Investigación y Desarrollo • Volumen 11 • 2016 • Diciembre • Nº 1 • ISSN: 1390-5546 / e-ISSN: 2361-2557

Frustration and hope: a review of the response undertaken in national education programmes

to lower-than-expected rates of foreign language acquisition.

ISSN: 1390 - 5546 / e-ISSN: 2361-2557

ARTÍCULO RECIBIDO: 21/11/16

ARTÍCULO ACEPTADO: 30/11/18

FRUSTRATION AND HOPE: A REVIEW OF THE RESPONSE UNDERTAKEN IN NATIONAL

EDUCATION PROGRAMMES TO LOWER-THAN-EXPECTED

RATES OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE ACQUISITION.

FRUSTRACIÓN Y ESPERANZA: UN ANÁLISIS DE LAS MEDIDAS ADOPTADAS EN LOS

PROGRAMAS DE EDUCACIÓN NACIONAL ANTE LAS TASAS INFERIORES

A LAS ESPERADAS EN LA ADQUISICIÓN DE IDIOMAS EXTRANJEROS.

Roger Edwards / University of Newcastle upon Tyne / rs.edwards2@newcastle.ac.uk

ABSTRACT

his review and discussion focused on surveys and reports regarding the rate of foreign language acquisition and attainment within national

compulsory education systems, academic analyses of the results obtained, and national programmes and initiatives designed to address the

shortcomings revealed in them. The proposed reasons for lower-than-expected acquisition and attainment in foreign language learning within

countries including the European Union, Colombia, Vietnam and Ecuador were reviewed in detail. These reasons, and the measures undertaken as

a result to remedy these ﬂaws, were evaluated through a comparison with recent academic research relating to these factors, and through com-

parison between the different experiences revealed in the surveys and reports. These comparisons found that some of the measures undertaken

were ﬁt for purpose and were likely to yield some improvements in acquisition rate, although to a lesser extent than those projected by some of the

national programmes, while identifying some aspects which have been overlooked. The conclusion highlighted in which aspects of the teaching

and learning of foreign languages requires greater focus is needed in order to effect the desired changes.

Investigación y Desarrollo • Revista de Divulgación Científica y Cultural • Volumen 11

Diciembre 2016 • PP 5 -16 • Dirección de Investigación y Desarrollo • U.T.A. • Ambato - Ecuador

RESUMEN

ste artículo de revisión y discusión se centró en los sondeos e informes sobre la tasa de adquisición y rendimiento en los idiomas extranjeros

dentro de los sistemas de educación nacionales obligatorios, los análisis académicos de los resultados obtenidos, y los programas e iniciativas

destinados a remediar las falencias identiﬁcadas. Las posibles causas del bajo rendimiento, menor al esperado, en la adquisición de idiomas ex-

tranjeros, observadas en algunos países de la Unión Europea, Colombia, Vietnam y Ecuador, se revisaron en detalle. Estos motivos y las medidas

adoptadas como consecuencia para remediar las falencias fueron evaluados por medio de una comparación con investigaciones académicas

recientes, así como entre las distintas experiencias recopiladas en los sondeos e informes. Como consecuencia de estas comparaciones, se

concluyó que algunas de las medidas adoptadas sí son las adecuadas, y que darán lugar a una mejoría en la tasa de adquisición del idioma

extranjero, aunque en menor grado que lo proyectado por algunos de los programas nacionales, y a la vez se identiﬁcarán otros aspectos que

no han sido tomados en cuenta. La conclusión resaltó en cuales aspectos de la enseñanza y aprendizaje de idiomas extranjeros es necesario un

mayor enfoque para poder efectuar los cambios proyectados.

