A full report in French and summary in (not very good) English may be viewed at http://europa.eu.int/comm/dg10/epo/ 

Following the publication of this report the Economist (24th February) highlighted that 69 per cent of all EU citizens feel that everyone in the EU should be able to speak English, including 66 per cent of the French. 

Lydia Scriha and Mario Vassallo have recently published their research findings in this area; Malta, a Linguistic Landscape. In their concluding remarks say; 

“…when Maltese is in competition with other languages on a global lever, they realize (the Maltese) that Maltese does not have the same market value and power that English and other European languages have. “After all it is economically of paramount importance that we know how to communicate effectively in English. 

After all, as the European report has highlighted “English is the language which is most likely to be selected as that used occasionally on trips abroad”. After all as TEFL teachers we always knew that our bread and butter is the English language. 

Eurobarometer Report 54. Malta – a Linguistic Landscape

Europeans and Languages - L.Scriha & M.Vassallo, Socrates

[This article appeared in the Winter 2001 newsletter]