Blog del Instituto Cervantes de Londres

The British Council presented today the results of the Language Trends England 2023 report.

• For the fourth year running, Spanish continues to have the highest number of A-level entries.
• Official exam data show that, for the fourth year running, Spanish is the most popular language at A-level, replacing the long-standing tradition of French being in the top spot. The diverging trends noted in the graph below would suggest that Spanish now has the highest A-level entries and it is predicted that this trend will continue in future cohorts. It is interesting to recall that French continues to be the most taught language in primary schools.

• The three most popular languages on the school curriculum in England are French, German and Spanish.

• French continues to be the most popular language at Key Stage 3 (ages 11-14), taught in 87 per cent of responding state schools and 97 per cent of responding independent schools, followed closely by Spanish in 75 per cent and 93 per cent of state and independent schools respectively.
• French, German and Spanish remain the ‘big 3’ curricular languages; with planned revisions to the GCSE specifications in these languages to take place from 2024, there are exciting times ahead in the study and research of future language trends in England.

Read the whole Language Trends England 2023 report here.

 For the first time, Spanish attracted over 100,000 GCSE entries – almost double the 2005 statistic – and was the most popular A-level language for the second year in a row. If current trends continue, the report predicts that Spanish is likely to overtake French as the most popular GCSE language by 2026, according to a new British Council report published today.

The Language Trends 2021 report surveyed teachers at more than 1500 primary, secondary and independent schools across England. The report, which has been published annually by the British Council for nearly twenty years, gathers information about language teaching and learning in England.

At Key Stage 3, Spanish is taught by 74 per cent of responding state schools and 89 per cent of responding independent schools.

To read the full report, please visit: https://www.britishcouncil.org/research-policy-insight/research-reports/language-trends-2021

Spanish entries at A level exams in England have increased by almost 5% from 2018 making it the most popular language for the first time since A levels began. The records come from the Language Trends 2020 report which was published today by the British Council. 

Between 2018 and 2019, entries for Spanish increased by 7.5% whilst French increased by almost 4%, according to official data on GCSE and A-level results from the Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ). In total, 96.811 students took Spanish at GCSE in 2019 and 7.932 did the same at A-levels.

The annual report underlines that, “French looks set to be overtaken by Spanish as the most popular language by 2030, or earlier, if current trends continue,” using the data provided by the Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ).

“The figures for studying foreign languages are still small, but the fact that Spanish takes the first position for the first time in history, is indicative of profound changes. These changes tell us about the growing weight of the Spanish-speaking world and its correlation in a country used to thinking globally, such as Great Britain,” said the director of the Instituto Cervantes in London, Ignacio Peyró.

Language Trends is an annual survey of primary and secondary schools in England designed to gather information about the situation for language teaching and learning. Its aims are to assess the impact of policy measures in relation to languages and to analyse strengths and weaknesses based both on quantitative evidence and on views expressed by teachers.

Instituto Cervantes and the British Council signed a Memorandum of Understanding in November 2019 with the aim of strengthening the bilateral dialogue and promoting “the joint work” so that each institution can “achieve its strategic results more effectively”.