Key words:

EFL, acquisition, education, policy

Palabras clave:

EFL, adquisición, educación, políticas

Roger Edwards

Investigación y Desarrollo • Volumen 11 • 2016 • Diciembre • Nº 1 • ISSN: 1390-5546 / e-ISSN: 2361-2557

INTRODUCTION

n 2014, launching their second national programme for the

reinforcement of English language teaching and learning, the

Colombian Ministry of Education made this important reﬂection:

Las horas asignadas a inglés en teoría son suﬁcientes

para alcanzar los niveles de la aspiración si fueran horas

de la mejor calidad en un ambiente de aprendizaje con

buenas condiciones [The hours assigned to English

are, in theory, sufﬁcient to reach the levels aspired

to, only if they are the best of quality and hours, in a

learning environment of a good standard]. (Ministerio de

Educación Nacional [MEN], 2014, p. 46)

The aspirations referenced here were that nearly half of the

student population reach level B2 by the end of high school

education. The following reﬂection is a common one: how many

hours of instruction are necessary to become fully independent in

a foreign language, and which variables delay or even altogether

impede the attainment of this level?

This same question has been raised by many other countries in

recent years. Latin America and South-East Asia, in particular,

are areas where national initiatives have been undertaken, and

are currently in progress at analysing why the many hours given

over to English instruction in school and university systems have

not resulted in a higher level of attainment. The standard being

sought in the long term is a B2 level of the CEFR (MEN, 2014;

Ortega & Argudo, 2016; Nguyen, 2017), with a C1 level required

for some university language programmes. These aspirations,

and the reason why certain levels of attainment are important to

the governments and economies of the countries concerned, are

summarised in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Schematic of the levels of the CEFR used as references in the review.

Source: compiled by author based on data in MEN (2014); Ortega & Argudo (2016); Nguyen (2017).

his review discusses the objectives and interim results of

national programmes in Vietnam (British Council Vietnam,

2018; Nguyen, 2017; Tuyet, 2015); Colombia (Bonilla & Tejado-

Sánchez, 2016; British Council, 2015a; Portafolio, 2015; MEN,

2014); and Ecuador (Ortega & Argudo, 2016; British Council,

2015b; Ministerio de Educación del Ecuador [Mineduc],

2014; Ureña, 2014). Moreover, a number of countries within

the European Union have experienced disappointing rates of

progress in languages, as reported and analysed following the

First European Survey of Languages Competences, (Costa &

Almeida, 2015; Araujo & Costa, 2013; European Commission,

2012), and their results are reviewed here.

The actions undertaken, or suggested courses of action proposed

by academics and authorities in these different contexts, are

reviewed and compared to the ﬁndings and recommendations

of a number of established historical studies and observations

of factors affecting the rate of acquisition (Spolsky, 2014, 1989;

Muñoz & Singleton, 2011; Muñoz, 2006; Zarker, 2000; Jackson

& Kaplan, 1999). The discussion and conclusions highlight those

aspects of the initiatives and analyses which are ﬁt for purpose,

while recommending changes to those aspects in which

resources have been mis-directed and are unlikely to yield much

progress in the rate of acquisition.

Investigación y Desarrollo • Volumen 11 • 2016 • Diciembre • Nº 1 • ISSN: 1390-5546 / e-ISSN: 2361-2557

Frustration and hope: a review of the response undertaken in national education programmes

to lower-than-expected rates of foreign language acquisition.

METHODOLOGY

Criteria used for the selection

of data for the study

anguage acquisition is a vast topic: Spolsky (1989, 2014

identiﬁed 74 conditions which inﬂuence successful learning,

while other authors have suggested more factors. Therefore,

it is necessary to deﬁne the parameters of the present review

and discussion and to set aside those factors which will have no

bearing on the discussion here.

Firstly, all of the contexts discussed refer to the length of the

acquisition process of a foreign language, and therefore

exclude any discussion of acquisition rates for students learning

within an L2 community. The study contemplates chieﬂy the

experiences of students who learn the L2 in a classroom and/or

through self-study from within their own country. However, some

consideration is given to the minority who receive an amount of

additional exposure from within their own countries, sufﬁcient to

be regarded as a degree of immersion in the target language,

and the opportunities for implicit learning that may result (Muñoz

& Singleton, 201; DeKeyser, 2003).

