News: Mar 14, 2012 Swedish adolescents’ desire to learn a
foreign language besides English, which they start learning
relatively early, has been declining for a long time. A new
doctoral thesis from the University of Gothenburg shows that one
factor behind this trend may be that English is used as a
resource when students learn French, Spanish and German. Fewer
and fewer adolescents study foreign languages in English-
speaking countries such as the USA and the UK. They simply do
not want to, since as a world language English can be used just
about everywhere. In Sweden, the government has introduced
incentives to learn foreign languages in addition to English in
the school system. In his study, Alastair Henry, doctoral
student at the Department of Education and Special Education at
the University of Gothenburg and a lecturer at University West ,
used questionnaires and interview material to explore the effect
of using English as a resource language when learning French,
Spanish and German. While it is certainl