Ignore the Guardian: A bilingual education is best for our children

Fair points, but it's also about context. WM education in Ceredigion and Carmarthenshire (and Carmarthenshire has a unique linguistic mix and always has) and WM education in the former Glamorgan and Gwent are two entirely different things. I'm an ex-Welsh teacher originally from Welsh-speaking Ceredigion who's lived in the south east of Wales for 12 years. During my time working in two schools (one a middle-class English medium school in Penarth, the other a supposedly first language Welsh medium school in the Rhondda), what I saw shocked me to the core. Whilst the children in the English medium school had a positive yet half-baked attitude towards Welsh after the age of 14, the children in the Rhondda school were struggling. They could barely communicate in English, let alone deal with mutations and physics in Welsh. The school had around 900 pupils and I would argue that only around 300 of them could cope with education through their second language or speak the language fluently. Every week in the staff room, it was announced that one pupil had to be moved to the EM school as he or she couldn't cope. 95% of the children spoke English at home. There needs to be an open and calm discussion about Welsh medium education provision in the former Gwent and Glamorgan. We have some of the worst social problems in the western world here in south Wales, yet it is too often brushed aside with humour and fatalism: "oh we're valleys boys, it's the way we are", etc etc. No. Children being unable to speak or dress or feed themselves is something I have seen for myself. The Welsh language simply won't solve any of the problems of many of today's children who come from extremely troubled backgrounds. However, the biggest problem occurs when people criticise the language itself rather than Welsh language policy. It's extremely hurtful to a lot of Welsh speakers when people in English-speaking parts of Wales say things like 'dead language' or 'what's the point of it?'. Remember you are talking about somebody's language, their entire culture and the way they experience life and the way they view the world. By all means, let us debate Welsh language policy freely, but don't attack somebody's language - it's just disgusting. And interestingly, critics of the language are almost always monoglot, and don't even understand what it means to be bilingual or speak another language. "They'd be better off learning Chinese/French/Spanish/Arabic!" they cry, when they don't know how to use apostrophes or pronounce 'th' themselves. I believe the way forward is to concentrate on communication, literacy and numeracy for many working class children in Gwent and Glamorgan. Subjects like Welsh, French, RE etc will have to wait. Another thing I would recommend would have a 'Welsh and modern studies' GCSE instead of just the Welsh language. Many Welsh people are totally unaware of Welsh history apart from some tokenistic inserts about the industrial revolution. We need a comprehensive qualification that informs young people of Wales and how we got here, including learning some of the language. There is a lot more to being Welsh than just speaking Welsh but on the whole, English speakers in Wales are apathetic and don't fight their corner for anything, whether that's a TV station, better accountability of our AMs anything. And Welsh Labour like it that way. Wake up, switch off the rugby and take part in this new democracy we have.

Forget what the Guardian says, forget what the rest of the British press pumps out, at the end of the day it is pure propaganda to continually 'prop' up a dieing regime. Forget what anyone else says whether English or (so called) Cymreig, this is our language and it will be spoken by every Cymrieg man, woman and child in the not too distant future or we can kiss our nation goodbye. Let us look at it from any other nation's point of view. If you go to any country in the world they produce the same level of intellect from primary education right through university and the greater world beyond; believe it or not, they actually do this in their own (non English) language. The difference is they do not have an oppressive regime telling them they are not clever enough if they are educated and routinely speak their own langauge, as we do. For far too long I have heard (60 years in toto) that to speak Cymreig will hamper your progress through life. This is and always has been total bollocks and one, again, pumped out by successive Westminster, English majority, governments. Okay, most of the world uses, mainly, English for various reasons as an international language. All air traffic control, for example, is carried out in English. So what! That is the way things are, that is history, now can we please accept and get over it?! It really breaks my heart when I keep reading comments and hear voices, lacking in confidence and basically giving up, agreeing that we just aren't good enough. Either we must speak English or be bilingual in our schools which is a sell out each and every time, either way you look at it. It keeps us where we are now - endlessly debating whether to use our language or not, it keeps us down and it keeps us where they want us. The reasons used to be our natural resources whereas today it is our landscape they want turn into one huge shire size recreational park! Look at every 'colony' that has already gained its Independence from the British, 58 in all. There are others, as well as us, waiting for not just Independence, but the right to be who we are like Australia and New Zealand. Of the ones that have already gained their Independence they use their own language and, obviously, have English as one of their extra languages or their second language. South Africa, that has English, Afrikans and several indigenous languages and they get by without a problem. That's called self confidence and determination. Earlier this year South Africa announced that it was no longer putting imperial history on the top of the school curriculum it was introducing its own and greater African history, culture, music, composers, poetry etc to replace what has been superimposed. You have to admit they do have self confidence and determination, without a doubt. We can do this! We were far more civilised before the first capitalists (the Romans) came. We had everything they said we, the barbarian, didn't have and needed. We didn't need it and it has lasted nearly 2,000 years and here we are too scared to grow up! Forget what the British government and right wing anglo press says, forget what their Labour and Tory lackies in Cymru say we can do this. All we have to do is have the balls to say "from x date every school, pre and above will be in our Cymreag language. Yes, there will be people who don't like this and as some have suggested they can stay or go! The thing is, like me, those of us that do not speak our own language or enough of it, can learn or carry on as we're used to. After all we all speak ENGLISH and we'll all get by! This should not even be up for debate it should be accepted and then we can move on and mature as a people and soon an Independent nation.

