Welsh medium

[SmilingMakesMyFaceAche]

Anyone with any experience of welsh medium education? Come tell me your experiences! Neither DH or I speak welsh but I did gcse and I m willing to learn if we choose welsh medium for DS.
Advice and comments welcomed

[alexpolismum]

gaelicsheep I admit I don't live in Wales (or indeed even in the UK!), and have no experience of the political agenda. However, I do feel that bilingualism is a positive thing. What's not to like? They gain Welsh, whilst retaining their English. I singled you out in reference to foreign words being used in Welsh, because you were the one to ask what the Welsh for "computer" and a few other modern devices was.

Just as an aside, though, completely irrelevant to the discussion, it is odd that we should call it "borrowing". It's not like we use the word for a few years and then give it back again!

[alexpolismum]

I didn't think Welsh medium was compulsory, gaelic, isn't it a choice?

[gaelicsheep]

That's why I said I'm having the wrong argument on the wrong thread, although the topic has expanded somewhat from the OP.

If you move to deepest darkest Wales then you have no choice but Welsh medium. Hence we would never have done so, not in a million years. In normal schools Welsh is still a disproportionately large and compulsory part of the curriculum.

When my DS gets maths homework like he did this weekend, counting on in tens that took him all of two minutes, I would say that somebody somewhere has their priorities all wrong. Sure teach them Welsh in primary, (but please don't enforce it on them outside of Welsh lessons). Make it optional in secondary or at the very least - please - optional at GCSE. Or you are just wasting kids' time and taxpayers' money.

[gaelicsheep]

And really my point about scientific words was that no serious scientific work is ever going to be done or published in Welsh, so why invent words when there's a perfectly good language in this country that has already done so.

[gaelicsheep]

Sorry, I think my recent conversation with DH has got me rattled.

[alexpolismum]

My previous point still stands regarding the use of foreign loan words. My dh is an electronics engineer, first language Greek. He regularly uses English vocabulary in Greek for various components. Why should he not write a schematic in Greek, simply because some of the vocabulary came from English? I honestly see it as no different from us using the word "problem" in English. Perhaps it won't be long before scientific papers are published in Welsh.

[slightlysoupstained]

That's interesting adeucalione, do you have any figures on how much lower? The only thing I could find with a short bit of googling (not much time here) was an article from 2008 saying entries were 3% lower in WME that year, and they were wondering if it was a blip.

Oh and this, which suggest WME gets better results overall: syniadau--buildinganindependentwales.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/do-welsh-medium-schools-produce-better.html

DS crying now, got to go.

[maishoffwcingras]

gaelic that's quite am imsultimg thing to say that no 'serious' scientific paper will ever be published in Welsh - why ever not?! Are there no Welsh scientists?

[maishoffwcingras]

I do know how to spell insulting despite being educated in Welsh, it's just my farmer hands are too big for my phone

[gaelicsheep]

I know, I apologise for that and a couple of other comments I just made. RL has intruded on me now, and I should have thought more before typing.

[gaelicsheep]

Although, there is genuine point in there somewhere, and it applies equally to all minority languages. I don't understand why there is a need to publish in minority languages when the target audience all speak another mainstream language. That also goes for publishing council papers in Gaelic btw. That's really behind what I said about scientific language, the same goes for "political" language. It just seems daft to spend money on reinventing the wheel when everyone can read the original version anyway.

[alexpolismum]

gaelic the target audience may well speak many different languages. Translation is hardly a new concept, you know!

A quick glance at my bookshelves - I have academic works in English, Greek, French, Italian. Translated from Russian, Hungarian.

DH has things translated from English, French and German, one schematic was originally in Georgian.

Why limit ourselves to just English?

[alexpolismum]

Why should translating a paper from Welsh into English be viewed any differently from translating one from Russian or Greek into English? I assume you wouldn't expect the Russian or Greek scientist to just write directly in English?

[gaelicsheep]

I see what you are saying, but I think Welsh is a different case, but I am not Welsh and will stop digging now before I get lynched.

[TeddyBare]

I'm a lecturer at one of the Universities in Wales. We get a fairly large minority of native Welsh speakers, most of whom came through Welsh medium schools, but almost all of the lectures in my department are in English. I have never heard of any of the native Welsh speakers struggling with English either in lectures or out. As far as I can see you've got nothing to lose from Welsh education and a lot to gain.

[gaelicsheep]

OK, I might start a new thread, just because I want to explore this compulsory second language thing further and this is not the place. I too see no actual harm in Welsh medium as long as it is a choice. I'm sure you'll all be glad to see the back of me here. Sorry for any offence.

[Startail]

teddybare I'm sorry I don't see what DCs gain spending hours and hours studying a dead language, that you say yourself isn't necessary for university and most won't ever use again.

Be bilingual in French, German, Spanish by all means, they are languages of the 21st Century not the 18th.

