xmca@weber.ucsd.edu writes:
>I am really curious about the issue you encounter about convincing
>parents
>that their children will not suffer from learning Welsh. I wonder if
>here
>children were learning IN Gallego instead of learning Gallego as a second
>language there would be more of a problem.
My daughter was taught to the age of 16 almost exclusively in Welsh
(including her French and German ...ie her translations skills were into
Welsh not English). Welsh is the medium of instruction in Primary
education in north west Wales.
The Welsh first-language adult (parent) population will bary from as low
as 15% to as high as 90% depending on location in the region and overall
the population is 40-50% Welsh speaking. So there is a discrepency between
Welsh being the "official" medium of instruction and the number of Welsh
speaking parents.
There are two types of immigrant population of "parent" age into the area.
Firstly there are dispossed (non) working class dumped in the region from
cities in north west and midland England because of the availability of
low cost housing for either squatting or rent levels on social welfare.
These people have little political influence and are not vocal about
schooling. I would like to say our school system pays good attention to
the needs of these children, however you can imagine they do not capture
the local education agenda, and the problem is not so great at the moment
that it leads to anybody else's political agenda.
The other "type" of immigrant are the opposite. They are usually
somewhere on the promotion ladder of their organisation and they have to
do their stint in the styx, or they are small scale entrepreneurs and want
to build businesses either in tourism or take advantage of European grant
aid available in the area. The "professions" in the area usually
presuppose a knowledge of Welsh The exception is the University, which
has an international perspective and staffing - except the education
department- and the hospital in the "higher" professional levels , nurses
should speak Welsh. This is the group that tends to be vocal about Welsh
medium education. There is also a significant number of Welsh speaking
parents who worry about Welsh medium education because they feel that
their children's English is more important.
I will reserve comments about the autochthonous groups in Spain... I have
to finish authoring a Welsh/Catalan website!
M.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue May 23 2000 - 09:20:39 PDT