Well done for getting a well-written piece up in such short order. I do take issue with one bit of it - I don't agree that the Guardian is "little better than the Daily Mail or Express" when it comes to Wales and the Welsh. It is much worse. There is a very strong "anti-Welsh" side to English liberalism, and this shows in such papers. Along with the "but we are/read the Guardian! I can't possibly be unreasonable when it comes to other cultures. It's you, you silly little Welshman", attitude of arrogance they often have, I am beginning to be more and more of the idea that those in Wales on the left (like me) should concentrate far more on allying ourselves with our fellow Welsh than with the English left.

Nonsense, the whole bilingual debate misses the point. It's multilingual education we need. The whole concept of language streams in Welsh and/or English is what's holding us back.

Mention Wales (or Scotland) , and the liberal English left's entire worldview flips on a dime.

Yes to multilingual education! But you do know Welsh schools also teach foreign languages don't you.

Gut wrenching article. The guardian has hit an almighty low and lost all credibility with regards to respect for multiculturalism. There is definitely something in the air these days that smells really bad. What on earth have we done to attract such deliberate efforts to pour contempt and scorn on our attempts to foster and protect one of the most beautiful cultural assets of Western Europe. This article really was the lowest of the low and its nastiness and antimulticuturalism aka assimilatory tactics needs to be held up as a mirror to these so called liberals to show how disgusting it really is. Appalling.

The, Guardians, hemorrhaging sales figures shows their former readers aren't buying their narratives.

Opening paragraph of this article is a lie. The Guardian does not imply what the author above claims. Fighting straw men will get us nowhere.

Really sad that papers like the Guardian spread ill-informed propaganda.

The problem with this debate is that both sides conflate two separate issues -- Welsh-medium education in Welsh speaking areas and immersive introductory Welsh for kids in English speaking areas.The Guardian article is about Welsh education in rural Carmarthenshire, where there's a heck of a lot of Welsh, and incomers shouldn't expect free English-medium schooling any more than they might in rural France. And if Welsh medium is mainstream, then having to travel 3 miles to send kids to what is effectively a "special school" is really nothing, and the article is a storm in a teacup. However, Welsh-medium is not "bilingual" by international definitions, because the law mandates English only from the third year of primary education, and Welsh-only is not "bilingual". A key principle of bilingual education worldwide is that of "mother tongue initial literacy", and Welsh medium (like Gaelic medium here in Scotland) leaves no scope for delivering initial literacy through English in situations where only a tiny minority (if any) of the pupils come from a Welsh-speaking family/community background. One of the effects of initial literacy is an unfamiliar tongue is a high degree of native language transferrence -- that is to say, patterns from the first language are embedded into the new language. This is a consequence that is not only well-attested by dozens of linguistic studies, but it's also one most readers here will actually witnessed themselves -- who has/had a granny who didn't speak a word of English before starting school, and to this day/her dying day used a range of "Welshisms" in her speech? And how many of those Welshisms have become part of typical Welsh English? Now think that by putting monolingual English-speaking children through the same process that was done to monolingual Welsh-speaking children several generations ago, you are creating a generation of nominal Welsh speakers whose language is riddled with Anglicisism, fel Kelly o Bobol y Cwm, and who will use "dw i ddim wedi..." instead of idiomatically correct "dw i heb..." and overuse "ie" and "nag e". Now consider that this new generation of pseudo-Welsh speakers is soon going to match the size of their true-Welsh-speaking peers, and think how much of an effect that these mistakes are going to have. Yes, bilingual is best, and that is why it is imperative that Wales (and Scotland) looks into a genuine bilingual stream that makes the right and proper distinction between native speakers and learners and delivers education suited to their needs.

