The House of Representatives rejected a call by a French-speaking Green Party representative to draft an amendment to the language law.
He argued that schools in the majority German-speaking part of the country were sending the wrong signal if they preferred English over a national Swiss language.
He said students from the different language regions should be encouraged to talk to each other in a national language – German, French, Italian or Romansh.
However, a majority in the house agreed the time was not right to resume a debate over binding rules for foreign language teaching shortly after a similar proposal was rejected by parliament.
More than half of Swiss cantons, which enjoy wide-ranging autonomy, have agreed to teach pupils two foreign languages, including English, at primary school level, but they stopped short of defining which comes first.
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Linguists unite against English invasion
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Linguistics experts met in the Swiss capital Bern on Tuesday to share ideas on how to deal with the growing language divide within French, German and Italian-speaking communities. Who can get by these days without knowing the meaning of whistleblower, laptop, roaming or task force? They are all words that have entered into common usage…
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Reversing the learning order would probably have the same effect, the researchers say in their report, emphasising the benefits of introducing new languages at a young age. Critics of the introduction of two new languages in primary school argue that it overstretches the children. But the study “Early English – excessive demand or opportunity?”, carried…
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It’s a woman with a suitcase, and she seems a little confused. She says she’s looking for a Mrs So-and-so, but decides to linger when she finds that the children and their teacher can speak English. She introduces herself as Aunt Annie, an American who is visiting Switzerland. The children’s shyness slowly turns into excitement…
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English has become part of the daily Swiss vocabulary, particularly in marketing and advertising, although the language is not always used correctly. (Christoph Balsiger, swissinfo)
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If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.