Secondly, this discussion is based upon studies of large

populations derived from national statistics. It, therefore,

necessarily excludes the effects of individual variation in

acquisition rate. Spolsky (1989, p. 15) postulated the formula:

K(f) = K(p) + A + M + O

where K(f) is the future level of competence of the L2 being

aimed for, and is to be achieved by taking K(p) (the current level

of competence) and adding to it A, which is the individual’s

ability for languages; M, which are the individual’s motivational

factors; and O, which are the external opportunities for language

learning and acquisition. For the purposes of this review and

discussion, the considerations corresponding to factor ‘A’ are of

no relevance. Furthermore, considerations pertaining to factor

‘M’ are not relevant, except where motivational factors may

be identiﬁed as common to a student population as a whole.

Therefore, the ‘opportunity’ factors are the variables bearing

upon rate of progress and attainment to be considered. Here, this

study follows the criteria adopted by several of the contributors

to the Spolsky and Sung (2014) examination of conditions for

English language teaching and learning in Asia (see for example,

Moon, 2014, pp. 167-184).

Criteria used for the evaluation

of national programmes

here are no universally accepted research results on how

many hours of total study are required to reach a speciﬁed

level of competence in a foreign language. One source of

ofﬁcial data for which there are reliable details concerning the

background and study habits of students was provided by The

Foreign Service Institute (FSI). The FSI, a U.S. government body

which trains diplomats in almost all world languages, produced

an inﬂuential report (Jackson & Kaplan, 1999) which indicated

average times for the acquisition of a B2/C1 borderline equivalent

level of competence in different languages. For languages of the

same linguistic branch, for example English and Spanish, they

claimed around 600 classroom hours are required, based upon

the results obtained by their students. This coincides with the

recommendation of Cambridge English Assessment (2017) and

the Alliance Française [French language-teaching organisation]

(2017) for the same level of competence in their respective

languages. These institutions both claim that level B2 may be

achieved within 500 and 600 hours of guided instruction. These

ﬁgures provide a guideline for comparisons with the situation

in the different countries in this review. Figure 2 shows the

current expected level of attainment, based on an average of all

the data available from the countries and regions here reviewed,

in comparison with the expectations of the FSI and Cambridge

Assessment.

Figure 2. Expected level of attainment after 600 hours of instruction.

Source: Developed by the author based on Araujo & Costa (2013); MEN (2014); Ortega & Argudo (2016); Nguyen (2017).

Roger Edwards

Investigación y Desarrollo • Volumen 11 • 2016 • Diciembre • Nº 1 • ISSN: 1390-5546 / e-ISSN: 2361-2557

In combination with the maximal expectations shown here, it

is necessary to consider the circumstances in which students

of the FSI (Jackson & Kaplan, 1999), or those who study for

the higher-level Cambridge certiﬁcates (Cambridge English

Assessment, 2017) learn the target language. These can then

be used to evaluate the measures and policies adopted by the

national programmes in this review.

The FSI points out that their data are average learning times under

very speciﬁc conditions, which had been, in their view, optimised

for their circumstances (Jackson & Kaplan, 1999). These may be

considered the factors of ‘opportunity’:

RESULTS

Data from national surveys

of attainment in foreign languages

he language survey carried out by the European Commission

in 2012 revealed statistics regarding attainment among

adolescents (average age 15) across 14 countries of the

European Union (EU). Tomasi (2017, pp.123-124) reported that

“the level of independent user (B1+B2) is achieved by only 42%

of tested students in the ﬁrst foreign language.” This overall

statistic masks considerable variation among the participant

countries, and results from selected countries with differing

levels of attainment can be seen in Table 1.

Table 1. Countries representing lower, middle and upper ranges of attainment in languages.

Source: data compiled by author from European Commission (2012).

The situation among language students in Colombia is

considerably further from achieving expectations (see Figure 3

for a comparison of EU, Colombia and Vientnam): 59% of school

students up to 11th Grade showed an effective knowledge

of English at A0/A1, with only 6% achieving B1 level in 2013

(Bonilla & Tejado-Sánchez, 2016). For most university students

in Colombia, continued English instruction is obligatory with at

least 200 (and often considerably more) classroom hours being

provided at this level. In 2012, 8% of these students achieved

level B2 following these additional hours of instruction, with over

60% remaining at A1 level (MEN, 2014).

