I’ve been grappling with an issue lately and would love to hear your thoughts. My child attends a pretty good international elementary school here in Madrid. The primary language of instruction is English, but they also have regular Spanish classes every week. At first, I thought this was great—they’d master both English and Spanish. However, recently I’ve started to feel that the Spanish taught at school is just scratching the surface.
I’ve spoken with my child’s Spanish teacher a few times, and their teaching goal seems to be enabling the kids to handle basic daily conversations, like buying things at a store or greeting classmates. The teacher mentioned their aim is for students to reach a DELE A2 or B1 level by graduation. I thought that was acceptable at the time, but the more I think about it, the more it feels wrong. If you live in Spain, is a B1 level in Spanish really enough? It feels like that’s barely sufficient for tourist-level communication. To deeply understand the local culture, make genuine local friends, or even think about attending university or working in Spain in the future, B1 is definitely not enough. This whole situation has me thinking more about the topic of foreign languages in international schools.
My observations of my child’s class have confirmed my worries. The international school is like a ‘bubble.’ The kids speak English at school, and after school, they hang out with friends from the international circle, also speaking English. The opportunities to actually speak Spanish are very limited. This leads to slow progress in their Spanish, and their accent always has a bit of an… um, extranjero feel to it. Sometimes when I take him to a neighbor kid’s birthday party, I can clearly see he has trouble joining in with a group of Spanish-speaking children, looking very awkward uncomfortable.
I’ve summarized the differences between relying solely on school classes and taking extra lessons. You can take a look for reference:
| Learning Method | Pros | Cons |
|---|
| Relying solely on school courses | Convenient and hassle-free, no extra burden | Slow progress, lacks depth, insufficient speaking environment |
| Enrolling in outside tutoring | Targeted and systematic teaching | Time-consuming and expensive, the child might become resistant |
| Creating a language environment | Most effective, promotes quick integration | Difficult to implement, requires proactive parental guidance |
To be honest, I feel that when we chose the international school, we may have overemphasized the English environment and overlooked the issue of our child’s integration into the local Spanish community. Now I’m considering whether to enroll him in an external Spanish tutoring class or encourage him to participate more in local community activities, like a football club, to intentionally create a language environment. Have any other parents encountered a similar situation? What did you do? I’m looking for advice! I really don’t want my child’s Spanish to remain at the ‘hello, thank you, goodbye’ level.
