ARCHIVED - Murcia near the bottom of the class in English language skills

The level of English is lower in only 2 of Spain’s 17 regions, say EF

The annual survey carried out by EF Education First to evaluate the level of English spoken in countries and regions all over the world has been published this week, and once again the Region of Murcia has fared badly and is placed 15^th in the class consisting of the 17 regions of Spain.

With a score of 53.61 points Murcia has dropped by 0.57 points since last year and is now only ahead of the Balearics and Extremadura, as well as being further behind the national average of 55.46 (also down, by 0.39). Top of the class are the Basque Country (58.06) and Madrid, and it is noticeable that the level of English is reported to be significantly higher in the northern regions than in the south.

According to the EF “Proficiency Index” Spain is now ranked 35^th out of 100 countries included in the survey, and 25^th out of 33 in Europe. Almost all of those below Spain are in eastern Europe, the only exception being Italy, while in the worldwide rankings Spain is below Argentina, Slovakia, Malaysia, Latvia, the Philippines and Hungary. The list is topped by the Netherlands and the Scandinavian countries of Sweden, Norway and Denmark, followed by Singapore, South Africa and Finland.

It is disappointing that the level of English spoken by Spaniards should continue to be lower than in other European countries, especially when such attention has been paid to implementing bilingual programs in State schools throughout the country, and experts attribute this anomaly to a lack of appropriate teacher training.

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