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The Community of Madrid, the autonomous community that includes the city of Madrid, Spain’s capital, has decided that as of the academic year 2024/25 its schools will limit the bilingual model that has been in operation in its classrooms for almost 20 years.

 

This step has been taken, according to the Education Ministry, after they observed “a decrease” in the knowledge that students obtain both in the subjects that are taught in English and in the English language itself.

 

For instance, up until now it has been common practice in Madrid’s Primary and Secondary schools to teach subjects such as History and Geography in English rather than in Spanish.

 

Regional Education Minister, Emilio Viciana, has confirmed the Geography and History will now be studied in Spanish rather than in English. Sources from the Ministry add that none of the core subjects, which include Spanish Language and Mathematics, will in fact be taught in this second language.

 

“It would make no sense to limit it in one [subject] to apply it in others,” they said.

 

For the next school year in Madrid, English will only be used in optional subjects which have “more project content” and in which “group work” is encouraged to “adapt it to the level of the different students”.

 

“This would allow, to a large extent, to be able to do things as great as studying a speech by Winston Churchill or commenting on a work by William Shakespeare to achieve a development of English adapted to each student,” said the Minister of Education.

 

Along these lines, a report from the Federation of Pedagogical Renewal Movements of Madrid (FMRP) and the Educational Action Pedagogical Renewal Movement made public on November 29 was shown in which more than 80% of teachers assured that bilingual education, implemented in the Community of Madrid since 2004 with Esperanza Aguirre as regional president, reduced the depth of the content that teachers could go into. The same study indicates that 7 out of 10 teachers do not have a sufficient level of English to teach a subject in English.