Description: This is
a VOA Special English Education Report.
See text below
Text:
Spain is struggling with a recession. More than one
in five Spaniards are out of work. The unemployment
rate is the highest of the seventeen nations that
use the euro. But one area of the economy that seems
to be doing well is English classes. A report this
year from the EF Education First company listed
Spain is a "low proficiency" country in English.
Spain ranked just below Italy and just above
Taiwan.About a fifth of the world speaks Spanish.
There are many Spanish language TV shows and movies.
Spaniards can also watch Hollywood movies dubbed in
Spanish or news from Latin America. One of the few
English voices on Spanish TV belongs to Richard
Vaughan. Mr. Vaughan is from Texas but for
thirty-five years has lived in Spain. He operates
that country's biggest English teaching company. It
even has its own TV channel. "Aprende Ingles" --
Learn English -- is Spain's only national channel in
English. He says people watch his channel and take
his classes to get a better job. "People don't learn
English here for cultural reasons. Some do. But the
motive is always, ninety-nine percent of the time,
professional." Modern changes in the world economy
-- globalization -- may offer chances for a better
job in another country. But economic problems at
home can also make people feel they have few other
choices. The director of the language center at the
London School of Economics says "language learning
is up" across Europe. In Spain, some of those
studying English hope for jobs in Britain or the
United States. But others want to work for
international companies with offices in Spain. Many
companies now require workers to be
bilingual.Dominic Campbell is an American who lives
in Madrid and teaches English part time. He says a
lot of jobs now "want at least Spanish and English.
And a lot of them are asking for Spanish, English
and French -- especially airlines." He says many of
his students thought "I've got Spanish, that's all I
need. " But people also need jobs. More than forty
percent of Spaniards in their twenties are out of
work. Inigo Gomez has an education degree but could
not find a teaching job. "So I think it's a good
idea to go to the United Kingdom and try to find a
job as a Spanish teacher." And while he does that,
many Spaniards for the first time will be spreading
their new education in English at home.For VOA
Special English, I'm Carolyn Presutti. You can learn
English and get the latest news every day at
voaspecialenglish.com.
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Hi. I
personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
