of 15-19 Devereux Ct, Temple London WC2R 3JJ 020 7201 0750 www.londres.cervantes.es

PRESS RELEASE

London, Tuesday May 21st 2019 INTEREST TO LEARN SPANISH INCREASES: OFFICIAL DELE EXAMS IN MAY GROW 21% IN LONDON

On May 24th and 25th, Instituto Cervantes in London will hold 2019’s first set of Diplomas of Spanish as a Foreign Language (DELE), the official Spanish Diplomas. The enrolment in these programmes is at 163 students. This figure represents a 21% increase compared to the number of students that took the same exam on the same date in 2018. The DELE Spanish Diplomas are official qualifications certifying the degree of competence and mastery of Spanish, granted by Instituto Cervantes on behalf of Ministry of Education and Vocational Training of and, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Unión and Cooperation of Spain.

In the 2019 DELE applications, the most popular qualification is A2 (49 applications), followed by level B1 (29 applications) and the B2 test (24 applications). The DELE examinations are designed following the guidelines of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) of the Council of . The Director of the Instituto Cervantes in London, Ignacio Peyró, said of the increase: “In a country that has traditionally had little attachment for certification, these figures are very positive. The DELE is a test of great quality, and its certification is very useful for curricular purposes - these are two keys to its success”. Additionally, the DELE diplomas are a compulsory test for Sephardic Jews who are now able to claim Spanish nationality thanks to a new law. The Law introduced in June 2015 makes the acquisition of Spanish citizenship possible for the Sephardic Jews that are descendants of those expelled from Spain in the 15th Century without renouncing their current citizenship and without requiring residency in Spain. This is the case of Andy, a British student with Sephardic Jew ancestry who took DELE exam in February to apply for the Spanish nationality. “After the Spanish government passed the Sephardic law, I looked into my family history and my family tree and I realized that I could ask for the Spanish citizenship. I had already studied Spanish at school, I travel to Spain frequently and I have Instituto Cervantes of London 15-19 Devereux Ct, Temple London WC2R 3JJ 020 7201 0750 www.londres.cervantes.es

many Spanish friends, so it was not difficult for me to pass the exam,” says Andy.

The Diplomas of Spanish as a Foreign Language (DELE) are official qualifications which prove the level of proficiency in the and which are awarded by the Spanish Ministry of Education and . In short, these are the only qualifications in the world to prove fluency in Spanish.

What are the advantages of having a DELE qualification?

● They are official qualifications.

● They are recognised internationally by private companies, chambers of commerce and public and private educational organisations.

● In Spain, they give you access to universities, official language schools, business schools and jobs with the civil service.

● They are increasingly more in demand at universities in other countries. ● They are valid indefinitely: qualifications for life.

● They comply with the guidelines of the Common European Framework (MCER).

● They make it easier for you to work and study in other countries and also to obtain grants. "Instituto Cervantes in London organizes specific courses for the preparation of DELE candidates and they are always very well received: there are courses once a week throughout the term, but also intensive courses in the weeks prior to each call," says Pablo Martínez Gila. Given the good reception of the diplomas, the Cervantes Institute in London reinforces the offer of DELE preparation courses for all levels with a wide range of options in May and July. In addition to the May session, there will be more DELE 2019 exam sessions at the Instituto Cervantes in London on these dates: - 12 July (written exam), 12/13 July (oral exam). Levels: A2, B1, B2, C1- Registration deadline: 16 May - 13 September (written and oral exam). Level A2 - Registration deadline: 24 July - 22 November (written and oral exam), DELE for Young Learners: Levels: A1, A2/B1 - Registration deadline: 9 October - 23 November (written exam), 22/23 November (oral exam). Levels: A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2 - Registration deadline: 9 October Instituto Cervantes of London 15-19 Devereux Ct, Temple London WC2R 3JJ 020 7201 0750 www.londres.cervantes.es

Other important information

- (2018) Language Trends: https://www.britishcouncil.org/sites/default/files/language_trends_2018_report.pdf

• Government’s ambition is for 90% of pupils to obtain the English Baccalaureate, which requires a good GCSE in a language, by 2025 (page 2). • Despite declines in numbers studying French and German for A Level, Spanish is continuing to attract greater numbers and new provision in the state sector (page 3). • Since 2005, when overall numbers appeared to stabilise, French has lost nearly a third of its numbers and German is down by 37%. In contrast, Spanish and other languages have seen substantial increases (page 4). • There has been a decline in numbers taking French and/or German, but Spanish has increased rapidly over the past few years to become England’s second modern language. On current trends, it looks set to overtake French at A Level by 2020 and at GCSE in the early 2020s (page 9). • GCSE entries in Spanish (2017): 90,544 (page 9). • A Level entries in Spanish (2017): 7,600 (page 9). • Twenty eight per cent of state schools which offer Spanish post 16 have seen numbers increase over the last three years (page 15).