In Vietnam, the statistics for high school students are very similar.

The average 16-year-old accumulates 600 hours of English

language instruction, and is at the A0/A1 level. Admittedly,

English is considered by many linguists harder to access for

Vietnamese speakers than for Spanish speakers (Jackson &

Kaplan, 1999), but the reported progress is slower than both

the FSI’s estimates, and the expectations of those involved in

language education in Vietnam:

98% of Vietnamese students study English for 7 years but

are unable to use it in basic communication. On average,

only those who major in the language can score 5 out of

10 in the National English Entrance Exams to university.

After entering university, most have to restart at beginner

level. (Nhan, 2013, p. 147)

• Recommended class size at the FSI was a maximum of 6

for English learners of Spanish or French.

• The learners were all highly motivated, both intrinsically

and extrinsically.

• The teachers were all trained native speakers, or at least

functionally bilingual.

• A variety of approaches and learning formats were

employed, including some level of immersion in the L2.

Furthermore, all students in the FSI, and most students studying

for higher level Cambridge English assessments (Cambridge

English Assessment, 2017) and higher level French assessments

(DELF-DALF, 2018), are adults, or older adolescents. This is the

ﬁrst factor to be evaluated in the following discussion.

Investigación y Desarrollo • Volumen 11 • 2016 • Diciembre • Nº 1 • ISSN: 1390-5546 / e-ISSN: 2361-2557

Frustration and hope: a review of the response undertaken in national education programmes

to lower-than-expected rates of foreign language acquisition.

Figure 3. Level of attainment at the end of compulsory education.

Source: compiled by author based on data from European Commission (2012),

Colombia from MEN (2014), and Vietnam from Nhan (2013).

Finally, Ecuador reports a similar experience to that seen in

Colombia and Vietnam. In the case of Ecuador, alarm at the very

low level of attainment of English students led to the CRADLE

initiative, followed by the current programme of Reinforcement of

English Language Teaching (Ortega & Argudo, 2016; Ministerio

de Educación de Ecuador [Mineduc], 2014). Slight improvement

was afterwards recorded in the level of English in the population

as a whole, but Ecuador remains below Colombia in standardised

international proﬁciency indices (Education First, 2017a, 2017b).

Clearly, in these last three cases, each in themselves fairly

representative of their wider regions (Education First, 2017a),

(Education First, 2017b), as well as in some countries within

the European Union (Araujo & Costa, 2013), rates of English

language acquisition, both in secondary and in tertiary education,

have been historically very low when compared to the potential

for attainment highlighted in Figure 1. They remain relatively low

despite some years of targeted intervention (Bonilla & Tejado-

Sánchez, 2016; Nguyen, 2017; Ureña, 2014).

There are many inter-connected factors within the ‘opportunity’

conditions for foreign language acquisition (see for example

Spolsky & Sung, 2014). Those which have been highlighted and

explicitly addressed in the reports and initiatives commissioned

by national governments and the European Commission are

evaluated in the following section.

DISCUSSION

Factor 1: hours of study versus age of students

s was summarised in a thorough review of studies of the

inﬂuence of learner age on rates of acquisition by Muñoz

and Singleton (2011), adults and older adolescents experience

a considerably higher rate of L2 acquisition than young

adolescents, although the rates do begin to converge in most skill

areas after several hundreds of hours of instruction, according to

the Barcelona Age Factor Project (Muñoz, 2006).

Therefore, 600 hours of instruction for adults will equate to a

higher level of attainment than 600 hours between late childhood

and mid-adolescence. In all of the countries reviewed here,

current compulsory provision of English language instruction

amounts to at least 600 hours accrued by 15/16 years of age,

with some areas providing up to 900 hours, (Araujo & Costa,

2013; Bonilla & Tejado-Sánchez, 2016; Ortega & Argudo, 2016).

