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Text of the page (random words):
os y aspiraciones así como justificar brevemente sus opiniones o explicar sus planes i have highlighted in bold what i consider the main points in my opinion that kind of level is not nearly high enough to cope with presenting english in an educational setting and what about student essays and homework are they to be corrected by teachers whose own english would need a lot of correcting i would say they d need at least a b2 level upper intemediate and continual assessment improvement or more likely c1 advanced english simply in order to cope if few local teachers are up to the job and i can t imagine that they will be too happy that they cannot teach say science because their english isn t good enough then what are the alternatives bringing in a load of teachers from the uk or other countries and will these teachers be able to handle the galician and spanish dimension that will inevitably arise in the classroom in short the introduction of a third of the syllabus in english is not only some way down the line as the government now ackowledges but probably unworkable however there are already signs that the xunta is backing down but not before taking a potshot at what they see as nationalist extremists out to spoil their cosmopolitan initiative according to reports there were somewhere between 30 60 000on the march in santiago today in protest the evidence would suggest they came from all over the political spectrum the legality of the draft bill has also been questioned the spanish constitution states that families are only allowed to intervene in educational policy on matters concerning religion or morals this brings us back to the new xunta s claim that parents should be allowed to choose the language in which their children are to receive their core education another criticism of the current system has been that spanish speaking children were having difficulties studying subjects in galician if that is the case then how are pupils going to cope with the introduction of a foreign language into subjects where they already have high failure rates finally it strikes me as odd that there has been much talk about the imposition of galician and how this was eroding freedom yet this same party wants to bring a non official language english into the education system and give it the same classroom time as spanish and galician posted by galidonia at 9 52 am no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels galego galician language sunday december 6 2009 lend me your ears i recently received a comment from a reader of this blog about english in the spanish education system and the lack of real communication involved students in spain often complain that the english they learn at school lacks a proper communicative component and is too grammar focussed firstly let me say that i think the spanish can be overly self critical about their english levels of course their general level is nowhere near as good as places like the netherlands or scandinavia but the native languages in these countries have a lot more in common with english therefore these places have a massive advantage in that respect so perhaps spaniards shouldn t be quite so hard on themselves at times some of them speak english very well i have taught english to students from a number of european countries spain france italy czech republic slovakia and hungary the english levels of teenagers in france are no better than in spain in my experience and i don t think there s much difference between the general levels in italy and spain either but i was very impressed with the general standard of czech students and if anything a slovakian group i taught were even better their native languages are nothing like english of course it may be no coincidence that they along with the scandinavian countries and the netherlands opt for subtitling instead of dubbing i also believe that many in the netherlands have access to the bbc on the other hand france also likes to dub its foreign films that is why i think the biggest problem with english in spain lies outside the classroom so many people are studying english yet they have little contact with the language once the class is over they think all the answers lie in the classroom i m sure improvements could be made there as well but if teachers are not confident in their english communication skills then how can they pass this skill on to others no one is going to be able to think in a foreign language that they don t hear regularly the internet should help in this respect but that still involves the student making the effort to find good websites where they can listen to english so why not just take it out of their hands and put it right in front of them if i could do just one thing to help improve english levels in spain it would be to provide daily access to the language in the form of subtitled news reports tv series and films this is unlikely i m afraid because dubbing is a big industry in spain and many people are so used to it that they don t want change that is a pity as i really do not think that reading subtitles in your own language requires a lot of effort it is not for me to say that anyone must learn english but if spanish or regional governments are serious about improving english levels and making their citizens bilingual or trilingual then i think this is the way forward you don t have to look very far to find an example of this theory at work portugal opts for subtitles in its cinemas and when in portugal i cannot help but notice the vast amount of english language on television in comparison with its iberian counterpart i do think that that the general pronunciation of english there is better than in spain some portuguese even have an american touch to their accents due to regular exposure to us television and cinema portuguese tv reporters are often able to make a good attempt at pronouncing english names of people places films etc but sadly the efforts of a fair number of spanish presenters would not be recognisable to the average english speaker unfamiliar with the spanish pronunciation system the general level of english in catalonia is a bit higher than in some other parts of spain in my experience i can think of a couple of reasons why that might be learning languages may come more naturally to catalans as most are already bilingual and this probably makes them more open to other languages and sounds however the geographical situation of catalonia is also important it is easier for them to travel abroad and mix with foreigners using international english communication this also comes back to the point about english having more immediate relevance in their lives if people don t have sufficient opportunities to hear and practice the language then there is less incentive to learn it similarly if english is only significant while in the classroom and is of little benefit once the exams have been passed then why bother to make the effort posted by galidonia at 3 36 am no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels english as a world language english in spain thursday november 19 2009 english under threat in scotland carlos callon s recent article in galicia hoxe about the outlandish claims made by some that signposting in galician cities is predominately in the galician language led me to think about the situation in the uk and ireland