Talking in your native language, is it acceptable in a group?

[AllDruggedUpWithNowhereToGo]

The other evening I was at an adult education class and there was an issue. So I have a “who was being unreasonable”

Person A and person B were chatting in their own language during the class and person C complained about it.

The thing is we are a very chatty class, and person A claimed racism due to it being a foreign language and that no one else had been named as being a distraction. The tutor shut the issue down quickly and stressed the “distraction” aspect of it, but I got the impression that the “foreign language” aspect was what person C had the real issue with (if it makes a difference the conversation A and B were having was nothing to do with the class we are taking)

I am neither A, B or C but now feel really uncomfortable by the division in the class because of this.

Also I can see both sides of the division. I was raised that to exclude people when you are all part of a group is rude (is this a cultural thing though?), but then if English isn’t your first language and you live in an English speaking country, I imagine it’s nice to be able to chat in your native language.

So who was BU?

AIBU for A&B
AINBU for C

(Also I have name changed, rarely post, but have been here since penis beaker)

If you are there to learn a language, then you should all be speaking the language being taught.

Unless it's an advanced class, this is an interesting approach. Are you saying that students should be banned from speaking English?

(Nah, course you're not ...).

I'm looking forward to all you monolingual English-speaking people taking a vow of silence next time you go abroad.

Unless it's a class in the loosest sense (say pottery, where the teacher isn't teaching to the group and everyone's doing their own project) I think people should only speak in the language of the teacher/class. I certainly wouldn't complain if in an art class two people talked in their home language.
But if it's an information or knowledge giving class, nope. There shouldn't be much talking anyway.

I had a Spanish friend whose English was native standard. Her family all spoke English but not anything like as well. I didn't speak Spanish then. I was travelling with them and they only spoke Spanish which I thought was pretty rude (but certainly not racist FFS!).

I used to teach in a school with a high proportion of Turkish speakers. I had a rule that they only spoke in English, but they were 16/17, they weren't fluent in English and would only watch Turkish TV/speak Turkish at home. In class, for their own good mainly, they had to speak English. It is however, also rude and excluding to others in the class. They could be using their own language to slag off others in the class, safe in the knowledge that no one would understand them. Before the class has started, its OK to say hi have a quick chat, but during class, during class based discussions, then no.

At my school speaking in your own language during the school day was banned.

Unless it's an advanced class, this is an interesting approach. Are you saying that students should be banned from speaking English?

Lots of language the teachers do use this approach. Being on holiday with your English speaking family is completely different from being in a classroom situation.

I didn’t say speaking another language was whispering! I think whispering is rude, I also think speaking another language whilst in a group is rude. HTH

Being on holiday with your English speaking family is completely different from being in a classroom situation.

Course it is. So all the English monoglots can carry on and the dirty multilingual forriners have to adapt. As usual.

Similar in our office environment. Smaller group conversing within open plan office in their own language. Lots of complaints as a lot of us felt it was rude and unnecessary. Why would you exclude others by doing this unless you were discussing something about your colleagues? The people doing it were taken to the side by management and told it wasn’t appropriate and wasn’t acceptable and to only converse in English. Unless of course in their own time, Lunch breaks etc.

Why was @MargaretChristopher deleted?

I reported her post, it was one of the most disgusting racist posts I've seen on Mumsnet.

Why would you exclude others by doing this unless you were discussing something about your colleagues?

Because it's easier. Speaking a second language 24/7 is hard work. Try it sometime.

@85notout did I misread it then? I thought she was being sarcastic?

Person C is ignorant. If they went to France for example, they wouldn’t speak French to another English person.

AINBU

C is being rude and self involved, IMO.

My children went to a school with a lot of children who did not speak english as their first language. It was made a "rule" that you had to speak english in the playground because big groups of children speaking Mandarin was very exclusionary.
In group settings I think it is polite to speak the language that everyone understands.

Exclusionary!

OK, if they are in a class and chat together during the class in a non-native language, it's rude.

I speak 3 languages (one of them fairly badly tbh) but I would never chat to a friend/co-speaker in an unshared language in a group situation. It's rude and disrespectful to the others participating. It makes people feel excluded and also hints at talking about the others, (otherwise they'd speak in the communal language)

My parents live in Wales. They have only imperfect high school Welsh, despite being born there. It's totally fine for Welsh speakers to use their language between one another. However, in a group of ex-employees of a local firm where the shared language is English, they all speak English. Because it's friendly.

If it was sarcasm it was still unacceptable sarcasm.

I think they were all being a bit U. A and B shouldn't have been having a private chat in class at all, regardless of language. C went a bit over-the-top about it.

To answer a few questions it’s nothing like pottery, more GCSE level, most people In the class are taking it to further their education/employment options.

Most of the conversations that happen around me, people drop in and out of if they are interested in what is being said and most of them are about the subject we are studying. There are, to my knowledge, very few private conversations that take place in class.

This did take place while the tutor was talking/teaching, and no they weren’t talking about the subject.

While C had no right to be included in the conversation, I wonder if being sat next to people week in and week out who converse in a language you don’t understand has had an influence, as C is sat closest to them (but facing away).

I would like to thank everyone who has responded as it has made interesting reading, and I appreciate all the differing views.