Consequently, are the countries surveyed here justiﬁed in their

frustration or alarm at the slow rate of progress? According to

Roger Edwards

Investigación y Desarrollo • Volumen 11 • 2016 • Diciembre • Nº 1 • ISSN: 1390-5546 / e-ISSN: 2361-2557

the tendencies reported by the Barcelona Age Factor Project

(Muñoz, 2006), 600 hours of instruction between late childhood

and mid-adolescence is sufﬁcient to bring a majority of students to

B1 level. If this analysis is applied to some areas of the European

Union, then it would seem there is no justiﬁcation for frustration, as

adolescent learners are making the expected rate of progress for

their age (see for example, statistics for Slovenia, Greece and the

Netherlands, in European Commission, 2012). In other areas of

Europe, the majority of students are at A2 level or below, following

600 hours of instruction, which is certainly less than expected.

Araujo and Costa (2013) see the age of beginning training in

the foreign language as an essential ‘opportunity’ for inﬂuencing

attainment by the end of compulsory education: “In general,

with respect to system-level policies, we can say that the

most signiﬁcant effect is the onset of language learning” (p.

28). However, in Vietnam, Colombia and Ecuador (Nguyen,

2017), (Bonilla & Tejado-Sánchez, 2016), (Ureña, 2014), and

in some European nations (see statistics, for example, for the

U.K., France, Poland, Spain in European Commission, 2012),

the rate of acquisition by mid-adolescence is so slow it seems

that considerably reducing the age of onset would have little

additional impact. Earlier onset has been a recommendation in

both Colombia and Ecuador (see, for example MEN, 2014, 2015),

and yet if 600 hours between ages 10 and 16 has produced an

attainment of level A1 at best, it seems unlikely that a further 300

hours between ages 6 and 10 will move students much further

towards a level B1, or indeed B2, by age 16.

On the contrary, if rates of acquisition are far slower among children

than among older adolescents, as a large number of studies have

shown (Muñoz & Singleton, 2011), then those countries with low

attainment by 16 should rather invest only in post-16 compulsory

foreign language tuition. Mandatory university-level English

instruction has been embraced by both Colombia and Ecuador,

but at the same time as their having dedicated scarce resources

to primary-level English teaching (British Council 2015a; British

Council 2015b). Certain government policy may be mistakenly

guided by the Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH) (Colombo, 1982)

which suggests that native-like attainment may only result from

some degree of L2 immersion during childhood. The CPH is itself

a matter of considerable debate (Muñoz & Singleton, 2011), but, in

any event, it has not been shown that failure to attain a B2 level is

linked to a lack of early-childhood learning opportunities.

Factor 2: class size

ithin the education systems of the European Union,

Vietnam, Colombia and Ecuador, class size is rarely less

than 25, and may often be closer to 40 students (British Council,

2015a; British Council, 2015b; Araujo & Costa, 2013). There

is no consensus on how class size correlates to attainment in

language learning. Zarker’s extensive survey of the impact of

class size on both language learning and on other subjects

suggested that the quantiﬁable beneﬁts may be in the range of

a few percentage points (Zarker, 2000). This is supported by

the conclusions of Araujo and Costa (2013) who stated: “there

is little effect of classroom size in foreign language learning” (p.

28), and they even maintained that reduced class size coincided

with lower attainment in some instances.

The indication that very large classes may be a threat to learning

has been put forward by British Council reports (British Council,

2015b), but without suggesting any strong correlations. On the

other hand, a number of small-scale studies do show considerable

differences in learning progress (see for example, Yi, 2008) and

certainly private academies and specialist language institutes

around the world insist on reduced class sizes as a key beneﬁt

for learners.

None of the surveys and national programmes recommended a

signiﬁcant reduction in class size within their public education

systems (MEN, 2014; Nguyet, 2017; Education First, 2017a,

2017b; Araujo & Costa, 2013). Certainly, class size in countries

whose education system produces close-to-expected progress

in the acquisition of English, such as the Netherlands or Sweden,

class sizes are no different to those with poorer results (Araujo

& Costa, 2013). Therefore, in the light of much contradictory

evidence, and certainly with no clear indication of a positive

correlation between class size and an improved rate of acquisition,

all of the initiatives and recommendations surveyed are correct

not to prioritise this factor by assigning scarce funding to smaller

classes.

