This year the European Day of Languages celebrates its 11th
birthday. The day is celebrated in many countries which
with different activities point out the richness of
linguistic diversity and the importance of learning foreign
languages, the binding element of European integration.
Special importance is focused on learning less widely
spoken languages that people learn more rarely, languages
of migrants and sign languages.
The European Day of Languages should also promote lifelong
language learning for personal growth, for full
participation in democratic societies of Europe and for
professional development.
There are more than 6,000 languages in the world and behind
every one is a different culture. The European Day of
Languages tries to emphasise the importance of languages,
their diversity and the fact that learning languages can be
fun. One of the UNESCO priorities is to promote
multilingualism and linguistic diversity and to protect
endangered languages. People in Slovenia the most frequently
learn English Slovenia too focuses much attention on language
learning. Many children start to learn foreign languages
already in pre-school as many kindergartens offer language
learning as a supplementary activity. In the school year
2010/11, 3,800 children (4.7% of all) were learning foreign
languages. The importance of early foreign language learning
reflects in elementary schools, since all school children in
the second triad (4th, 5th and 6th grades) and, of course,
all school children in the third triad (7th, 8th and 9th
grades) learn foreign languages. In the last three grades of
the nine-year elementary school 46% of school children select
a second foreign language as an optional subject in addition
to the compulsory foreign language. Some elementary school
children learn a foreign language already in the first three
grades of elementary school. From the school year 2013/14 on
a foreign language will be part of the compulsory curriculum
from 1st grade on. Learning at least one foreign language in
elementary school is compulsory in all EU-27 Member States,
except in Ireland, while learning a second foreign language
is usually optional. With the average of 1.4 foreign
languages, Slovenia is still below the EU average in terms of
foreign language learning in elementary schools, which is 1.5
languages. Luxembourg with 2.5 foreign languages is by far
the first. In Luxembourg children learn two foreign languages
already at the lowest level of compulsory education. More
than two foreign languages are taught in elementary schools
in Finland, Malta and the Netherlands. Upper secondary school
pupils in Slovenia learn on average 1.6 foreign languages In
upper secondary schools all pupils are learning at least one
foreign language and over 60% learn a second foreign language
as part of the compulsory curriculum or as an optional
subject. With 1.6 foreign languages, Slovenia is ranked
eighth in the EU with Sweden, Poland, Latvia and Bulgaria.
Luxembourg is first with 2.4, followed by Estonia with 2.2
and by Romania, Cyprus, Slovakia, France and Belgium. More
than a third of the population in Slovenia speak three or
more foreign languages What exactly is the language
competence of people in Slovenia was not known for a long
time. The data were collected with the international Adult
Education Survey conducted for the first time in 2007 and
again in 2011. Within this survey selected respondents were
asked about their language competence. The collected data for
2011 show that 93% of people in Slovenia aged 18-69 speak at
least one foreign language, of whom 15% speak only one
foreign language, 32% speak two foreign languages and as many
as 45% speak three or more foreign languages.
In 2007, 20.5% of people spoke one foreign language, 37.2%
spoke two foreign languages and 34.1% spoke three or more
foreign languages. The share of people speaking three or more
foreign languages thus increased by as much as 11 percentage
points over 2007.
As regards foreign language competence, in 2007 Slovenia was
ranked close to the top of the European countries behind
Lithuania, Norway, Sweden, Latvia and Slovakia. However, we
have to point out that in 2007 the survey covered the
generation that had to study Serbo-Croatian as a compulsory
school subject. Serbo-Croatian is now a foreign language and
after English and German the third foreign language most
frequently spoken by people in Slovenia aged 18-69.
Differences in language competence by age and educationThere
are differences in language competence in terms of age group
and the respondents' level of education:
-
In 2007, English was spoken by three quarters of people
aged 25-34, by almost half of people aged 35-49 and by
more than a quarter of people aged 50-64 let. In 2011,
the share in the age group 25-34 increased to 85%, in the
age group 35-49 to 67% and in the age group 50-64 to
45%.
-
In 2011, German was spoken by about 47% of people aged
25-64; the differences between individual age groups are
much smaller. The number of people who speak German is no
longer the highest in the age group 50-64 as it was in
2007 but in the age group 25-34. This is understandable
because more and more young people in upper secondary
education learn a second foreign language, the most
frequent being German. German as the first foreign
language is gradually disappearing from school curricula
in elementary and upper secondary schools. In the school
year 1977/78 German was studied as the first foreign
language by 25% of elementary and upper secondary school
pupils, while in the school year 2010/2011 the share was
less than 3% for elementary school pupils and less than
7% for upper secondary school pupils.
-
In 2011, Italian was spoken by 15% of people aged 25-64;
the percentages for all three age groups are exactly the
same. Compared to 2007, the share of people speaking
Italian increased by almost 5 percentage points.
French and Russian are spoken and learned by few peopleFrench
is spoken by 5% and Russian by 6% of people aged 25-64.
French speakers are relatively equally distributed in all age
groups, while most people speaking Russian belong to the
oldest age group. This is the result of the fact that French
and Russian are disappearing from upper secondary school
curricula, even the curricula of general upper secondary
schools known as gymnasia. As regards gymnasia, in the school
year 1977/78, which is as far back as the data are available,
French as a second foreign language was studied by more than
42% of pupils, German by 34% of pupils, and Russian by more
than 10% of pupils. In the school year 2010/11 French as a
second foreign language was studied by only 9% of pupils,
while Russian, with only few exceptions, is no longer part of
the curriculum. Nowadays, 62% of pupils in gymnasia select
German as the second foreign language. English is spoken by
92% of people with tertiary education and 70% of people with
upper secondary education Knowledge of foreign languages to a
large extent depends on a person's level of education.
English is spoken by 92% of people with tertiary education
and by 70% of people with upper secondary education aged
18-69. Among people with elementary education or less the
share is 33%. People aged 15-69 who speak German, Italian,
French or Russian mostly finished tertiary education. The
reasons are largely connected with changes in elementary and
upper secondary school curricula, because French and Russian
were replaced by ever more popular Spanish. Chart 1: Share of
people aged 18-69 by education and knowledge of foreign
languages
Source: Adult Education Survey, 2011
For 13% of people in Slovenia Slovene is a foreign language
For 87% of people in Slovenia Slovene is their mother tongue,
while for 13% of people it is a foreign language. According
to the results of the international Adult Education Survey
conducted in 2007, Slovene was spoken by 3.4% of people in
Croatia, 0.8% of people in Austria and 0.1% of people in
Lithuania. Knowledge of Slovene as a foreign language was
stated also by respondents in the Czech Republic, Slovakia,
Hungary, Italy, Germany and even Sweden and Cyprus. Interest
of foreigners to learn Slovene is growing
In the school year 2010/11 educational institutions
teaching foreign languages organised 3,000 language courses
and recorded 20,000 participants, which is slightly fewer
than in the previous years.
Most participants attended English language courses, while
the second most popular language was German. Interest of
foreigners in learning Slovene is growing; they represent
almost 17% of participants in language course, which is 6
percentage points more than in the previous year and almost
five times more than in the school year 2005/2006.
Interest in learning French and Italian remained the same,
while slightly more people wanted to learn Spanish and
slightly fewer wanted to learn Russian.
In addition to the mentioned languages, participants in
language courses learned Hungarian, Dutch, Portuguese and
Swedish as well as Japanese, Chinese and Arabic.
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