I came across an interesting article on the Spanish government's plans to increase English fluency among Spanish students here .

Here are some excerpts:

" Recent surveys have highlighted the economic opportunities being lost because of Spain's English-language deficiencies and its failure to compete with other EU countries that are more proficient in English.

"According to a survey by Employment and Global Media Consultants, only 1.4% of Spanish university students graduate with the second-language levels (almost always English) necessary to find employment in multinationals. Yet, according to the Department of Philology at the University of Salamanca, 90% of companies in Spain want graduates to be fluent in English as a basic requirement of employment."

I have long been concerned that many of the teachers who teach English in Spain's schools actually have every weak English skills. Some have great difficulty carrying on a conversation in English, and their accents... well.... I find the proposals including international programs, teacher exchanges and overseas stays, as well as using native English speakers in the classrooms encouraging.

There will be a debate on Clil (the program under consideration for state schools) in Cardiff this April, described at the end of the article. Sounds interesting.

I don't agree with this. English is not the only language. Why not offer other languages as well: Mandarin, Arabic, Portuguese, etc? Besides, why this subservient attitude to English: Spanish is not some minor language that no one in other countries speak! I'd hate to see Spain turn into those countries where everyone knows English (eg Netherlands) and you can't learn the native language. I became fluent in Spanish and love the language because I got to practice it when I was in Spain. Try speaking Dutch in Netherlands and you get automatically answered in English. I'd hate to see the same thing happen in my beloved Spain. I know the monolingual Brits and Americans will love this but I think it'd harm Spain's cultural heritage.