Factor 3: average levels of motivation

he average level of motivation of the students within the

European survey was well below those described by the

FSI (Araujo & Costa, 2013). Intrinsic motivation was particularly

low compared with students who voluntarily attend classes at

Investigación y Desarrollo • Volumen 11 • 2016 • Diciembre • Nº 1 • ISSN: 1390-5546 / e-ISSN: 2361-2557

Frustration and hope: a review of the response undertaken in national education programmes

to lower-than-expected rates of foreign language acquisition.

private language academies or as part of specialist programmes.

However, Araujo and Costa found no positive correlation between

intrinsic interest in language learning and attainment in European

countries, and in some instances the opposite was true (2013,

pp. 36-37).

The extrinsic motivations resulting from having made English

study obligatory for high school or even for university graduation

(British Council, 2015a; Consejo de Educación Superior, 2013)

are certainly strong, but a greater, albeit emerging, motivation

may come from the phenomenon of the imaginary international

English language community described by Canh (2014). In

his study into language learning in Vietnam, Canh argues that

globalised communication and interaction on economic, cultural

and sporting themes have created an ‘imagined community’ to

which most learners desire to have a connection. Therefore,

traditional discussions of acculturation (Schumann, 1985) and

integration to a speciﬁc group, previously more applicable to

second language acquisition studies (Dornyei, 2001), may

be substituted for a desire to belong to this ‘imagined’ global

community and be equally felt by students of English as a foreign

language in any context.

In the case of Colombia, the government has attempted to force

a cultural shift towards an internationally-integrated population

through the Colombia Bilingüe programme (Portafolio, 2015;

British Council, 2015a). However there is no evidence as yet

whether integration can successfully be made a national policy

in this way. In any event, the permeation of this international

English-speaking culture into society is universal and seemingly

irresistible, and is therefore outside of the control of government

initiatives. The impact of this motivational factor on rates of

English acquisition remain to be seen and should be the subject

of future study in national programmes.

Factor 4: teachers’ linguistic competence

o return to the limitations highlighted above by the Colombian

Ministry of Education (MEN, 2014) (see introduction), the

quality of the hour’s instruction is seen to be fundamental in

determining the learners’ rate of progress. The factor most

frequently highlighted in the national programmes surveyed here

(Tuyet, 2015; MEN, 2014; British Council, 2015b) is teachers’

linguistic knowledge, that is, language skills, vocabulary and

grammatical knowledge of the target language.

National testing of English language teachers in 2010 revealed that

29% of all staff working in the Colombian public sector were at the

B2 level. Following efforts, this percentage increased to 43% in

2013, leading to the current initiative, Colombia Bilingüe, which

seeks to have all English teachers at B2 level or above by 2025.

A similar case is reported by the British Council in Vietnam, where

they collaborate in teacher training with the Vietnamese Ministry

of Education and Training [MOET]. Starting from 2008, MOET

raised the target for linguistic standards for English teachers

to B2 for all English teachers, and C1 for high school teachers

(British Council, 2018, para. 1).

This initiative came in response to the results of a nationwide

test of English teachers’ ability at the B2 level. Only 3% of high

school teachers passed the test, with some 17% of primary

school teachers being found to be at the A1 level, which led

MOET to conclude that lack of student progress, despite

receiving hundreds of hours of instruction, is due to professional

inadequacy (Tuyet, 2015).

In Ecuador in 2012, less than 1% of teachers in the public sector

were found to be at level B2 (Ecuador tiene falencias [Ecuador has

ﬂaws], n.d.). The Ecuadorian government then established, and

currently maintains, the requirement that all specialist English

teachers have at least a B2 level of competence. However, this

remains far from being achieved. As in Colombia and Vietnam,

the Ecuadorian government (Mineduc, 2014) places the greatest

emphasis on the correlation between the linguistic competence

of teachers and an adequate rate of foreign language acquisition

among students (Ureña, 2014).

