What is the value of the Welsh language in primary education?

Welsh language

Being spoken in some form for 4,000 years and a resurgence in the last century, today the Welsh language is in decline once more. There are some reports stated that the world will lose 90% of world languages and dialects by 2100, with a shrinking world and more connectivity at the beginning of the 21st Century, this may not be liked but understandable. By 2017, in Wales, there is 11% of people who say they can speak Welsh fluently, that is 310,600 people; 23% people who say they can speak some Welsh, including a big increase in the number of younger people saying this. The number of Welsh-medium primary schools in Wales is 420. There are also 49 Welsh-medium secondary schools. They teach 100,000 pupils. In Cardiff, three new primary schools are being built to cope with the growing demand for Welsh medium education. There is also a big debate about Welsh language, 52% of people agree that “more should be done to preserve Welsh as a living language” while 20% disagree, including 16% of people think “Welsh is a nuisance and Wales would be better off without it” (Wales Online, 2017). Meredydd Evans, professor of philosophy, writer, and performer has long been an advocate for the Welsh language.

In this 2008 interview, he discusses how language is an inseparable part of cultural identity, he said “"You make sense of your life in the terms of your language and your cultural identity"

Welsh language in primary education

According to the 2007 guidance, primary schools fall into the following categories: Welsh-medium; Dual stream; Transitional: Welsh-medium with significant use of English; Predominantly English-medium, with significant use of Welsh; English-medium. Recently, the Welsh Government set a target of increasing the number of Welsh speakers to 1 million by 2050 (Jones, 2017). The Welsh Government considers Welsh-medium education to be central in achieving this target. At the moment, in South-East Wales, parents choose whether to send their children to a Welsh-medium or an English-medium school. Existing studies have shown how perceptions regarding the cultural, educational and economic value of the Welsh language influence parents when making this decision. Parents who choose Welsh-medium education consider that the Welsh language will be beneficial to their children, while parents opting for English-medium education may have concerns regarding Welsh-medium education and/or may have less positive perceptions about the value of the Welsh language. It is said that parents tend to send their children to schools where their children will have classmates from similar social backgrounds (Packer and Campbell, 2000) and that parents are discouraged from sending their children to Welsh-medium schools because they fear their children will be ostracised for attending a school that is different to the school that most of the children in their neighbourhood attend. On the other hand, parents, from higher socio-economic backgrounds, may choose to send their children to schools which they believe have middle-class intakes because they believe it will beneficial for their children’s education and will prevent their children from ending up in the ‘wrong groups’ (Gewirtz et al, 1995).

In 2013, John Osmond opens up a debate on the teaching of the language in English-medium schools. He stated “We bring up our children to speak Welsh, not for the sake of the language, but for the sake of our children. And not in the main for them to enjoy literature – however unreasonably superb that literature may be, considering we are such a small tribe. To many of us, the Welsh language has become a symbol of things more important than language even, and that may be our salvation. Welsh has come to symbolize neighbourliness, brotherhood and equality. More fundamentally, every minority language symbolizes the right to think in a different way, to express that difference and to be different and free – to use a phrase of Ivan Illich, ‘a domain on which a certain kind of power cannot trespass”. The report’s main recommendation, that Welsh should have the same status as other core subjects like Maths and English, has already proved controversial.

Future of Welsh language

The Welsh government has been done a lot of strategy in order to promote and facilitate the use of Welsh language in everyday life. For example, although A living language: a language for living - Welsh language strategy was due to come to an end on 31 March 2017, on 6 April 2017, Alun Davies, Minister for Lifelong Learning and Welsh Language, informed Assembly Members that the work of drafting a long-term Welsh language strategy was ongoing and that the intention was to publish it in the summer of 2017. The new draft strategy sets out the long-term vision which spans over a period between 2017 and 2050 with the ambition to reach a million Welsh speakers by 2050. The vision is to see the Welsh language thriving in Wales. To achieve that, the strategy aims to see an increase in the number of people who both speak and use the language in daily life (Welsh Government, 2017). Also, Donaldson (2015) in his Successful Future report, emphasised the importance of Welsh language, that pupils should see it as a modern way to communicate not just something to study. Following the Education Reform Act 1988, Welsh became compulsory for every pupil at Key Stages 1, 2 and 3 in 1990. From September 1999, compulsion was extended to Key Stage 4. Recently, The Welsh Language Development Area of Learning in the Foundation Phase for 3 to 7-year-olds has also meant that children in English-medium settings and schools start to learn the Welsh language from the age of three. More recently, “the Welsh Government has shown its commitment to developing Wales as a bilingual nation through its Welsh Language Strategy” (Donaldson, 2015, p. 58)

Conclusion

Though the Welsh language has not seen much growth in recent years, the conditions are in place to allow for greater use in the coming years and decades (Click on Wales, 2016). There is support for the language amongst the public and Governments. There is legislation and infrastructure to support the use of Welsh. With robust measures, careful planning, proper investment and effective implementation, there is no reason why the Welsh language should not flourish and become a completely natural part of everyday life, in all parts of the country.

References

Wales Online (2017) The Welsh language is a living, breathing, beautiful thing - not fodder for an ugly and tedious debate. Available at: https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/welsh-language-living-breathing-beautiful-13574718 (Accessed: 17/4/2018)

Jones, S. L. (2017) Welsh or English-medium schooling - how parents make their choice in South-East Wales. Wales Institute of Social & Economic Research, Data & Methods. Available at: https://wiserd.ac.uk/news/welsh-or-english-medium-schooling-how-parents-make-their-choice-south-east-wales (Accessed: 17/4/2018)

Click on Wales (2013) Teaching Welsh for the sake of our children. Available at: http://www.iwa.wales/click/2013/10/teaching-welsh-for-the-sake-of-our-children/ (Accessed: 17/4/2018)

Click on Wales (2016) The position of the Welsh language – challenges and opportunities. Available at: http://www.iwa.wales/click/2016/09/position-welsh-language-challenges-opportunities/ (Accessed: 17/4/2018)

Welsh Government (2017) A living language: a language for living - Welsh language strategy 2012 to 2017. Available at: http://gov.wales/topics/welshlanguage/welsh-language-strategy-and-policies/welsh-language-policies-upto-2017/a-living-language-a-language-for-living-strategy-2012-2017/?lang=en (Accessed: 17/4/2018)

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