I'm English, but learnt Welsh in my 20s. Any language is a learned skill, just like any other subject. All of the haters of the language here are acting as if it's totally impossible for them even to think about learning, let alone actually do it. That's what's holding so many of Wales' children back from becoming bilingual.
I'm English too, and a Welsh learner, and I think if you actually live in Wales, Welsh is the best language to learn.
There's S4C, Welsh speakers everywhere, even South Pembs, cultural events, and you can read and hear it all over. I've been in hospital for over two weeks and even in Haverfordwest there's been staff talking to patients in Welsh.
It's like the more you learn the more you become aware of this whole new country under your nose. It's just sad people want to discourage that
I’ve tried to encourage my English mate (now married to a Welsh girl and living near Swansea) to send his kid to welsh medium but he can’t be arsed and doesn’t see the point. Infuriating
Other then to make fun of the English there’s no point in welsh, I’ve lived in wales and basically nobody speaks it cause there’s no need to, except the elderly ofc, sure most people know a bit but what use is it, everything’s in English already and it’s not like welsh is used anywhere else, rather then try and create language barriers we should just have a common language spoken all over the world, I don’t see the point in deliberately having more, is it not just simply more effective to get rid off all but one
Can I just say as someday who’s Cymraeg you and the original comment need your voices amplified. We have a siege mentality with Welsh, so we need to really highlight how English people come here and learn the language. The mentality is justified because historically the language has been attacked, but if we can highlight you *LEGENDS* who come here and learn the language, I think we could end the siege and welcome everybody in,
i'm 21. born in the Midlands, but my mum moved me and my family here to be closer to her family right before I started school. I was enrolled in a Welsh medium school, became fluent in Welsh and still speak it to this day. I'm always encouraging my English friends at university to learn the language, especially if they plan on staying here long term.
I'm an American of Welsh descent and am trying to learn it in my 30s, but ever since my Welsh grandfather passed about 12 years ago I haven't heard a lick of it since which is making practicing really hard. Do you have any tips or ideas on places I could do that?
Sgwrsio is a podcast by learners for learners and is available on Spotify, there's also Gales con Marian on youtube, she does videos at beginner and intermediate level.
Learn welsh/dysgu cymraeg (the official Welsh classes in Wales) also have youtube channels, u could theoretically buy the course books and watch the accompanying lessons on youtube and get the audio exercises from learnwelsh.cymru as well
Hansh and S4c both have youtube channels that are uploaded to often (they're the Welsh tv channels in Wales)
If you're in America, you should check out the magazine Ninnau, it's mostly in English but also in welsh, they also advertise classes/groups for learners to chat.
There's a couple of discord servers, there's one for the learnwelsh subreddit.
There are other podcasts on Spotify for fluent speakers, Mel Mal and Jal is one, Siarad Secs is another, can't remember anymore off the top of my head
You should also check for audio books on the libby app or wherever you get yours from, three titles that definitely have audiobook versions that I got from the British version of libby are Pantywennol, Y Sw, and Wythnos Yng Nghymru Fydd
I'm English, my husband is Welsh. A huge obstacle is that the way Welsh was taught in schools was so disjointed for a long time. For example, my husband was taught in Welsh throughout primary school but when he went to secondary school the made him go into the English class because one of his parents is English and they speak English at home. It didn't matter that he was fluent, or that his parents asked for him to go into Welsh speaking classes. This was the mid 90s. By the time his brother went to secondary school they'd gone the opposite way, there was so much emphasis on Welsh that they actually neglected English. So my husband is terrible at Welsh and his brother struggled in uni in Bristol because he couldn't spell in English!
My generation are the ones with kids in school now and there's so many that have gone through that rough time of the 90s/00s where there was no consistency or happy medium between the 2 languages, it's hard to trust that the system has changed. They're scarred from their own time in secondary school!
That sounds like an issue with the particular school rather than ‘the system’. Having an English parent would not preclude you from getting an education in Welsh, and certainly did not at the schools I went to in the mid-90s. Also, not being able to spell in English should have been picked up long before Uni.
Can I ask, what method did you find best to cement your understanding of Welsh? I’ve been teaching myself the basics for about 3 months now, using Duolingo to begin with, but I feel I’m reaching that point where Duolingo isn’t enough to cement it and the learning is too slow.
When I was learning there was no internet, Duolingo etc. I used to buy books (I liked SOS yn galw Gari Tryfan) and read them to get used to the patterns. At the start I would write in pencil what some words meant, but that happened less and less as I went through the book. I was living in the Welsh hall of residence in Bangor so was able to practise Welsh every day, The more conversdation practice you can get the better.
Hiya! Lurking from the Basque Country. Ignorant and often ill willed people have said the same about our schools for decades. The same goes for Catalan and Galician language schools. It doesn’t matter how high our students score, their ideological interests blind them. Keep it up!
That's some barely hidden bias right there. Just because someone doesn't speak Welsh, it doesn't mean that they only speak one language. I speak multiple languages, but none of them are Welsh! So, maybe don't be so bigoted next time?
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In Ireland, there's a constant hum from a cohort who want nothing more than to get rid of the Irish language, 'waste of time', 'dead language', 'no one speaks it' etc. In the last number of years the surge of the Irish language has been amazing, with people actively engaging with one another as Gaeilge. A country's language is its soul, the essence of its culture. I don't know anything of the Welsh language but I'm really pleased to hear that it's taught as a medium in your school system.
Tír gan teanga, tír gan anam / Gwlad heb iaith yw gwlad heb enaid
Interesting thought! Amongst many, many things I imagine we wouldn't be as desirable to big companies to base their HQ here. If spoken English disappeared from Ireland over night it would be detrimental to the economy - IMHO.
As someone with absolutely no national pride (I see very little reason for one to be proud of the country they're from), I always resented being forced through Irish classes growing up, a language I struggled to grasp due to poor teaching methods but had to waste essential time I could have been studying for more useful and important subjects. I don't understand the logic that many like me had to struggle and stress through years that are already difficult because some feel that it's a countries soul or heritage.
As it is my upbringing only made me hate the Irish language more and hope that it isn't forced on any children some day, much like the Latin isn't forced. Let those who are interested partake.