Hanging on to the past to create an impractical, impossible, future is killing the wonderful open, Welcoming, friendly Wales I went to school in.

I could never bring my dyslexic, MFL freezing, DD1 to live in Wales and I have friends who do long commutes to work in Wales because they would rather their DCs studied two Useful MFLs.

[Startail]

MFL free

[gaelicsheep]

Sorry, just couldn't resist posting this one back for adieucalione. I thought it would be all rubbish, being the Daily Fail, until DS confirmed the first part of the headline only 5 minutes later.

don't read if of a sensitive disposition

[MisForMumNotMaid]

I think people with above average IQ and motivated carers will excel which ever combination of languages they're educated in.

I do know some Welsh adults and children who really struggle to talk in English and need another Welsh person with them in meetings to help when they can't find the right words for translation. These people I know as parents and friends through my children and their schools. They are not in the top academic percentages and it does hinder them in life. I'm not saying they don't have good lives it can just make some things difficult - rightly or wrongly.

For example one man I know, a parent governor at the school where i was also a governor, used to phone me after meetings to discuss the meeting content because he found it hard to keep up if there was any English paperwork or presentations from County. Another lady i know wanted to be involved with the PTA but was scared her English wasn't good enough. I hopefully expressed clearly to her that her English was significantly better than my Welsh and so if we pulled together we might just rub through and enjoy ourselves. We did. One professional lady I met at a business conference had for the first time in her life moved out of Welsh speaking Wales. She was scared she came across as simple because her brain 'functioned in Welsh', her words, so she had to translate the English to welsh then her welsh reply into English.

[maishoffwcingras]

startail how can it be dead if people are using it in every day life??

[PomBearEnvy]

startail children in a Welsh Medium Primary do not spend hours and hours studying a dead language. They study the same curriculum as children in English speaking schools, only difference is they learn said curriculum, in a different language

As teddybare was trying to point out, the children from Welsh medium backgrounds, were at no disadvantage in an English based lecture, because they are also taught to read and write in English!

I can not understand how you could find this a disadvantage?

[TeddyBare]

Startail, I find your post rather odd.
Firstly, Welsh is not a dead language. There are native speakers so by definition it's a living language.
Secondly, there are some degree programmes which can be taught partly or entirely in Welsh - Law, IR / politics, literature, history and probably others I don't know of. There is also at least one Welsh speaking lab at my university. I would expect someone who had studied any of these subjects in both languages to have a better understanding of it and bring an interesting perspective to the discussion.
Thirdly, there are many things which are more important than university. Just because you don't need Welsh to study doesn't mean it has no value. I enjoy my job but it's not the most meaningful thing in my life. People gain meaning from all sorts of things, including engaging with their community or culture and history. By not teaching Welsh you are automatically making it almost impossible for Welsh people to do that. Even if the majority of children who learn Welsh grow up to enjoy other things, they've lost nothing by learning Welsh.

Even if you don't go on to study in Welsh, it's a massive advantage to be bilingual with any language. Being bilingual gives you a different perspective, makes it easier to learn other languages, and might reduce the risk of developing alzheimer's. I could understand why you might not want to send your dc to Welsh school if the home language is not English but if they're going to learn English either way then they've got nothing to lose from having an extra language.
All around the world it is totally normal to be multilingual with a local language, national language and international language (usually English or French). If you can already speak one of the international languages then you've got an advantage but it seems totally pointless to throw away that advantage by refusing to learn any other language. Learning another international language is not necessarily more useful than learning a local language as most literature and cultural experiences are translated between the international languages.

As an aside, do you also think it's pointless that countries with a high level of English fluency still keep their own language. Almost all Swedes speak brilliant English but it doesn't mean that Swedish has no value. What about countries which have a huge number of different local languages but most people can also speak one majority language? I think South Africa has something like 11 native languages but most South Africans speak English. Should they all also stop having their own languages?

[MisForMumNotMaid]

My Grandmother was fluent in I believe 7 languages, she also developed Altzheimers at a young age. I'm not sure about the bilingualism/ altzheimers claims.

I do whole heartedly agree with the continued use of Welsh in schools and children being billingual/ heavily exposed to a second language, from a young age. If your brain can accept that languages have different patterns it makes it easier to go on and learn more. I'm not sure about its compulsory study through to 16, but then I would also rather children could opt for a BTec style education from 14 if they aren't academic.

I like Wales but it feels like the whole language debate is actually masking a supremacy amongst a small group of people (not all those who are Welsh first language, just a select clic of them) that is tantamount to racism. It hinders the preservation/ development/ acceptance of the language and causes divides in communities.

[adeucalione]

soup Blimey I've read loads of stuff over the past day or so, this stuff is really interesting me. The stats comparing English and Welsh take-up of MFL at GCSE isn't all collated in one place, but read that it is 40% in England and just under 30% in Wales, with WM schools trailing EM. I'll google now and see what I can find.