Aibu to feel sad that welsh is not compulsory in schools in Wales .

[Dowser]

Says it all really.

It's part of the heritage and it's a worry it will die out.

Don't understand it myself.

Yes, the ability to learn 3rd, 4th languages certainly is a massive advantage to those who attend Welsh medium schools imo.

My experience as a Welsh learner has been extremely positive, and as well as having a second language I have also learned a huge amount about the history and culture of the country that I have chosen to live in and have my family.

Why do the UK population as a whole make such a big thing about learning languages other than English? That's for another time.

they do that Badgers BUm, that is why the only true monolingual Welsh speakers are the under fives.

I think in learning a language you should be given a choice. But then I think if there was a choice fewer would do Welsh, which the Welsh government must be worried about. Same with the Welsh Bacc. I've not heard a good word about it - apart from those promoting it. At least having gone private we have had a choice. I think the one doing Welsh GCSE and none doing it at A level at my DC's private school says it all really.

"Why do the UK population as a whole make such a big thing about learning languages other than English?"
I know, even about languages from within the British Isles! What is the big deal? I am happy to have my children's minds opened.

Muchtoodo - Welsh schools on the whole are badly underperforming English ones. It's often on the news. I'm sure there are exceptions but on the whole they underperform.

Muchtoodo - Welsh schools on the whole are badly underperforming English ones. It's often on the news. I'm sure there are exceptions but on the whole they underperform.

This. Welsh as a language is suited to colloquial use, not academic. It is detrimental to children who live in a mainly English country and world to be given such a poor start in such an important language, martyring their education all in the cause of welsh nationalism.

Kids at our local school are disciplined for speaking any English at school, even at break time. The first time this happens to my children I'll be raising an absolute shit storm.

It's compulsory because if we don't take active steps to cater for minorities, those minorities get left by the wayside. If Welsh is just something for kids to do as an extra-curricular activity if they happen to feel like it, then over time those first-language Welsh speakers will struggle to access services in their own language. Why would that be OK? And why is it OK for beautiful indigenous languages and cultural differences to just disappear? People are talking as if Welsh "dying out" would be some natural process that just happened because everyone spontaneously decided English was nicer to speak. That's not how it works.

England spent a long time trying to squash the Welsh language. All things have not been equal, and now England can bleeding well cough up a bit of tax money to help preserve what it tried to destroy. Yes it happened in the past, yes people may have technically paid a few p towards it in tax and won't see a direct personal benefit from that vast sum. It's still more fair than the alternative.

FWIW I'm in two minds about it being compulsory to GCSE, because juggling GCSE options is a pain in the arse and putting in more compulsory subjects only makes it harder. But until then, absolutely kids should be learning Welsh. DD learns it at school. If I didn't like that, I wouldn't have flipping moved to Wales!

I will never, ever understand why people feel so threatened by the Welsh language. We don't want English to 'die out' in Wales, we just want the right to use Welsh and teach Welsh with the same priority as English.

annie if I had a choice I wouldn't have done maths, as it hasn't benefited me in life, but you could say that about any subject, not just Welsh.

And it's easy to say 'a fifth of you speak Welsh', but the majority of people in Gwynedd speak it (around 70%?), it is the main language there.

ifyourawizard nobody is forcing you to live in Wales.
And as for 'underperforming' the thing is that most Welsh schools are truly comprehensive in a way that someone from London or the south east could not really understand, with the 'leafy' comps cherry picking the 'best' students.

and all the nonsense about grammar schools and so on

It's nice to hear so many positive opinions about learning Welsh and being educated in Welsh. Our local welsh schools outperform the English as well. I also agree with the poster who noted that bilingualism is a good thing, and the norm in most of the rest of the world! I'm so proud that my son is bilingual. If Welsh wasn't mandatory at his school he wouldn't be.

Er, I don't feel 'threatened' at all by the Welsh language, I just think that welsh medium education from 3-16 is detrimental to a persons future opportunities in life, should they ever decide to drive half an hour from home. In fact, I don't just 'think' I have seen this time and again.

Teach welsh as a language, keep the culture alive etc - but completely Welsh medium education IS detrimental to a child's education. Is is is. Proven.

All in the name of welsh nationalism. THAT is why I don't like it. Because MY children's education and and opportunities will suffer from being in welsh medium education.

I first went to North Wales over 30 years ago and everyone spoke English in shops, pubs etc switching to Welsh when one of us English types was spotted. It was very unwelcoming and unnerving.

I have been back a number of times ion the recent past and now find that everyone speaks Welsh, kids chatting on the way to school, in the pub, shop, chippy - switching to fluent English when they address a stranger.