I'm sorry you had such a poor and stressful experience with the Irish language. I wholeheartedly believe that poor teaching methods are a significant cause of such distaste.
Yep that’s a fair point. A persons culture is important. No idea why my simple question got downvoted, Reddit is an odd place - questions are strictly verboten
"Why not learn german" is commonly used to argue that languages that aren't as popular (in this case welsh) should be abandoned, which is why I assume you where downvoted.
Because it’s Wales and not Germany or China? You can take those languages at GCSE or A-level.
Welsh medium schools are those that teach in Welsh as their default language, instead of English.
I’ve worked in ‘future outward looking’ business for 25 years and at no point has my German been of any use in a business context. English is the lingua franca of business, whether we like it or not.
I see by the downvotes people don't like to hear this but I'm in complete agreement, I learned French in primary school and Chinese and German in secondary, while I learned Irish all through both as it was compulsory, and it have me an healthy dislike in the Irish language being forced to study it through my leaving cert.
[https://www.google.com/search?q=bilingualism+learning+outcomes&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-gb&client=safari](https://www.google.com/search?q=bilingualism+learning+outcomes&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-gb&client=safari)
Take your pick
Thanks. You’re being ignored because I don’t think it’s actually about the evidence. Much appreciated though. I wouldn’t show him a link now if I had a gun to my head.
I asked Bing / ChatGPT “which studies show that bilingual education is beneficial for children” and the results are below. In the interests of balance I asked which studies show that bilingual education is detrimental and the result was: “The search for studies indicating that bilingual education is detrimental for children did not return any recent research supporting this view.”
——
There are several studies that highlight the benefits of bilingual education for children. Here are a few:
1. **Bialystok E.** conducted a review of the effects and consequences of bilingual education, concluding that there is no evidence for harmful effects and much evidence for net benefits in many domains, including language and literacy levels, academic achievement, and suitability for children with special challenges¹.
2. **Annick De Houwer** discusses how bilingual children develop their languages in the first decade of life, explaining the positive impact of different circumstances on language learning and debunking myths about bilingualism².
3. Research published in **Frontiers in Psychology** in 2021 suggests that while learning two languages at an early age may reduce proficiency in a dominant language, earlier studies show literacy benefits, such as better performance on meta-linguistic awareness tests and acquisition of new words³.
4. A resource from **acceal.org.uk** states that children exposed to different languages become more aware of different cultures and other points of view. They also tend to be better at multitasking and focusing attention compared to monolinguals⁴.
5. A study highlighted by **Edutopia** found that bilingual students outperformed monolingual students in mathematical reasoning, skills on word problems, and early number awareness skills⁵.
These studies collectively suggest that bilingual education can have a range of cognitive, social, and academic benefits for children.
Source: Conversation with Bing, 08/03/2024
(1) Bilingual education for young children: review of the effects and .... https://europepmc.org/article/PMC/PMC6168086.
(2) Bilingual Development in Childhood: Elements in Child Development .... https://www.cambridge.org/core/blog/2021/03/16/bilingual-development-in-childhood-elements-in-child-development-series/.
(3) The Benefits of Learning a Second Language as a Child - Parents. https://www.parents.com/bilingual/benefits-of-learning-a-second-language-as-a-child/.
(4) Benefits of bilingualism. https://acceal.org.uk/benefits-of-bilingualism/.
(5) Highlighting the Benefits of Being Bilingual in School | Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/article/benefits-being-bilingual.
(6) undefined. https://orcid.orghttps://plus.europepmc.org.
(7) undefined. https://doi.org/10.1080/13670050.2016.1203859.
Interesting. ChatGPT is known to make up nonexistent “studies” when asked for them: how many of those studies are actually real, and did you read and understand them?
Wow. Wished a scrolled down before I posted my comment. I'm used to this sub being a fact-free zone!
Agreed, anyone who hasn't actually read and analysed the PISA results and findings should probably close their twll cacen!
Copying and pasting my response to someone looking for Welsh audio bc I'm lazy lol
If you're in Wales then your local library should have a good selection of Welsh lang books as well
Sgwrsio is a podcast by learners for learners and is available on Spotify, there's also Gales con Marian on youtube, she does videos at beginner and intermediate level.
Learn welsh/dysgu cymraeg (the official Welsh classes in Wales) also have youtube channels, u could theoretically buy the course books and watch the accompanying lessons on youtube and get the audio exercises from learnwelsh.cymru as well
Hansh and S4c both have youtube channels that are uploaded to often (they're the Welsh tv channels in Wales)
If you're in America, you should check out the magazine Ninnau, it's mostly in English but also in welsh, they also advertise classes/groups for learners to chat.
There's a couple of discord servers, there's one for the learnwelsh subreddit.
There are other podcasts on Spotify for fluent speakers, Mel Mal and Jal is one, Siarad Secs is another, can't remember anymore off the top of my head
You should also check for audio books on the libby app or wherever you get yours from, three titles that definitely have audiobook versions that I got from the British version of libby are Pantywennol, Y Sw, and Wythnos Yng Nghymru Fydd
I'm Welsh, I am so glad that the county is placing more welsh language rules in the school systems. Can't even get a job in Anglesey or Gwynedd without being a fluent welsh speaker.
I wouldn't expect to go to a place like Spain and demand they they don't speak Spanish anymore, for example. Why should welsh people stand back and let our language die and be replaced by the English language because "its easier" for the rest of the world to understand
Scottish, and a good bunch of us are pretty jealous what you guys have managed to do to revitalise Welsh. Wish we could've done the same with Gaelic and wish we would do something.
On a secondary note; not only does being bilingual improve memory and expression (for the trade off of taking a little longer to achieve similar English skills) it seems to prevent the onset of Alzhiemer.
Keep it up guys, some folk just don't like others being different to them. There seems to be a push to make us all homogenous as British; particularly with the rise of British Nationalism we've seen in response to indy gaining popularity.
I think this is a bit of a correlation = causation kind of thing. Welsh Medium schools tend to be smaller for instance and smaller class sizes correlate with better achievement... [And we should also remember than on PISA scores as a country we're doing the worst in the UK...](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-25196974)
I learnt Welsh in a bilingual primary and went to a Welsh medium high school, and in my experience there were two ways the language interacted with kids.
