Rosa asks:
>I was curious about this point as well. What is English used for in the
>school? Or when is it used?
The aim is at the end of Primary schoo ( 5th Grade/Year 6 UK)l all
children are "fully" bilingual. This could be interpreted as the students
have the same lvel of "literacy" and fluency" in two langauges.
In most cases this means that most education in Primary Schools is in
Welsh, but the students have to take the same level of standardised
national tests in English as students do in England. Therfore English has
to be used somehwere down the road.
At secondary level in north west Wales, officilly all schools are
bilingual however some have a predominantly English catchment, some have a
balanced catchement, some have a predominantly Welsh catchment. Some
schools are designeted predominantly Welsh or English when they serve
larger communities where there is the possiblity of two secondary schools.
In practice some rural High schools have only 300-400 students.
Maintaining a balanced multilingual curriculum is difficult. Teachers
usually end up repeating everything they say twice in both languages.
National examinations can be taken in either English and Welsh .
My daughter studied everything except English in `Welsh (including French
and German ie the non target langauge parts of the study were in Welsh..
so translation was German-Welsh).
A town like Caernarfon (where the extract came from) has a population of
10,000. In winter the main language you herar is Welsh (it is a tourist
resort of considerable historic interest). It is a post-industrial town,
where its principle trade based on mineral extraction (laterly roofing
slate... but it goes back to pre-roman times) has gone. There is a large
number of economically inactive poor (adult male unemployment is about
18%). However it is also the administrative capital of the region and it
is also a major centre for tv and film media production (Welsh language
tv and Holywood film production). This means that there is a highly
educated group of people who are "professionally Welsh" as adminstrators
or as tv people. There are , as with most UK rural towns, small numbers of
people whose parents or grandparents came from the Indian sub continent
and China.
The school takes students from all backgrounds.
In the corridor discussion between students is bilingual with an emphasis
on Welsh. In the classroom, by and large up to the 8th grade it is
predominanlty Welsh... but some classes would be more "anglo ghettos".
Beyond that, as public examinations, employment and university enyrance
take hold, there is a tendency to use more English, especially in science,
technology, business studies etc. The brightest Welsh children or those
from more "aspirational" Welsh" families may well continue their studies
through the Welsh medium and can (as in my daughter's case) easily switch
between one language and an other. This is significant, because the choice
of language at this point is a political act. (and it was my daughter's
choice I may add).
The choice of language a child or teacher uses is highly and overtly
political. There is a high motivation by most teachers to maintain the use
of Welsh whenever they feel it is practical to do so.
I detect interesting dillutions in some cases. Many Anglo parents are
chosing to send their children to predominantly Welsh schools for complex
reason, some which you can guess.
So when is English used in Caernarfon:
When it is thought that the instruction is important and there is a
suspicion that the Welsh won't be understood by everyone
In the more Anglo groups
In some selected examination subjects and classes
By kids for swearing and cursingm (anglo saxon is partiularly good for
this)
By kids to discuss aspects of activity that has come into their lives
through English (soccer, soap opera, some popular music, some aspects of
human relationships)
Martin
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