Studying Chinese increasingly «in» at Estonian schools

Photo: Peeter Kümmel / Sakala

Among the more exotic tongues taught to kids at Estonian schools one finds Hebrew, Chinese, Latin, Japanese and Italian. Alas, some exciting ones have disappeared – for many a year, schools of general education no longer offer studies of Swahili, Arabic and Romanian. 

The interest towards Chinese just keeps a-rising. Last academic year, it was studied by a whopping 206 Estonian youth, up from 129 the year before. In addition to a couple of schools in Tallinn, Chinese is also taught in two gymnasiums of Viljandi, in Kuressaare, Tartu and Jõgeva.

At the Jewish school in Tallinn, Hebrew is acquired by more than 200 kids a year – that’s stable. Last year, it was 283.

According to the portal haridussilm.ee, Latin is obviously in decline: in 2009/2010, the ancient tongue had 507 interested in it; from then on, it has been a downhill slide and by 2013/2014 just 131 remained.

Italian was last year taught to 40, Japanese to 31 children.

Some years ago, there used to be a lot more variety in tongues taught in schools of Estonia. In the Saaremaa joint gymnasium, for instance, 2009/2010 featured 13 kids who studied Arabic, but by now it’s wiped from the agenda. In 2012/2013, the Hugo Treffner Gymnasium taught one kid Swahili.

The last year that Greek was taught at Räpina joint gymnasium was 2012/2013 – to 12 children. In earlier years, it used to be twice the amount.

Lithuanian, Latvian and Romanian disappeared from Miina Härma Gymnasium after 2010/2011; that academic year, Lithuanian and Romanian had one student involved, Latvian studied by three.

Whether or not this new academic year brought fresh tongues of interest, education ministry was unable to specify as yet – the data is still being collected. «Regrettably, schools cannot always meet the interests as it takes textbooks and qualified teachers to teach a tongue,» said Tõnu Tender, languages department adviser at the ministry.

«What also matters is the number of those interested as opening a course costs money and keeping a small group going may not be sustainable,» explained Mr Tender.

Finnish is popular in schools of Estonia, taught to a total of 1,220 kids last year. The other Nordic tongues are liked as well. Norwegian is on the rise lately, last year taught to 60. Swedish is stable at about 400 kids; for some reason Danish is «out»: the last time it was taught was to 11 pupils, in  2012/2013.

Mr Tender rejoices at the increasing interest towards Finnish as second foreign language, both in basic and upper secondary school levels. «The new national curriculum allows anything as «B» foreign tongue provided the school creates the conditions. Most of all, the option has been used to teach Finnish,» said he, referring to this being seen as an asset in one’s future career, as well as being easy to acquire – being a lot like Estonia.

Most popular by far for Estonian schools is, of course, English – toiled at by 115,083 kids the last academic year. Every year, German goes down by a couple of thousand; last year, it was 14,853. French is studied by 3,960, Spanish by 1,347 students.

Mr Tender says the motivation by kids and moms/dads towards the mastering of English has stayed strong for a long time. «Its’ becoming a rule of sorts that, whatever the options offered by the state curriculum, the No 1 foreign language is English and the No 2 is Russian, mostly. In many cases, that’s all that is on offer,» said he.

Accordion to Foundation Innove languages centre chief Kersti Sõstar, cultural representations and societies are doing a great job cooperating in studies of the various tongues. «Finnish as B-tongue has grown, to the backdrop of overall decrease of students, thanks to the Finnish Institute in Estonia and Association of Finnish Teachers in Estonia (Eesti Soome Keele Õpetajate Selts) actively involved. There is the interest in the kids, but thanks to the joint efforts it is easier to support the studies at schools,» she said. «Language studies at schools are eagerly assisted by Goethe Institute, French Institute, the embassies etc.»