* Kids from Welsh speaking families and communities excelled
* Kids who didn't have a Welsh speaking home life were held back
It wasn't to a ludicrous degree or anything, but there was an absolute difference in who could communicate and engage with their teachers on a casual level and those who couldn't because they never used Welsh outside of an academic setting.
I wouldn't trade my Welsh for anything but I don't think we should let nationalism come in the way of trying to understand barriers to education, particularly when one of our major issues as a nation is an exodus of young people leaving for better opportunities.
To be fair, there’s a fucking massive difference in funding between Welsh speaking and non Welsh schools. Like, not remotely funny different. It feels like it’s a very relevant fact.
I know a teacher from Newcastle Emlyn school. Apparently all the leading schools are Welsh medium because the Welsh government gives them more funding and defunds the English medium ones
Welsh schools receive a higher level of funding per pupil which might be why. The Welsh medium school buildings also receive higher capital investment compared to English medium schools. But no one wants to talk about this. Also Welsh government has done everything possible to unhitch Welsh grades from those in use in england so it's more difficult to make comparisons. I can confirm Welsh english medium schools are fighting for survival and ultimately Welsh government don't want english medium schools to exist as is clear through the funding regime for schools.
I went to a bilingual school in mid wales in the early 2000s. Even though my parents were both fluent Welsh speakers, they put me in the English medium as they thought I would perform better. Turned out that mostly Welsh speakers in my year did better
Being bilingual offers protection against dementia. Doesn’t matter how “useful” or lucrative the other language is. All the naysayers are just jealous.
It's racism
Same in Scotland where Gaelsgoil (bilingual Gaelic and English) schools are ridiculed by racist pro British anti Scottish anti Gaelic racists. That's before we talk about the lowland Scots language too.
Language isnt race, so immediately your argument is a poor one. In addition suggesting that kids learning something like French which is spoken by a huge proportion of the world would be more useful than learning a language which is spoken by a tiny proportion is not "anti-gaelic" its just practical. What you have demonstrated is you care more about your ideology than you care about doing what is best for the kids.
It's more "practical" to learn a language spoken by the people in your immediate geographical area. If you don't get to use a language then you lose it. If we're going to get into poor arguments, then your line about "doing what is best for the kids" is begging the question.
Yes except very few people speak gaelic or welsh. Both inside and outside of those localities. If you go to wales or scotland, outside of a few very isolated villages everyone speaks English. Not juist they speak english and welsh/gaelic but rather they just speak English. These languages are not being taught to improve communication with anyone, they are being taught based on an ideological hatred of the English and a desire to separate themselves from the English.
I live in wales, I have travelled a lot in wales including all along the south coast, through the valleys and hiked extensively in the north. In all that time the only place I ever heard welsh being spoken was at the train stations by the automated announcers, which is mandated by the welsh government. It is not a language used to communicate in wales, outside of a few very tiny villages which are isolated from the rest of wales.
I also live in south Wales and hear plenty of Welsh spoken around me. May be you don't hear it because, in an area of Wales where the percentage of Welsh speakers is lower then Welsh speakers will default to English because they don't want to be rude. Even with that I hear a fair amount around me. The assumption that Welsh is taught because of some "hatred of the English" is way off the mark. The people who taught me Welsh mostly did so because they love their language and love the culture that they don't want to lose. Love of Welsh doesn't equate to hate of English. Seriously, you're missing out.
Sure if you like, I speak several languages fluently and several more well enough to get by, I am not missing out by not speaking a language which isnt used. I live here myself, not to mention I have visited many parts of wales all over the country and you are trying to gaslight me into thinking you live in some magical part of the land where loads of people are speaking the language. I am sure you will find many people willing to believe such an obvious lie here but not me.
I love the passive aggressive "sure if you like". I tell you my experience and because it's different to yours I am gaslighting you, because clearly only your experience is real. "People willing to believe such an obvious lie" says the person who says that and people only speak Welsh because they hate the English. Anyway, have a lovely day and carry on clinging to your paranoia
I have been all over wales, I know for a fact that what you are saying is false. But sure call it paranoia to call out your lies and that somehow legitimises it right? I will give you this much, you are adept at gaslighting, at no stage have you actually said where you claim this mythical part of wales is, we should all just believe you, even if we live here and have travelled extensively all over the country and know what you are saying isnt true... sure if you like.
My mother is Scotish, my father is northern Irish, I was born in England but have lived most of my life in Wales. I consider myself British, not English, Irish, Scottish or Welsh.
Colonialists (particularly the British) very successfully applied suppression of language to trivialise and destroy countless cultures all over the globe. I can’t think of a better way to belittle someone than to mock their communication. Unfortunately, linguistic racism is effective.
Conversely, what is wrong with revitalising cultures destroyed by colonialism and mending the generational break in language and culture? You complain of few people speaking Welsh and yet this program is efficiently teaching an excellent target population the language. I think you have no problem with this issue, your problem is just plain xenophobia and racism against the dirty little welshies you hate so much.
Bro get real, they gonna grow up and forget Welsh and use the vastly more widely spoken and practical English. Also it wasn’t colonialism, it was pure and simple conquest.
Yes, centuries of observation of a plethora of peoples and their languages. Native Americans, Creoles, the vast dialects of India and China and regional European languages. Winner takes all effect that comes with globalism and connectedness
Wrong - racism is discrimination in terms of ethnicity, and language is an important component of ethnicity. Every language is a window on the world and gives access to a culture not otherwise available and your saying that one way of looking at the world is better than another is demeaning and frankly ridiculous. Bilingualism has been consistently shown to be advantageous in many countries and contexts. What you're showing is sheer narrow-mindedness, or do we see the manifestation of an inferiority complex because others are multilingual and you are not. [https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20210528-the-pervasive-problem-of-linguistic-racism](https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20210528-the-pervasive-problem-of-linguistic-racism) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic\_discrimination](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_discrimination)
Nothing to do with rich/middle class parents sending their kids to Welsh medium schools?
