Last year, president Sarkozy announced that he wanted France to become bilingual.
Unfortunately, results of the 2008 TOEFL test show France to be as far away as ever from reaching this goal.
According to a Le Monde article , the 2008 TOEFL ranks France 69th out of 109 countries.
In Europe, French students ranked 25th. Only Cyprus, Monaco and Italy managed worse results in oral expression.
Writing for Le Monde, Maryline Baumard points out that these terrible results hamper French students who want to study in the USA.
For those of you who are familiar with the French system for selecting and training language teachers (and for readers of Sorbonne Confidential), none of this is particularly surprising, only a little sad.
Poor teacher training has a profound negative impact, on students and teachers alike. And yet any attempt at reform results in immediate strikes.
French readers may be interested in my article about English language teaching and inequality in France (first published in Cahiers Pédagogiques).
