Spanish teaching in India is relatively a new phenomenon. When we compare it to the most widely taught language here, French, it is still behind in the game, opines Subhas Yadav, currently a PhD scholar at the University of Hyderabad and a lover and teacher of this language. His love for the Spanish language began when he came across the translated version of the popular book La Familia de Pascual Duarte and most recently, it took him to Spain as he bagged the Erasmus Mundus scholarship (September 2017 - July 2018) at the University of Extremadura, Spain. “Today, due to many factors including globalisation, a migrating urban population, MNCs expansion and internationalisation of education, Spanish has established itself as the most popular second language at the International Baccalaureate and Cambridge curricula schools of India,” says Yadav, who has a Master’s from Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, Spain.
Yadav reminds us of what happened with the German language at Kendriya Vidyalayas. The programme German in 1000 Schools was launched in 2011 and in a short span of time, reached more than 50,000 learners at KVs. “It was scrapped by the then HRD Minister Smriti Irani, who saw it as a threat to Sanskrit. After this regressive step, the situation was further aggravated by CBSE’s proposal to the HRD ministry to enforce three language formula at the schools, offering Hindi, English and the third Indian language. The decision has not been made yet, but which student would choose a fourth language if this is made compulsory in CBSE schools?” Yadav implores us to look at our neighbour China who, “recently began offering Spanish, German and French in their government schools, apart from Russian, Japanese and English. This fiercely monolingual country knows that in the era of globalisation, the developing nations need the Western world more than they need us. Spanish language in Indian schools does not seem to have a smooth ride except in the international schools. However, we hope that this eclipse clears soon,” he concludes.
Spanish language teaching in India, as per Yadav
- Second language is one of the major components in the higher secondary classes for International Board. Since most of the students aim to attend International universities, it gives an edge, having studied a foreign language.
- Elite CBSE, ICSE schools offer Spanish. However, it is more for getting into the game. The serious didactics is missing there. However, thanks to enough resources, they can hire and run departments of foreign languages
- The third category of schools which cater to the maximum number of students face challenges in offering foreign languages. These schools have limited budget allocation for foreign languages. They do not get qualified teachers as they don’t pay enough and they are at the receiving end of any bureaucratic or administrative dictates.