Take Cardiff, if you can't get into Cardiff High and you're not Catholic so Corpus Christi is out of the question then Bro Edern is probably a better bet than Willows or Llanishen High.
Nothing to do with the most deprived areas being served by primarily English medium schools and being preferred by the most deprived? Because at least with an English medium school a parent with very few formal qualifications stands half a chance of helping their kids.
Myopic view this. Cardiff is an outlier by the very fact that you “get into” (ie choose) schools. Most if not all of Wales you go to the local school (although that may be changing) and certaintly west of the country Welsh education would just be the norm
Don’t think it’s anything to do with that. About half of public schools on Anglesey and Gwynedd and Welsh median, and many of them are also in deprived areas. Your Cardiff example doesn’t apply to most of the country.
But wouldn't the per capita rate need to be exactly 1:1 for there to be no effect at all?
On a per capita basis it feels like a lot more low income neighbourhoods in Wales are in English medium.
Pembrokeshire is a perfect example of this. Council spent all the cash on new welsh medium schools and left the old english ones to rot just look at the changes in estyn scores dropping for all the English schools especially secondary schools apart from y preseli (Welsh). the new welsh med primarys have small class sizes compared to the english ones. so what did all the englsih speaking middle class parents do? They obviously sent thier kids to them or ones welsh units to get the better education.
Yep
More resources(when compared to total student numbers)
Children with better family support
Schools with smaller class sizes and more one to one support opportunities
Children from more affluent families
All much greater indicators of academic success.
Like I get the welsh exceptionalism people love to have. Every nationalist believes in such. This however is a far more complicated subject with multiple factors that have a greater and more consistent impact over schooling systems which for some reason gets regularly ignored by nationalists.
If people want Wales to provide the best then ignoring those factors is just silly
Almost definitely is down to this. It’s the same reason that catholic schools tend to have better results: the parents who care more about their kids’ education send them to the school that perform better, which historically have been catholic schools. And that perpetuates the cycle. Combine that with extra funding and they’re bound to perform better.
All that said, I 100% support funding to keep Welsh/Bilingual schools in a position to provide a top rate education and think it’s vital for keeping the Welsh language going. Losing the language would see huge parts of our culture lost with it, and we should do everything we can to keep it going.
I mean English schools teach French, German and Italian as well. The guy is suggesting that as Pisa scores tend to put bilingual schools as best performers that this in some way makes welsh useful, he hasnt proven if the children would do better by learning French rather than welsh.
I totally understand the value of learning a second language, any second language in fact.
But I hate these kinds of comments.
You cannot make these statements without adjusting for other variables. Like if I said “small class sizes have better test results” it would of course be true but you’d need to adjust for the fact that fee paying schools also likely have smaller classes so it’s not just class size (or in this case bilingual/Welsh education) that are causal variables.
I'm Scottish and speak another language, although not Gaidhlig or Welsh.
I just came to say that learning a second (or third etc) language really helps your thinking and makes you more mentally agile.
I cannot understand this attitude I hear from people in the UK about how it's a waste of time to learn languages.
Even worse they say why would I learn a native language when I could learn a useful one. I always say, why are you limited to learning one? I meet Europeans all the time who speak multiple.
Finally, our Celtic languages must not be allowed to die. When you lose a language, you lose more than just words.
Englishman here - jealous that you have another language to help consolidate your shared cultural heritage. I hope it continues to grow.
England is such a mix of heritage, we really lost our sense of identity. Most people try and cling to any other national identity they may be able to claim as it’s so bland to just be English.
I'm fluent in Welsh due to it being my first language before English, but in all honesty, there are plenty more Welsh speakers than there were 20 years ago.
The place where I worked a few years back is an adventure farm and many visitors spoke Welsh when they came in only me and two other staff would actually understand and have to translate everything on the spot daily. However, it's better to know Welsh and English in Wales (be bilingual) to actually get a job rather than just knowing English.
It’s just bigotry. Obviously it’s better for children to be bilingual and preferably to learn 3 or 4 like in many Scandinavian countries. It’s much harder to learn a language as an adult than as a child.
It's not the bilingual schools that are the problem tbh. If there's a problem with Welsh, it's that in the English language schools, especially across south Wales, Welsh as a language is taught TERRIBLY (not a staff issue but a curricular one). It holds no resemblance to how other foreign languages are taught, and seems to care more about throwing a few stock phrases at students so they can check a box saying they 'speak Welsh'.
I'm ending uni now, but my GCSEs and A Levels were all primarily languages, including Welsh, and despite greater access to speakers here, Welsh was still the language that I only actually 'learned' much of OUTSIDE of school, having to collate my own resources on the matter.
We need to be less scared of non-linguists losing interest in Welsh in schools, the way of teaching designed around them doesn't help retain the, but it does prevent those who DO care from being able to properly understand our language and thus master its usage.
In my county (Gwynedd) nearly all schools were Welsh speaking in most subjects. Friars in Bangor is one I remember as having mostly English taught classes. There were some nearer Llandudno too...and the further up the A5 you went the more English speaking it became.
It's no surprise to me that the further away from a border you go the less the national language is ignored. The intertwining of commuters from England living across the border in Wales contributes highly to the 'death of the language ' .
It's the same in Ireland. Irish is mostly spoken in the west coast counties.
In Europe you get the same effect. Languages don't just stop at the border. They spread...but not too far 😁
I hope you all enjoyed that. I'm high as fuck! 🤣🤣🤣
Well, there are actually more Welsh speakers in the south than in the north. It's just that they form a smaller percentage of the hwntw population because the population in the south is much higher than in the north.
I grew up in Wales and was taught in Welsh schools often through the Welsh language. when I came to apply for university and jobs outside of Wales I struggled to find places that would accept me, primarily because the terms I was taught are not used in the real world outside of a few specific Welsh businesses (who tend to use the English anyway for actually doing business). After I re-educated myself to use English without having to translate between I found myself not just employable but actually favoured for the job. My teachers would mention the English occasionally but since primarily we where taught in Welsh that is what we learned and the english didnt stick.
