The Spanish joke “ Who is a Spanish person? Someone whose life is spent learning English”, perfectly defines the Spanish general perception of their second language acquisition, which is usually English. According to a survey conducted by the national media, 65% of Spaniards recognize that they are not able to speak, read or write in that language and there is an ete rnal and complex dilemma of why this occurs in a country where many hours are dedicated to its study both at school and privately and also, where schooling in English begins at very early ages. In response to this dilemma of why Spaniards do not seem to ac quire English as proficiently as their neighbours (there is a general belief that Portuguese or French speak English much better), there tend to coalesce diverse opinions such as the fact that audiovisual material is dubbed into Spanish, that there are not enough hours of study devoted to this language, that little importance is given to its study, etc. All of these opinions are perceived by the general public and even by some language teachers. However, not much importance is normally given to the way Engl ish is being taught and the learning methods which are used. The purpose of this paper is to analyze precisely which factors are involved in the solution to this dilema, especially regarding one of the latest attempts to improve this acquisition, the impl ementation of CLIL methodology, which is being made to improve younger generations’ English proficiency.

Existe un chiste que contesta a la pregunta de ¿quiénes son los españoles? con “una gente que se pasa la vida estudiando inglés”. De acuerdo con una encuesta realizada por los medios nacionales, el 65% de los españoles reconoce que no son capaces de hablar, leer o escribir en ese idioma y existe el eterno y complejo dilema de por qué ocurre esto en un país donde hay mucha dedicación al estudio del inglés tanto en la escuela como en clases privadas y donde la escolarización en inglés comienza a edades muy tempranas. En respuesta a este dilema tienden a aparecer opiniones diversas, sin embargo, no se da mucha importancia al modo en el que se enseña estalengua. El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar los factores involucrados en la solución a este dilema, especialmente en relación con uno de los últimos intentos para mejorar esta adquisición, la implementación de la metodología AICLE, que se está realizando para mejorar el dominio de inglés en las generaciones más jóvenes.