Having written extensively about the Llangennech saga and kept a weather-eye on what other outlets were saying as well, The Guardian article seems to have trotted out the same canards that disfigured the Llangennech process in the first place. The Guardian article fundamentally misrepresents certain key events - for example the decision to move all schools in Carmarthenshire along the language continuum was made by the Labour-led administration and not, as the article allowed readers to infer, the Plaid-led one. In addition, it repeats allegations of intimidation and fails to say that none of those purported incidents were reported to the Police. In fact, the one instance where a complaint was made to the Police and subsequently misreported by the 'national newspaper of Wales' as being linked to the fallout over the village school, not only did the the newspaper have to grovellingly climb down from its high horse but the Police force also rubbished the story. I can't imagine why The Guardian did not mention the sabre-rattling about legal challenges and the abortive attempt to crowdfund a non-existent judicial review. It was surely also worth noting that the local Labour councillor who described the situation as apartheid and segregation lost her previously safe seat and with it her local authority seat as a governor of a Welsh Medium school. But there you go: perhaps those issues did not fit the narrative. It is a tricky one to stay dispassionate and distanced while reporting and there was no doubt in my mind that the issue could have been handled better at the initial stages by the local authority. That would not, however, have satisfied those 'parents' who did not have children at the school but who were especially vocal during the protests. Criticism of the local authority is fair enough provided it comes from a position where the critic is at least rational and not close-minded themselves. Funnily enough, I can draw comfort from the fact that our coverage was praised both by Jacques Protic and by Welsh language campaigners. It helps when you use the facts and take the time to dig them out.

JD, did you just copy paste a comment from the Guardian article?

I have two grandchildren aged 3 and 5 who live in Luxembourg. Luxembourg is a small country of less than 600,000 population. It has 3 official languages, Luxembourgish, French and German. My grandchildren go to the Luxembourgish school in their village. The only language spoken is Luxembourgish. Their parents do not speak Luxembourgish. Their mother speaks Welsh with them; their father speaks English with them, Their grandmother speaks French with them. They have no problem changing from one language to the other. At their school there are parents of numerous nationalities. One set of parents are French and Russian, another set are Hungarian. The children have a common language of Luxembourgish. Nobody questions it, they accept it as part of living in Luxembourg. They respect its culture and traditions. Later in their school life they will be taught through the German Language; later still in the French language. Children have no problem adapting. Why are we in Wales so narrow minded? My children had their primary education through Welsh in a small village. I always spoke Welsh to them, their mother spoke French to them. They spoke English with some of the neighbours. It was never a problem to them. Why does this friction exist in Wales? Our greatest heritage is the living language and the culture that surrounds it not the castles and the country houses and other structures that suck up money. All those that oppose Welsh medium schools should take their blinkers off their eyes and the chips off their shoulders and give their children the opportunity to have a wider vision. Bilingualism has many benefits. One that has been proven is that people who have been exposed to 2 languages when very young have a better chance of staving off dementia. Learning a third language also becomes easier. I just think of the greater opportunities available to my grandchildren now that they are multilingual. The internet provides opportunities for people to work from their base in Wales in different languages.

Its quite straightforward. The best performing school in Wales in 2016 was Ysgol Plasmawr. Its in Pentrebane, Cardiff (which is neither middle class nor affluent). The second best school was the fee paying Cathedral School. One set of pupils comes out guaranteed bilingual as a bare minimum. The other lot don't. Capiche? Me entiendes? Deall? Now tell me again, ohh wise monoglots, how being bilingual is in any way worse!? Totally defies logic and credibility and exposes their prejudice.