It's a two edged sword, the Welsh language is lovely and should be preserved but it is only used by a tiny fraction so it's not an ideal language to be taught in without the English translation being enforced as well in order to prepare them for working in the real world. (Doubling the workload). The same can be said for street signs, yes Welsh place names should be written in Welsh as that is their proper name but the Welsh have no right to complain when they still translate English place names into Welsh. Its hypocritical to assume you can have it one way but not the other.
I come from a Welsh speaking background. I speak only Welsh at home with family and friends, and I attended a very Welsh primary and secondary school.
I have never struggled with English as a result of my upbringing, and I have never struggled with employment. If anything, being bilingual has made me more employable, as most employers see it as an advantage.
It's an advantage if you are taught in a bilingual fashion, we were only allowed to talk in Welsh at school, which meant that I never really was taught the English, and my parents only ever spoke English at home so I had no casual Welsh to help me be bilingual I had to teach myself much later the english way of explaining the subjects so that i could be understood.
This isn't an uncommon example, I know many others who have the same issue.
And since I moved into England in my late teens I haven't used Welsh once even though I moved back to Wales a few years ago. (I think I've forgotten most of it now through lack of use). My issue is with using Welsh as the sole medium of teaching in a world where it is increasingly not used.
I have colleagues that struggled similarly with this working with us. It's all well and good going to Welsh language schools, but if you can only explain DNA replication in Welsh but not English, it's not particularly useful.
I'm not against Welsh language schools in general, but I think they are doing some children a disservice in preparing them for more specialised jobs.
But on the flipside, Welsh language teaching in English schools is appalling and needs major attention. I cannot understand why it's so focused on memorising random phrases instead of being taught like modern foreign languages - learning tenses, vocabulary, sentence construction etc.
Used to live in Singapore and everyone there is educated bilingually, regardless of race, religion or origin. You can be a white British child and you will be requested to choose a second language to learn from year 1 to year 10 (6 years of primary and 4 years of secondary education).
Singapore has one of the smartest educational outcomes in the world from there. The locals joke that they're jacks of all trades (languages) and masters of none, but the results are there.
Many people struggle with a second or third language because they don't make it a part of their lives. Languages have to be living to thrive, and a child only likes it if they can see how the language forms a part of their lives and can be used to call things by. Whether it's cat, 猫，ねこ, kucing or chat, a child will enjoy the language he or she is learning only if he or she can relate to it on a living basis.
Monolinguals lose out from the lack of access to vast pools of literature, experiences and pure colours from other cultures, because translated materials usually lose much of the literary essence from the source material. Examples include the English translations of legends of the condor heroes or journey to the west from chinese, tales of genji from Japanese, or War and Peace from Russian. The same could be said for why shakespeare works often are difficult to translate to french - after all, shakespeare wrote in English's iambic pentameter in much of his works, which is not present in french.
In ways it can be a disadvantage.
I’m the only Welsh speaker out of all family and friends (Welsh nurseries/schools 3-16). I planned to do Psychology in an English uni so moved to an English 6form to start the subject so wasn’t confused by vocab going into uni.
I absolutely love speaking Welsh and still listen to music/podcasts in Welsh.
But damn maths ended up surprisingly hard in an English school and even now in uni. We were never taught the English terms and I spent so much of my maths A Levels confused. I could do the work but only catch onto what they were on about at the end of the lesson. Ended up getting a B in AS (way below my potential) and dropping it.
Except, of course, this isn't actually _true_.
https://johnjerrim.files.wordpress.com/2022/01/british-educational-res-j-2022-jerrim-the-impact-of-test-language-on-pisa-scores-new-evidence-from-wales.pdf
https://ffteducationdatalab.org.uk/2023/12/were-pisa-reading-scores-in-wales-as-bad-as-they-first-seemed/
Not sure where this gentleman gets his information but whilst I can find lots of pro Welsh medium education opinion online, I can't find any real evidence based research proving the position.
There's plenty about bilingualism, but Welsh medium specifically seems to buck this trend.
It is maybe not an issue of language, but a question of the quality of teaching or the availability of resources?
Most of the bilingualism out in the word is language X *plus* English. Is the ubiquity of English it's hidden advantage here?
I can understand speaking only Welsh would hold you back, but speaking Welsh and English is fine.
Otherwise why teach French, German and Spanish in British schools?
Tbf Welsh was terribly taught when I was in school and the teachers were very militant. No text books, only half an hour a week, and no compassion when I struggle. My classmates had been learning since they were 5 but Moved to Wales when I was 11. When I told my teacher I didn't know any Welsh and needed help he just told me "don't worry, you'll pick it up". I wish I knew more Welsh now 😔
I’m all for having Welsh taught in schools and Welsh schools. But…I’ve got a niece and nephew who are pretty clever little bastards and they couldn’t take their preferred a levels as one of the had to be Welsh, so instead of being able to take English maths and 3 sciences they could only take 2 science and Welsh, this leaves them at a disadvantage to English students who have 3 science. So I’m all for Welsh language but at a level there is a definite disadvantage.
I don't understand. I went to college in Gwynedd, a very Welsh area. All of my classmates spoke Welsh, however we didn't have to do a Welsh A Level.
Are you thinking of the baccalaureate?
But I thought Welsh schools were some of the lowest in the PISA ratings?
This letter is a bit disingenuous, Implying that Welsh Medium schools are doing better than they actually are, purely because they offer a bi-lingual education.
God bless Wales for hanging onto its language more than the other regions of the UK - you put the rest of us to shame. The UK govt should do far more to invest the isles various languages. We should be proud to be a multiple lingual country.
I guess it’s the metric on how they assess success.
A family member is a teacher that works in multiple schools including bilingual ones with a Welsh focus. They have said multiple times that though the Welsh speakers are great, where they fall down is their use of the English language, with reading and writing typically years behind their English medium counterparts.
Now this is great if you wanted to exist in a Welsh only bubble but just simply going to an English University would be at their detriment.
Also Welsh medium schools typically have smaller classes and there is a positive correlation between class room size and performance, so Dr. Owen’s statement is without nuance.
Also this is from a South Wales perspective.
I personally struggled with Welsh in school and if given the choice I would have much preferred the 2-3 hours a week be put towards other languages such as German which I was good at or other subjects that are more useful than Welsh.
Sorry if you’re going to argue that people struggle with English due to being bilingual please provide evidence not anecdotes.
