Our local (Schwyzer) paper has reported that early French lessons may be omitted from the primary school curriculum in the future and be replaced with more German and math lessons. After speaking to a few teachers (who also teach French), they reluctantly admitted to this being a positive step as a large proportion of students simply have shown no interest in learning the language in their younger years.
I support the idea as well. Early English has proven to be a success whereas early French lessons tend to be a waste of precious time. In the meantime, students are graduating from middle school with poorer German skills than ever before. The change in curriculm is also meant to help overworked teachers.
From my own memories (German Gymnasium), French is a nice language to speak and read, but wrapping your head around it (i.e. grammar and getting everything 100% correct) coming from another language is pretty hard.
The only way to achieve that is full immersion. I.e. go to France or Geneva or wherever they speak French for six months+
Maybe they should do that, if theyâre serious about it.
Likewise, most people from the French-speaking part of Switzerland donât bother with learning German, until and unless they share a bed with somebody from the other side of the Röschtigraben.
We were acquired/merged with another company based in the French part. None of the execs speaks the otherâs native language fluent enough to talk more than a few sentences. So everything is in English (with which both sides struggle at timesâŠ)
Thatâs usually a quick road to disaster. Especially, once things start to go sideways in the businessâŠ
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Given the languages are best learned when young, and that French and German are both national languages, I think they should do the opposite and have bilingual teaching from Kindergarten onwards.
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From the studies I read, a few weekly lessons of foreign language a week in primary school doesnât bring anything to a studentâs profeciency level a few years later.
From what Iâve seen in the Vaud parts where I teach, kids starting German in year 5 werenât better than those who had started in Year 7 by the end of compulsory school (Year 11). Same with English.
If you really want to see the difference, you need to teach roughly half the proogram in the new language to get intensive contacts with it: PE and arts in German, for instance. This wouldnât be possible in Switzerland as we simply donât have enough teachers.
Starting a federal language in primary school is a purely political decision, which indeed worsens the studentâs levels in their native language.
Thatâs exactly what I mean by âbilingual teachingâ.
Well, I guess in a way, you wouldnât need more teachers, just a way to slice them up 
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We donât have enough teachers in the German part of Switzerland who could teach French at a primary level. I also donât see the necessity of having our children be bilingual in both French and German at the expense of other subjects.
Well, thatâs the thing, it wouldnât even need to be at the expense of another subject. If you teach in another language, you can learn the subject and the language at the same time.
The way things are going, kids will be taught in English for 100% of the subjects sooner than the 50/50 French/German you propose.
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I guess I was very forward thinking
In choosing the domain, then! 
While many on this planet believe that the Swiss are bi, or multi-lingual the truth is very few Swiss are fluent in two or three national languages.
We are a country of mono-lingual regions with a few islands of bilingualism.
Go to Zurich you will se no French, Go to Geneva no German.
If the politicians want the Swiss to communicate everyone should be taught their mother tounge and English.
When you quote someone out of contextâŠ
(Edit: I have now earned my badge for quoting someone)
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I am unsure how I feel about this⊠Both my kids did French in Primary as per Zurich curriculum and by first gymi could string together little sentences and understand a lot on holiday. I like that and I think learning languages is a good exercise for the brain. I do understand though that itâs at the expense of other subjects⊠But thatâs a bit the same as Handarbeit (manual works) which a lot of the kids will not use⊠Variety is not bad at a young age and allows all to be good at something.
Thankfully we live in Ticino, so French is 1st language, German second, English only taught in secondary school!
Isnât ETH now 100% English taught?
Bachelor degrees taught in German and Masters in English.
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Just in Schwyz? One other canton has already done so. (Appenzell I think??) Since in Berne, Basel and Solothurn kids learn French before English, it would have to be English (from grade 5) that is scrapped here. I do think, that for some kids two foreign languages in primary are too many. I donât agree with scrapping it in favour of doing more Maths and German. It should be the other foreign language that gets more lessons. Here in Berne in grades 5 & 6 there are 2 lessons of French and 2 lessons of English per week. It would make a lot of sense to up French to 4 lessons a week and start English in Grade 7. Kids pick up English fast at that age.
French is one of the official languages of Switzerland. I understand that there is a shortage of teachers here, but maybe they should work on that and on the teaching methods, which seem that havenât changed very much since we were in school, instead of removing it from the primary school curriculum all together. I might be biased to the French language, but it seems like this solution is somehow a double-edged sword. Children learn languages faster than adults so starting earlier makes a lot more sense to me.
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Since the rise of YouTube, Netflix, etc., there seems to have been a drop in appetite for learning French and a comparative rise in English. In the years my son had French in school, there were two groups of kids; those who had a parent who had French mother-tongue and consistently did well in the class, and the rest of the class who didnât give a flying fig about French.
Having said that, I donât think this trend is so recent. Work colleagues (banking) from either side of the Röstigraben automatically default to English instead of one of the Swiss languages.
But this is exactly my point, it is so much easier now to learn or simply pick up English than before. Wheareas the French language, with all its particularities and stuffy grammarâŠI mean you do have to learn it in school or from a proper teacher. If not now when they soak up languages like sponges, then when? The thing is they use the same methods now (e.g. endless lists of words to be memorised, lots of grammar exercises) as we were used to back in our school days. There are also school/sports camps on the other side of the Röstigraben, but I think they are not as efficient as all the resources the English language benefits from these days⊠As for improving their GermanâŠreading more is the key here. Not necessarily more German lessons/hours IMHO. But kids (in general) are not that much into readingâŠ
Please donât get me wrong, same goes for almost all subjects here. If parents are more involved, kids will take more interest in literally every subject I can think of (we do help our kids with their school tasks). And I do feel for teachers, it isnât an easy task to get kids interested and maintain that interest. I could never do that job myself. Kudos to all those who do it and do it well.
