Is English part of your education?

[betita03]

In our country, even if we uses our native language in school, English is still a major part of our curriculum from pre-school to college. In discussing science, mathematics and technical subjects, we also uses English language and that made us know English even at young age.

How about in your country, is English also part of your education?

[Fabrice]

In Poland sadly it is not. I really regret this because in my opinion knowing English in the age of the Internet is a must. We have some English courses in colleges, related to what you're studing, but many students who attend to those courses have really little knowledge about the language, so it ends up with a classic "learn->pass the exam->forget" formula.

[LinguaFranka]

I'm from the UK and I feel that our education system fails in its attempts to teach second languages. In times gone by, pupils did a years Latin which gave them a good grounding in  grammar efore they went on to learn French and maybe another language too (usually German or Spanish). Over the last 20 years or so, second language lessons became optional with the result that many pupils didn't bother taking them. The govt are trying to rectify this now but it has left the UK well behind when it comes to language skills.

[lookforuu]

My bachelor degree is an English program, so yea, English is part of the education.

[socialistkoala]

Where I live (Germany), we mostly only have basic english education. If you do not make an effort yourself and had bad luck with teachers in school, you might not be proficient enough to have a proper conversation in english. I think younger generations have it easier now to expose themselves to other languages through the internet and that is a really good starting point, but our educational system is way outdated in my opinion and has to be changed.

[lookforuu]

I guess it also depends on the circumstances. I visited Berlin one time, majority of the people there could speak some English, maybe coz it's the capital. People of other regions might not meet foreigners that often, therefore they don't have chance to practice, so it's not easy to improve it.

[arizona]

In Mauritius, English is the official language and all the courses offered at school are in English. But, it's pretty ironic that we do not use English as frequently as a common language. The common language used over here is french and creole which is french dialect. I wish English was more commonly used as spoken language. 

[Ersatz]

I'm in the US, where obviously English lessons are a major part of education -- lots of focus on grammar etc.  What's sad is that there's very little attention paid to second languages.  It's not offered in my area at all until high school.  We would be able to pick up a language so much faster if we started learning it when we were young and had many years to practice in school.

[Medza]

In Poland sadly it is not. I really regret this because in my opinion knowing English in the age of the Internet is a must. We have some English courses in colleges, related to what you're studing, but many students who attend to those courses have really little knowledge about the language, so it ends up with a classic "learn->pass the exam->forget" formula.

Agreed, I was born in Poland and lived there until I was 11, whilst I can't say what the education system was like beyond primary education, the stuff that we were taught was pretty meaningless. You would learn lists of words such as different animals or kinds of food, but you would rarely apply them in any meaningful form. Instead of learning practical conversational skills, you learn things that you are very unlikely to use in a day to day conversation.

[deyvion]

In Sweden, English is a mandatory subject. A passing grade in English, along with math and Swedish, is required to graduate from year 9. So, yes, English is a very important part of the Swedish education.

[Baem7]

Here in the Philippines, English is part of the curriculum since pre-school. But currently, the Department of Education included a "mother tongue" curriculum in public schools which I think confuses students in spelling words. A few years back when I was in college, they tried to include the "mother tongue" when they teach chemistry and physics, but apparently it just confuses students and it is difficult to translate some words in our native tongue.

[Anderson]

Yes, it's an integral prt of the education system I was raised with.

[Brad]

I think everyone should learn it from a very young age. It really is much easier that way.

[pcgamer]

English was only a trivial part of my education since childhood. I was born and raised in a state where nobody knew how to speak English in the society. It was an alien language for everyone.

I was never taught anything besides A to Z words and some other basic English stuff. I wouldn't have learned to write all these words in a proper sequence if it wasn't for my determination to do well in English. It might sound like I am boasting, but I am only stating a fact.

[NatureSun]

Yes, it's mandatory to learn English here till 10th standard. I think it's really nice that our country implements this as it really is important to learn English in this global environment that our world is today.

Due to this the majority of people understand at least basic English and most are pretty proficient in it.

[Topcho]

Yes it was part of my education ever from first grade, even if my school profile was never English orientated. But I have to say that in my case it wasn't of much use for me. In this case it wasn't the system's faoult exactly. Just teacher kept coming and going and with everyome we started from the beginning. We started from the alphabet like 7 times, which was quite annoying! Later in high school we had 5 hours of English per weekcompared to 3 to 5 hours of French per day, so the focus was on French. And again, the constant change of teachers...

[SpiralArchitect]

English was only a trivial part of my education since childhood. I was born and raised in a state where nobody knew how to speak English in the society. It was an alien language for everyone.

I was never taught anything besides A to Z words and some other basic English stuff. I wouldn't have learned to write all these words in a proper sequence if it wasn't for my determination to do well in English. It might sound like I am boasting, but I am only stating a fact.

On the contrary, English is taught from the age of 5 till 17-18 in India and pretty much everyone who goes to a public school learns it. The level of understanding varies from individual to individual but it is hardly an alien language here. The average Indian doesn't know English but that's because the average Indian is not educated.

Everyone who is educated until class 10th or 11th has at least a rudimentary knowledge of the language.

[Alfonso]

Yes it is. I'm from Manila, Philippines. It is standard for all schools to teach English through preparatory school, elementary, high-school and some years of collage. After all, it is considered the second language in The Philippines after Filipino.

[GetFresh]

I live in the USA and we still have to take English courses.  Every year in school I was always in an English course, 1-12th grade.  Now that i'm in college, I have an prerequisite that requires me to take at least 2 semesters of English.

[thekernel]

Absolutely, it wouldn't make much sense if Canada didn't teach it  . I find it funny that we have two national languages, but only one is mandated throughout every year of education while the other is sort of a sidebar.

[pcgamer]

I live in the USA and we still have to take English courses.  Every year in school I was always in an English course, 1-12th grade.  Now that i'm in college, I have an prerequisite that requires me to take at least 2 semesters of English.

Wow! That's something new. An English course in an English country!

[altrouge]

Well we speak English here in Ireland, so we do have English class, but it's different I guess. Since it's our official language, we don't really learn grammar etc. and such like what other countries would do. However we have things like reading/watching plays (Shakespeare most of the time), comparatives (1 novel, 1 play, 1 film), poetry and other things.

[sayitwell]

I grew up in America but I attended public school all the way up until college.  For some reason my high school offered English composition in the 11th grade which made no sense.  We were learning basic grammar and punctuation at the end of high school.  What were they thinking?  That should have been taught in middle school or at least the first year of high school.

[karmel]

In the Philippines, English is generally used in teaching Math and Science. I think it's because we do not have or most of us are not familiar with the Filipino translations of mathematical and scientific terms. Much more if you're studying in a private school because almost all subjects are taught in English. Most of our textbooks are also written in English.

[DiesIrae]

In the Philippines, English is generally used in teaching Math and Science. I think it's because we do not have or most of us are not familiar with the Filipino translations of mathematical and scientific terms. Much more if you're studying in a private school because almost all subjects are taught in English. Most of our textbooks are also written in English.

I studied in the University of the Philippines and there were attempts to use the native tongue in teaching the sciences and mathematics and I believe those are the classes that people avoided. Fortunately, I didn't get to take any of those because some subjects are hard enough as it is and then you are bombarded by terms you have to translate into English in your head. It's just a mess. Not to be dismissive of my language but if my country wanted to use those terms, we should've started earlier in our education, not when we're in college and are more used to the English terms.