Alicante students fail at English

MORE than 70 per cent of teenagers up to 20 years old in Alicante province do not understand a word of English.

A recent report published by the National Statistics Institute (INE) shows that, despite the increasing number of English words entering the everyday vocabulary of Spanish youngsters and the large British presence throughout the province, Alicante, and the Valencia Region as a whole, are second only to Galicia with the lowest levels of English language comprehension in the country.

According to the INE, seven out of every 10 Alicante teens do not understand the language and only one in 10 speak it fluently.

Worryingly, the figure worsens as age increases, with more than 81 per cent of Alicante adults aged between 40 and 59 admitting that they do not know any English.

Figures improve only slightly among ‘millennials’ aged 20 to 39, with 68 per cent of those questioned reporting not being able to understand the language and 70 per cent admitting that they do not read or speak English at all.