there you will hear some of the same kind of arguments about how much gaelic or welsh is around and about whether it is all a waste of time and money i m going to focus on scotland because that s the place i know best recently i ve heard a few claims that bilingual signs gaelic english are distracting drivers firstly all we are talking about here is toponyms and street names in other words signs giving information about the distance to nearby towns signs at the entrance to towns with the place name on it or street names in towns or cities these will almost invariably include the english name as well as the gaelic one except in places which don t have a separate english name such as drumnadrochit for instance i ve never seen or heard the village by loch ness referred to as bridge of drum which is the literal meaning in english in the comments below a recent bbc article about the death of language one aberdonian claimed there was a proliferation of bilingual signs again in english and gaelic in aberdeenshire i will be on the lookout the next time i travel through the grampian region the poster must have a very different understanding of the word proliferation from me i have never seen a traffic sign stop reduce speed etc in gaelic anywhere in scotland and signposting in shops is conspicuous by its absence at least outside of the gaelic speaking heartlands of the western isles and a few other places in the highlands i haven t been to those islands for some time but even then i d confidently state its written presence is minimal in comparison with english as for the aberdeen area i ve spent plenty of time there visited recently and can t recall seeing any gaelic signs at all i ve seen a few gaelic signs in and around government buildings in edinburgh and in a few places in glasgow traditionally the city most gaelic speaking highlanders move to for work or study glasgow queen street railway station is one place that comes to mind the name of the station is clearly on view in gaelic it s easy for me to remember this specific example as it s very striking due to the lack of gaelic in public places in scotland s major cities you are far more likely to see gaelic in public places in the highland capital of inverness or other smaller towns in the highland region particularly in and around council buildings or cultural centres also on street signs although only in central parts of inverness as i recall and again it will always appear bilingually with english when gaelic information is given in cultural or tourist sites it is common to find condensed versions of a more detailed english text a token word or two of gaelic at the door such as fàilte welcome is often considered quite enough but credit to b q for their efforts above as this is a rare site in commercial premises although far more widely used throughout scotland than gaelic the scots language fares even worse due to its lack of official recognition you will do well to notice its presence in public at all it features in poems inscribed on the walls or pavement around the scottish parliament building in edinburgh but it s more likely you will see it in the form of graffiti written by scots speakers however on the scottish parliament website information is available in scots along with 13 other languages this is just one example of the current scottish government starting to take scots a bit more seriously as a language that can have a purpose beyond poetry or informal conversation scots also features in place names or in street names sometimes in monolingual form for the same reason as the drumnadrochit case mentioned earlier some examples can be seen on the website of the scots language centre however over the years there have also been many examples of scottish street and place names being given an english makeover such as the example of baxter wynd being changed to baker lane even this minimal exposure to scotland s other languages is too much for some they may tell you that gaelic is a good thing but yet they are easily inconvenienced and don t want it to affect their everyday lives in any noticeable way for that reason i would argue that some see gaelic as a form of cultural decoration something concrete that marks scotland out from england but that it must be kept firmly in its place in other words it must not interfere at all with the daily routine of a monolingual english speaker another thing some people complain about is the cost of promoting the language they seem to think that a language will continue to exist or even thrive without financial support and a place in the education system it s always easy not to care of course provided it s not your own native language that is at stake that is why many monolingual speakers of a global language like english or indeed a widespread international language like spanish fail to empathise at the end of the day they know it is not their language that is under threat and so can t identify with the situation posted by galidonia at 4 01 pm 4 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels gaelic galician language scots language thursday november 5 2009 gali cat united a number of galician and catalan collectives have united in a bid to safeguard their languages this week the vice president of the galician standardisation board fran rei spoke about the linguistic situation in galicia at a conference at a catalan university meanwhile the leader of the catalan party erc joan puigcercós was invited to santiago by the bng galician nationalist party and participated in a talk about language as a harmonising factor parallels between the languages were discussed in barcelona but fran rei said that the differences also stood out he told the xornal de galicia the situation regarding catalan in the education sytem is very different and the use of catalan in everyday life is more visible than it is here those at the conference stressed that catalan is used in all walks of life it is common in the cities this is not the case in galicia where galician has practically disappeared from the major cities my own view on the last point is that although there is a lot of truth in the statement exaggerating the situation does nothing to help and only adds fuel to the claim that nobody speaks or wants galician in the cities recent estimates which were considered bleak by galician language supporters were suggesting a figure of around 15 20 using galician as their first language in vigo and a coruña so i would disagree that it has practically disappeared from the major cities obviously its situation is not so healthy there but it s all relative it is not the case that galician has virtually died out in urban areas i hear the language used in private coversations on the street at some point every other day and surely one or two in ten is not an insignificant number posted by galidonia at 1 59 pm no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels catalan galician language older posts home subscribe to posts atom followers blog archive 2010 4 july 1 trilingualism at work in portugal february 1 january 2 2009 26 december 1 november 2 october 3 july 6 june 4 may 2 april 3 march 3 february 1 january 1 2008 17 december 1 november 1 october 1 july 2 june 1 may 1 april 3 march 2 february 2 january 3 2007 14 december 2 november 2 september 2 august 3 july 5 about me galidonia author of the iberian horseshoe a journey memoir travel and shellfish and umbrellas poetry tran...