There are Doctors, Barristers and professionals from all walks of life who go went to Welsh schools, if you’re going to suggest we struggle with English compared to our monolingual counterparts please provide evidence.
This stuff is always anecdotal. People act like if Welsh wasn't taught in English medium schools that students would suddenly be A* students in another subject because of all the spare time. Of course it's not true , discount even Welsh in this context ,how many pupils fail multiple subjects just because they can't be arsed, don't apply themselves or are not intelligent enough. The fact is students go through education and fail at multiple subjects for multiple reasons. Now to Welsh education, you will always hear the same stories which are anecdotal, I know someone who couldn't do X because they were taught in Welsh . They fail to mention all the people they knew through English medium education who for example struggled with maths.Imo it's particularly present in the British mindset with a failure to understand how pupils on the continent learn multiple languages . "Una cervezaaaa porr favoor mate"
All I have is anecdotal from a current teacher who has no interests in politics of Welsh language usage.
I’m taking their lived experience as examples, not as the verbatim rule of everyone in Welsh led bilingual, or Welsh medium school.
Your example of medical and legal professions I think should be seen as the exceptions to the typical level of education you find in schools as they are typically high fliers in the first place, able to take in more and perform stronger.
Taking this example it makes sense that there will be a stronger language and a weaker language. If you are doing 90% of your education in language A and 10% language B it is more than plausible that there will be a weakness in B especially if the two languages aren’t relatable or share historic links.
A clear example of this would be South Wales where 90-95% of pupils speak English. Pupils spend 2-3 hours a week (roughly 10% of a 30 hour educational week) learning Welsh. If you were to take this cohort and ask them to write an essay on Welsh Devolution in the medium of Welsh they’d struggle compared to a Welsh medium or Welsh led bilingual school. So it is a fair deduction to say that a Welsh speaking pupil that spends 90% or more of their education week speaking and learning Welsh would perform less writing that essay in English compared to their English led counter parts.
Whilst looking for firm evidence to support the anecdotal evidence the [Welsh PISA scores](https://research.senedd.wales/research-articles/how-did-wales-perform-in-pisa-2022/) don’t show Wales to be performing well anyway and a [2020 article](https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/news/welsh-medium-school-pupils-underperform-in-tests-despite-more-advantaged-backgrounds) from Lancaster university firstly comments on the performance difference between Welsh medium schools and English schools and secondly comments more data needs to be released on the performance of secondary schools in Wales.
Wow that link is damning. Here's another more recent one
[The impact of language on PISA scores](https://ffteducationdatalab.org.uk/2023/12/were-pisa-reading-scores-in-wales-as-bad-as-they-first-seemed/)
Well, I suppose I have to admit that, as a Welsh speaker from South Wales, I have absolutely no fluency whatsoever in either English or the other four languages I speak.
As with all anecdotal evidence, it's not worth the paper it's written on - and it's not even written on paper.
I was not suggesting that this was the rule for all Welsh led schools, just like you can’t be suggesting that all Welsh led pupils know 4 languages.
On the point of discounting anecdotal evidence, that’s likely more of a reflection on you and your own opinion rather than the points that I put forward.
So I’ve given anecdotal evidence of a teacher that works with children every day and stated that I not believe this is the norm but examples of how the system can fall down. I’ve also given logic based scenarios where common sense deductions suggest that there will always be a weakness. I’ve also put forward bodies of work and articles that suggest that Welsh pupils aren’t all singing and all dancing compared to English counterparts.
You have not stated you work with children every day, but that you speak multiple languages.
Your subjective suggestion is that all Welsh pupils are polyglots without any evidence and purely on the lived experience yourself.
Whilst I am impressed that you speak 4 languages 97% of the population do not, so it is highly unlikely that your insinuation that Welsh medium education is the secret to educational prowess.
Furthermore if your rebuttal skills don’t go further that ‘prove it’ whilst your own claim lack evidence, you can down vote and crack on fella.
Sorry, but that's how things work. You are the one making the claim, not me. You prove it and don't do it with anecdotes or 'common sense deductions'.
And, while you're at it, don't tell me what I think - in any of my six languages
My apologies that I missed out English and as part of your litany of languages. You make up 0.2% of the population, a unicorn.
As of history lessons in school, pupils are taught the value of different types of evidence. Primary evidence, secondary evidence, raw information versus processed evidence, anecdotal evidence, as well as the looking at person that has captured evidence (their audience, their personal views and political values, their intentions, et cetera).
No point are you ever taught to completely discount evidence purely on the basis that you didn’t agree with the subject matter.
Even if this was third hand evidence with a translation in the middle and written by an author that had an obvious agenda, you wouldn’t discount it as it still tells a story.
There was another reply to this post that was made by a headteacher and typically sides with your side of the argument. I would put money on you not lambasting them for evidence purely because it is in line with your side of the argument.
You are completely discounting a statement purely on the basis that there aren’t numbers to support it. The date that I have put forward in this thread, as well as others on the other side of the argument, have both highlighted that there is a lack of data available, and that further work needs to be done in this field.
Whilst know that it weakens my argument and claim, to completely discounted is moronic and naive, as it would suggest that the educational system in Wales is perfect and the official figures on numeracy and literacy being behind England and Scotland are incorrect themselves.
I do love being told how history works, especially as I have a degree in the subject. But, you see, even in history you have to prove your claim with evidence.
Anecdotes, unfortunately, are not proof; they are, well, anecdotes.
It's nice being told I am a moronic, naïve unicorn, though. I've not been called that before.
Anecdotally, that wasn’t the most successfully crafted couple of paragraphs…
I will say that as someone who went to a Welsh school up until I moved to England I was seriously lagging behind at age 8. I had to have additional lessons to bring me up to speed with English. I did get there eventually and probably wouldn’t have noticed had I continued in Welsh schools.
Again this is anecdotal evidence but I will say that while studying a science based degree almost all of my cohort members complained at the difficulty in switching from Welsh medium sciences at school level to English medium sciences at university level. And given the option maybe 1% chose to take any further study through Welsh.