One criterion of minimum linguistic competence is provided

by Cambridge English (2018) in the DELTA teacher training

programme. A minimum of C1 is required for teachers to be

considered proﬁcient, or expert according to their assessment

criteria. This level is generally achieved in Europe, where

teachers’ subject knowledge of the target language is ranged

between B2 and C2 (European Commission 2012, pp. 206-

207). Most language teachers in the public sector are required

to have at least a bachelor’s degree or equivalent in the relevant

language, which in most European countries corresponds to

a C1 level. In many cases, a large number of native-speaker

teachers are employed. In Malta, 54% of public sector English

teachers are native speakers. In Spain, France, Sweden and

the Netherlands, the porcentage of native speakers is 20%

(European Commission, 2012).

Roger Edwards

Investigación y Desarrollo • Volumen 11 • 2016 • Diciembre • Nº 1 • ISSN: 1390-5546 / e-ISSN: 2361-2557

Figure 4. Level of CEFR competence in language teachers.

Source: compiled by author based on data in Jackson & Kaplan (1999);

European Commission (2012); MEN (2014); Nhan (2013).

There seems to be a strong correlation between teacher linguistic

level and student attainment across all of the regions reviewed

here. However, many European countries, including France,

Spain and the UK, are far from achieving expected progress,

despite the linguistic expertise of their teaching staff (see

table 1). Vietnam, Colombia and Ecuador are right to place a

strong emphasis on teacher subject knowledge, but they should

not expect that remedying this factor alone will lead to better

attainment, if this were the case, most European countries would

already be achieving expected levels of attainment.

Factor 5: other aspects of instructional quality

he quality of instruction involves many factors, such as

the teacher’s classroom practice, their knowledge of

methodologies, and their classroom management skills, as well as

resources such as the quality, or indeed availability of textbooks.

The nature of the learning curriculum and of teacher training

in generally accepted pedagogical methods has largely been

standardised in most educational contexts, especially following

the adoption of the Common European Framework of Reference

for Languages by most countries (MEN, 2014), which demands

an emphasis on communicative competence, and due to

collaborations with expert international organisations such as

the British Council (British Council, 2018; British Council 2015a,

2015b), as well as the use of internationally published textbooks

which conform to accepted standards. However, there is evidence

of continued inefﬁcient practices in the language classroom,

such as avoidance of the L2 for instruction and a perpetuation

of grammar-translation techniques (Espinosa, 2015), which may

offset some of the advantages of teacher linguistic competence.

Nonetheless, within Europe, Araujo and Costa (2013) found no

evidence that differing approaches and methodologies had any

signiﬁcant impact on language acquisition (pp. 33-34), and

Spolsky ﬁnds no variation in approach to be directly correlated

with acquisition: “Any intelligent and disinterested observer knows

that there are many ways to learn languages and many ways to

teach them, and that some ways work with some students in

some circumstances and fail with others” (Spolsky, 1989, p. 383).

A qualitative factor found to be signiﬁcant by Araujo and Costa

(2013, p. 35) is described as how good language lessons are

perceived to be by students. For example, where a teacher

prefers to engage their students with low-level cognitive tasks,

such as copying texts, or appears to take little interest in student

learning, it is likely that learning will be impeded. This general

quality of lesson may be one of the most signiﬁcant factors

inﬂuencing the rate of learning, and this is certainly manifested by

the national school inspectorate in the UK (Ofsted, 2015). Their

report into modern foreign language learning [MFL] from 11-14

years old observed that “too often, inspectors found teaching

that failed to challenge and engage pupils” and concluded that

“achievement was not good enough in just under half of the MFL

classes observed” (Ofsted, 2015 p. 5).

Figure 4 illustrates the different levels of competence in the

different countries and regions in this review, and compares

them to standards at the FSI.

Investigación y Desarrollo • Volumen 11 • 2016 • Diciembre • Nº 1 • ISSN: 1390-5546 / e-ISSN: 2361-2557

Frustration and hope: a review of the response undertaken in national education programmes

to lower-than-expected rates of foreign language acquisition.