DP and I commented last week how brilliant it was that one of the only remaining original British languages was alive and well and spoken as a first language, and how welcoming everyone was.

I a very happy to pay a premium to keep an original language alive, and saw no evidence of anyone struggling with English (admittedly I didn't speak to any under 5s - but spoke to some of the young teens about the eclipse- and they seemed perfectly competent in discussing physics in English).

Should add - I am fully unfavourable welsh lessons being compulsory, just not an entirely Welsh medium education where the English speaking children are bullied. Fact.

We're English and we live in Cardiff and I have several Welsh speaking friends. My children are educated at an English medium school because it's very close to where we live. I did consider Welsh medium.

My only worry about Welsh medium schools locally is that they tend to be white and middle class, a bit like CofE schools in England.However that is not really any of my business. Cardiff is a very diverse city, I hear Arabic, Eastern European languages, all sorts on my way to and from school.

I have no problem with money being used to support a language that isn't English. As PP said, you wouldn't go to France and expect to find an English medium school.

I like the idea of Welsh existing as a living language.

I do, however, think that Wales would be advised to make sure that they retain English medium schools as well (as options) in all cities; otherwise I think it will get harder for Wales to attract outside talent.

I would be reluctant to move to Wales if I knew that I had a choice between compulsory Welsh medium vs. forking out for private education. Bear in mind that some familiesincluding mineare bilingual anyway, and have enough to do with supporting two languages... we don't want a third one!

No, Moomin. Honestly, you can't say that about every subject! That's ridiculous.

I will be leaving Wales, despite having family here, as soon as the kids have left. Honestly - a big part because of the Welsh language and the insular feeling the country now has compared with when I was a child. I should never have come back. Both DC will be leaving at 18 never to return. That's what the Welsh Government's policy has done. It has tried to prevent a brain drain to London and England but in my case and my family's it's having the complete opposite effect. There are very few jobs here anyway in the things I do and what my DC want to do. I don't think the language should be allowed to die out but it should not be compulsory and it should not be first before English. There are no more speaking it now than when these initiatives first started.

And I think the point about France is a bit daft. France does not have English as an official language; in Wales, English absolutely is one of the official languages, and is the major or only language for a really large proportion of the population.

By the way, do "Welsh medium" schools teach students English vocabulary as well? Like, if it's a Welsh chemistry lesson, do they switch around and give students the English words as well, to ensure that they will be able to understand chemistry competently in both languages?

My experience as a parent of a bilingual child is that children will very easily pick up the grammar and pronunciation of two languages--but when it comes to vocabulary, parents and teachers really do have to put it some extra effort to make sure that the kid acquires a strong ACADEMIC vocab. in two languages. Vocabulary mastery takes time. Especially academic vocabulary, because it is harder for them to "just pick it up."

Of course there are still English schools! And yes, kids come out of Welsh schools still able to speak English as well, and even able to travel an hour down the road and find work it's amazing what the brain is capable of...

Stronger most schools would do a lot to help them catch up. Mine provided extra Welsh lessons, and a lot of Welsh was taught through English at first, before building up to it being taught Welsh-medium.

TheNew I can't speak for all schools, but our science was taught in English as all our teachers were Welsh learners; we were given the Welsh vocabulary too to make sure we could function competently in both. Maths was taught bilingually depending on your teacher.

At GCSE Options, Geography and History both came with a choice; you could choose to do them in Welsh or in English. Most people went for Welsh.

Also - I work in a college that has an intake of welsh and English first language , but primarily teaches through the medium of English. Sometimes the welsh students don't have all the specialist vocab. It doesn't take long for them to learn it tho, honestly. It is not a barrier, just something to learn. The welsh students are generally quick at picking up new vocab anyway.

Stronger, in my opinion it would be very hard and he'd probably hate it. My DC both hated it even though they didn't get that view from me. I actually wanted them to love it as it would have made my life easier but knowing what I know now I wouldn't have come back here. Came back for aged parents.

Neither took to it, saw the point of it, liked the sound of it, or thought it useful and resented having to do it badly. We went private in the end and that was that. At the state high school at one point I think over a two week timetable English and maths had 7 periods, Welsh 5 and other stuff like science 4. This was not a Welsh medium school. It clearly at the detriment of other subjects in my view and I believe one of the reasons Wales as a whole underperforms English by quite a margin. Wales underperforms in English language and maths so what do we do? Use up useful time on Welsh when so many don't want to learn it (more than they don't want to learn other subjects in my experience). It's topsy turvy. But then I think Wales has got so insular and set on this path it doesn't know how to solve the problem. Three more years then back to England for me