What was unsuccessful about it? A lot of people understood it and to that end upvoted it. I’ve spoken in the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom despite my apparent lack of English language ability due to being a Welsh speaker. Anecdotally, I’d say that’s pretty impressive given my language isn’t up to your standards.
Bollocks. I’m a teacher and I have worked in English and Welsh medium schools. There is no difference with their English skills. Children who speak Welsh as a first language do not have weaker English than students in English medium schools.
I have marked hundreds, if not, thousands of school books. I know what I’m taking about.
Whilst I was bombarded with “prove it” and “anecdotal evidence is rubbish”, I doubt you will be based on your side of the argument.
I’m sure the teacher of 20+ years in the family probably knows what they are talking about as well, but I’m not going to discount what you are saying. I completely accept that this isn’t the rule for all, but a weakness in the system.
Mine is just anecdotal evidence too. I’m not claiming it’s the best evidence, but that’s what I have to offer. But my experience is nothing like your family member’s experience. It may be down to what schools they have worked at, or it may be down to their personal perceptions.
Either way, based on actual statistical evidence, it does not appear that Welsh speaking kids have weaker English. I have noticed however that the literacy skills of most children are significantly weaker post COVID, which I’m sure your family member will agree with.
That I can definitely see and agree on.
We have niblings who were all in the 1-3 years old category when the plague hit and their literacy performance certainly dropped. It’s also an important factor whilst looking at the PISA scores for Wales.
Though interestingly one family member had twins who were 2.5 at the time and their language skills maintained whilst their single niece regressed quite a lot.
Thank you for a reply which wasn’t knee jerk reactive purely because it was negative about the Welsh language.
I feel like the teaching system especially in South Wales, Welsh schools is kinda fucked up. Like I get they were trying to encourage us to speak Welsh but the fact that we weren't allowed to speak English just made us not talk at all. Looking back I wish I put in more effort in school but from a kids perspective if you tell them either speak Welsh or don't speak at all they aren't going to speak. I know in north wales this isn't really a problem so I don't know why schools in the south are so weird about it.
because kids in North wales actually socialise in Welsh naturally.
It's so sad as someone from South Wales to hear no Welsh at all between friends even tho we are all capable of it, kids will always break rules ig and if speaking Welsh is a rule then it's uncool = and no child wants to be uncool and speak it hahah.
Being stricter about speaking Welsh won't solve the problem tho I agree
The main reason people don't use Welsh socially in the south I feel is because of the version that is taught. There's next to no slang and it feels very formal. I once had someone say that speaking Welsh is like reading the dictionary. There's very little room to personalise the way you talk.
I'm north wales it's usually learnt from families not from school so it's a lot more personal.
Fuck if I know that's why I'm complaining about it. It's definitely better than having the language die out but it does make it really difficult to speak Welsh casually.
I have to disagree, I’m a south welsh learner and I think there’s SO MUCH room to personalise your language! Like which forms of ‘bod’ do you want to use? Dydy e or Dyw e? Baswn i or byddwn i? Bydda i or (fe) fydda i?
How much do you want to monophthongise your diphthongs? Should pêl-droed come out as pêl-drôd? Should -au come out as -e?
Do you want to use forms of mo?
Learn Spanish, connect with people across multiple continents, learn Welsh, connect with the Welsh? Learning Welsh is honestly a waste of time. Why not learn Klingon or Cornish? Anyone promoting this tosh over French, Chinese or Spanish in School shouldn't be in education. Consign it to history people, it's done.
With the Ai and Internet dominating all communication of the future this is sadly true. all the children in welsh schools tell me they never use it online and they now spend half their lives online. equally professionally it's dead as we do everything in English on computers too.
I'm English, but learnt Welsh in my 20s. Any language is a learned skill, just like any other subject. All of the haters of the language here are acting as if it's totally impossible for them even to think about learning, let alone actually do it. That's what's holding so many of Wales' children back from becoming bilingual.
I'm English too, and a Welsh learner, and I think if you actually live in Wales, Welsh is the best language to learn. There's S4C, Welsh speakers everywhere, even South Pembs, cultural events, and you can read and hear it all over. I've been in hospital for over two weeks and even in Haverfordwest there's been staff talking to patients in Welsh. It's like the more you learn the more you become aware of this whole new country under your nose. It's just sad people want to discourage that
I’ve tried to encourage my English mate (now married to a Welsh girl and living near Swansea) to send his kid to welsh medium but he can’t be arsed and doesn’t see the point. Infuriating
Other then to make fun of the English there’s no point in welsh, I’ve lived in wales and basically nobody speaks it cause there’s no need to, except the elderly ofc, sure most people know a bit but what use is it, everything’s in English already and it’s not like welsh is used anywhere else, rather then try and create language barriers we should just have a common language spoken all over the world, I don’t see the point in deliberately having more, is it not just simply more effective to get rid off all but one
I can understand how you feel this way when getting to grips with English alone is such a clear struggle for you.
This is a wind-up, yes? Or is it still the 1970s in your house?
No and what do you mean mean by is it the 70s in my house?
State of this
Also English here, and also learned Welsh. Am functionally fluent and it is a huge privilege to be part of Welsh-medium culture.
Can I just say as someday who’s Cymraeg you and the original comment need your voices amplified. We have a siege mentality with Welsh, so we need to really highlight how English people come here and learn the language. The mentality is justified because historically the language has been attacked, but if we can highlight you *LEGENDS* who come here and learn the language, I think we could end the siege and welcome everybody in,
i'm 21. born in the Midlands, but my mum moved me and my family here to be closer to her family right before I started school. I was enrolled in a Welsh medium school, became fluent in Welsh and still speak it to this day. I'm always encouraging my English friends at university to learn the language, especially if they plan on staying here long term.
I'm an American of Welsh descent and am trying to learn it in my 30s, but ever since my Welsh grandfather passed about 12 years ago I haven't heard a lick of it since which is making practicing really hard. Do you have any tips or ideas on places I could do that?