The UK was in last place in the European Survey of Languages,

although with reference to the teaching of French and Spanish

as foreign languages, rather than English. Results were similar to

those seen in Latin America and Vietnam, that is, 80% at level A1

or below (European Commission, 2012, p. 232). There may be

parallels to be drawn between this situation and those of Colombia,

Ecuador or Vietnam, yet there are no published inspectorate

reports pertaining to the quality of lessons in these countries.

Whereas, in Colombia, respondents in surveys manifested a

positive opinion of the general quality of language lessons at

school and university (British Council, 2015a, pp. 55-56), (British

Council 2015b). Greater rigour and transparency in inspections

and lesson observations may lead to much needed reform in this

area. On the other hand, in the UK, MFL attainment has plateaued

for many years despite this transparency (Tinsley & Board, 2017).

Factor 6: exposure to the foreign language out-

side of the classroom

n some countries, such as Sweden, the Netherlands and Malta,

a majority of students do reach level B2 by the end of high

school (Costa & Almeida, 2015). In these European countries,

the target language enjoys a very strong presence in the cultural

and working environment, allowing students hundreds, or even

thousands, of additional hours of passive exposure. The level

of impact on language acquisition of such passive exposure

outside of the target language country, as part of foreign, rather

than second language learning, has not been reliably quantiﬁed.

However there is certainly a consensus that the presence of the

target language in the environment is a strong complement to

language acquisition (Costa & Almeida, 2014; British Council,

2015a, 2015b).

The opportunities for passive exposure include English language

television and ﬁlm, is readily available in several countries (Costa

& Almeida, 2014). Its impact is stronger in listening skills, as

may be seen in the data compiled by the First European Survey

on Language Competences (European Commission, 2012) and

summarised in Table 2 below. Countries whose television and

cinema are dominated by original version English language

content higher score in listening skills:

Table 2. Top EU countries by listening skill

Ecuadorians who consider themselves ﬂuent in English certainly

place great importance on this aspect of acquisition:

The largest shares of those that felt conﬁdent in their

English skills (advanced and ﬂuent) said that it was due

to social and cultural factors such as watching English

language ﬁlms and television (29%), listening to music

with English lyrics (22%) and speaking English with friends

(15%) and at work (15%) (British Council, 2015b, p. 40).

A similar situation was reported in Colombia (British Council,

2015a). However, this survey refers to those who already see

themselves as very competent in the language. The general

situation in Colombia and Ecuador is a cultural and professional

environment with a negligible presence of the English language.

Both British Council reports consider a failure to engage with

the English language outside of the classroom as a key factor

in poor English acquisition among the population as a whole.

Therefore, in the majority of the countries surveyed in this

review, there is a general lack of opportunity for the passive

exposure as a complement to the study of English considered of

great importance by numerous experts (Costa & Almeida, 2014;

Council of Europe, 2017; European Commission, 2011).

Moreover, exposure to reading texts in English was also shown to

be a strong element among ﬂuent English users in Ecuador and

Colombia. In both countries, nearly 50% of those who considered

themselves at an advanced level of English stated they read

frequently, either for pleasure, or as a requirement for work or

study (British Council, 2015a, 2015b). Conversely, those qualiﬁed

as weak in English stated they seldom or never read in the L2.

None of the countries surveyed here have undertaken an explicit

programme, or invested resources in allowing their citizens

to receive greater exposure to written English. Colombia has

undertaken a nationwide reading initiative for both L1 and L2 (MEN,

Source: compiled by author based on data in European Commission (2012).

Roger Edwards

Investigación y Desarrollo • Volumen 11 • 2016 • Diciembre • Nº 1 • ISSN: 1390-5546 / e-ISSN: 2361-2557

2013). However making subtitling rather than dubbing mandatory

on national television or cinema has so far not been implemented

by any country to date, despite recommendations of the potential

impact of such a measure (European Commission, 2011).

CONCLUSION

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The majority of the research, as well as the ﬁrst draft of the article

was carried out at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne and

began as part of the background research for a master’s degree

dissertation.The physical and electronic research resources at

this institution made this literature review possible.

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