The report (Education First English Proficiency Index) places Spain 34th in the world. The ranking is headed by the Netherlands, followed by Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway and Austria. Portugal is ranked seventh, Germany eighth, Belgium ninth and Singapore tenth. Of other European countries, Greece is eleventh, France 28th and Italy 30th.
One hundred non-English-speaking countries took part in the survey. This involved an online test. In the case of Spain, this was taken by some 100,000 people.
The director of Education First Spain, Xavier Martí, says that the Spanish government has not adopted strong policies to improve the level of English over the past decade. There has not been, for instance, investment in improving teachers' levels of English or in scholarships to study English overseas.
The test had a maximum of 800 points. The average for the whole of Spain was 543. At a regional level, Madrid scored the highest with 573, followed by Catalonia with 568. The Basque Country, Castile and León, Galicia, Aragon, Asturias and Navarre were all above the Spanish average. Cantabria matched the average, while below the average - in descending order - were Valencia, Andalusia, the Balearics, Castile-La Mancha, Murcia, the Canaries and Extremadura.
As for age groups, 31 to 40 scored the highest with 547.
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Stan- This is mostly because English schools do not teach secondary languages as a priority (as many other Countries do), from an early age. French was mandatory many years ago when I was at school, and what a waste of time that was. Even then, this was at a time far later in my education than it should have. A secondary language should be made compulsory very early on into Childhhod, as the famous saying goes "Those who don't speak two languages, know nothing of their own".
I agree Stan. The British are generally not very good at learning languages either. Do you watch Spanish TV? I mean films and drama or even just the news bulletins (but not all the political bickering with everybody talking at once!). You may not pick up much at first but if you persist it will begin to stick although I appreciate it is harder as you get older. Spain made a big mistake in dubbing films in English instead of just subtitling the original version like they did and still do in Portugal. As a result the Portuguese have a much better level of English than Spaniards.
How far behind are the English Residents in speaking the Spanish language. I have tried and tried to learn their language. I failed to learn French at School. I am continuing to fail with Spanish. Well done all the Spanish people who have learned to speak English.