- British Council (2017) Languages for the Future: https://www.britishcouncil.org/sites/default/files/languages_for_the_future_2017.pdf

• As in 2013, the same five languages: Spanish, Mandarin, French, Arabic and German, make it to the top of the table. These five languages appear consistently as the most important, some way ahead of the remaining five (page 4). • [The report] has produced a list of the ten most important languages for the UK as a whole (page 4). Spanish is number 1 in the ranking (page 4). • French, German and Spanish are the languages British people are most likely to speak, reflecting the languages most frequently taught in UK schools (page 11). • In the last 20 years or so, Spanish has increased in importance; in 2004, it overtook German in terms of the number of entries for A-level in England, Northern Ireland and Wales, and now accounts for more than twice as many candidates. This pattern is repeated in Scotland (page 11). • Although GCSE and A-level qualifications exist in 19 foreign languages, teacher training courses focus almost exclusively on French, Spanish and German (page 12). • [extracted from a chart] A-Level Spanish 2016: +8,460 entries (page 12) • [extracted from a chart] GCSE 2016: +92,000 entries (page 12) • The top five languages are French, German, Mandarin, Arabic and Spanish (page 20) … these are the five languages the UK will need most for business and trade in future, and that Brexit will not change that in the foreseeable future (page 20).

Instituto Cervantes of London 15-19 Devereux Ct, Temple London WC2R 3JJ 020 7201 0750 www.londres.cervantes.es

• FCO priority 1 languages for diplomacy: Arabic, French, Mandarin, Russian, Spanish (page 21). • UK diplomacy and intelligence are currently Arabic, Mandarin and Russian, by French and Spanish, plus Farsi, German, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Turkish (page 22). • [About the use of the Hotcourses online database for ascertaining which languages attract the most public demand] Using this measure, Spanish, Italian, French, German and Mandarin Chinese occupy the top five places in terms of grass-roots popularity (page 22). • [Spanish beginner-level courses available throughout the UK in 2017]: there were 208 courses (page 22). • ONS visitor data (which includes travel for business and other purposes), published in May 2017 shows that Spain, and are the top three countries visited (including English-speaking countries), as they were at the time of our 2013 report, and their languages therefore remain important for tourism purposes (page 23). • Spain is the 8th country with the greatest number of co-authored research publications with UK, between 2012-17 (page 25). • Spain is the 10th country of domicile with the greatest number of new students to study at UK higher education institutions, between 2015-16 (page 25). • Spain is the 11th main destination country of outgoing UK tertiary education students, in 2015. Includes students undertaking at least nine months’ study outside the UK (page 26) • Spanish is the top 5th language for international education (page 26). • Spanish is the second language needed for cultural, educational, diplomatic and securities purposes in the UK (page 27). • Spanish is the 3rd language, after English and Chinese (page 29). • Combining the data from all ten indicators resulted in the following ranking, with Spanish as the most important language, followed by Mandarin, French, Arabic and German (page 30). • Spanish remains the top-scoring language (page 30). • There are five languages which have the potential to add most to the UK’s strategic interests post-Brexit: French, German and Spanish, which are widely taught throughout our education systems, plus Arabic and Mandarin Chinese (page 32). • Spanish is the second most widely spoken first language in the world with approximately 437 million native speakers (page 52). • Mexico has over 20 per cent of all first language Spanish speakers, while the , with 30-40 million native speakers of Spanish, is the country with the largest Spanish speaking minority (page 52). • Spain is the UK’s eighth largest non-English speaking export market, valued at nearly £15 billion in 2015 (page 52). • Mexico is one of the most open trading nations in the world, with an extensive network of bilateral trade agreements and is projected to become the world’s seventh-largest economy by 2050. The UK is the fifth largest investor in Mexico (page 52). • Spanish is now the second most popular language at A-level after French, having overtaken German in 2005. With 8,460 entries in 2016, an increase of 32 per cent in ten years, it is the only language to buck the trend of year on year decline (page 52). Instituto Cervantes of London 15-19 Devereux Ct, Temple London WC2R 3JJ 020 7201 0750 www.londres.cervantes.es

• [Spanish] is also the second most popular language at GCSE with more than 92,000 entries in 2016 (page 52). • Spanish is offered at degree level by 70 universities across the whole of the UK (page 52). • A survey of institution-wide language provision in universities carried out in 2016, showed Spanish to be the most popular language among student learners (page 52). • Spain is the most popular destination for people from the UK, with more than 14 million visitors in 2015 (page 52). • Tourists from Spain to the UK are now the third largest non-English-speaking group, after visitors from France and , with numbers increasing annually by an average of 4.6 per cent (page 52).