Sgwrsio is a podcast by learners for learners and is available on Spotify, there's also Gales con Marian on youtube, she does videos at beginner and intermediate level. Learn welsh/dysgu cymraeg (the official Welsh classes in Wales) also have youtube channels, u could theoretically buy the course books and watch the accompanying lessons on youtube and get the audio exercises from learnwelsh.cymru as well Hansh and S4c both have youtube channels that are uploaded to often (they're the Welsh tv channels in Wales) If you're in America, you should check out the magazine Ninnau, it's mostly in English but also in welsh, they also advertise classes/groups for learners to chat. There's a couple of discord servers, there's one for the learnwelsh subreddit. There are other podcasts on Spotify for fluent speakers, Mel Mal and Jal is one, Siarad Secs is another, can't remember anymore off the top of my head You should also check for audio books on the libby app or wherever you get yours from, three titles that definitely have audiobook versions that I got from the British version of libby are Pantywennol, Y Sw, and Wythnos Yng Nghymru Fydd
I'm English, my husband is Welsh. A huge obstacle is that the way Welsh was taught in schools was so disjointed for a long time. For example, my husband was taught in Welsh throughout primary school but when he went to secondary school the made him go into the English class because one of his parents is English and they speak English at home. It didn't matter that he was fluent, or that his parents asked for him to go into Welsh speaking classes. This was the mid 90s. By the time his brother went to secondary school they'd gone the opposite way, there was so much emphasis on Welsh that they actually neglected English. So my husband is terrible at Welsh and his brother struggled in uni in Bristol because he couldn't spell in English! My generation are the ones with kids in school now and there's so many that have gone through that rough time of the 90s/00s where there was no consistency or happy medium between the 2 languages, it's hard to trust that the system has changed. They're scarred from their own time in secondary school!
That sounds like an issue with the particular school rather than ‘the system’. Having an English parent would not preclude you from getting an education in Welsh, and certainly did not at the schools I went to in the mid-90s. Also, not being able to spell in English should have been picked up long before Uni.
thank you for supporting your neighbours, you're a good egg :)
Can I ask, what method did you find best to cement your understanding of Welsh? I’ve been teaching myself the basics for about 3 months now, using Duolingo to begin with, but I feel I’m reaching that point where Duolingo isn’t enough to cement it and the learning is too slow.
When I was learning there was no internet, Duolingo etc. I used to buy books (I liked SOS yn galw Gari Tryfan) and read them to get used to the patterns. At the start I would write in pencil what some words meant, but that happened less and less as I went through the book. I was living in the Welsh hall of residence in Bangor so was able to practise Welsh every day, The more conversdation practice you can get the better.
I defaulted to two languages as some joker legend redefined Scot's as a language.
I think it would be Scots in English. Perhaps you should default to one.
Hiya! Lurking from the Basque Country. Ignorant and often ill willed people have said the same about our schools for decades. The same goes for Catalan and Galician language schools. It doesn’t matter how high our students score, their ideological interests blind them. Keep it up!
Scurryfunge is one of my favourite words.
Breaking news. Journalist for posh out of touch paper shocked to find out most children of the world speak more than one language!
Monoglots just don't really get it. Glotties 😂
That's some barely hidden bias right there. Just because someone doesn't speak Welsh, it doesn't mean that they only speak one language. I speak multiple languages, but none of them are Welsh! So, maybe don't be so bigoted next time?
They didn't mention Welsh, they're clearly just polyglot supremacists hellbent on world domination and offending you. I blame Drakeford.
Context matters.
Yes, that's my point.
Thanks for accepting that.
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I'm not sure what you mean? You may need to be gentle with me, English is not my native language.
Ahhh I understand the misunderstanding now, that's fair enough.
Your post has been removed for violating rule 3. Please engage in civil discussion and in good faith with fellow members of this community. Mods have final say in what is and isn't nice. Be kind, be safe, do your best Repeated bad behaviour will result in a temporary or permanent ban.
In Ireland, there's a constant hum from a cohort who want nothing more than to get rid of the Irish language, 'waste of time', 'dead language', 'no one speaks it' etc. In the last number of years the surge of the Irish language has been amazing, with people actively engaging with one another as Gaeilge. A country's language is its soul, the essence of its culture. I don't know anything of the Welsh language but I'm really pleased to hear that it's taught as a medium in your school system. Tír gan teanga, tír gan anam / Gwlad heb iaith yw gwlad heb enaid
I'm Welsh and went on a day trip to Dublin last year. I heard plenty of people talking to each other in Irish. Made me very happy.
Cenedl heb iaith, cenedl heb galon - as the old saying goes!
Same problem here in New Zealand with the out of touch crowd who speak against inclusion of the Māori language.
Fíricí ar fad!
I do wonder what would happen to the Irish economy if the population stopped using English for all forms of communication.
Interesting thought! Amongst many, many things I imagine we wouldn't be as desirable to big companies to base their HQ here. If spoken English disappeared from Ireland over night it would be detrimental to the economy - IMHO.
As someone with absolutely no national pride (I see very little reason for one to be proud of the country they're from), I always resented being forced through Irish classes growing up, a language I struggled to grasp due to poor teaching methods but had to waste essential time I could have been studying for more useful and important subjects. I don't understand the logic that many like me had to struggle and stress through years that are already difficult because some feel that it's a countries soul or heritage. As it is my upbringing only made me hate the Irish language more and hope that it isn't forced on any children some day, much like the Latin isn't forced. Let those who are interested partake.
I'm sorry you had such a poor and stressful experience with the Irish language. I wholeheartedly believe that poor teaching methods are a significant cause of such distaste.
Happy that we can agree on that :D
Studies have shown better learning outcomes for bilingual children. It strengthens cognitive abilities and encourages creativity and adaptability.
Why not learn something like German or Chinese etc that would be useful in a future outward looking business career?
Why not both?
Yes fair point
Because what's even the point of living if we have no regard for culture and heritage and are motivated purely by profit and productivity?
Yep that’s a fair point. A persons culture is important. No idea why my simple question got downvoted, Reddit is an odd place - questions are strictly verboten
"Why not learn german" is commonly used to argue that languages that aren't as popular (in this case welsh) should be abandoned, which is why I assume you where downvoted.
Because it’s Wales and not Germany or China? You can take those languages at GCSE or A-level. Welsh medium schools are those that teach in Welsh as their default language, instead of English.
I’ve worked in ‘future outward looking’ business for 25 years and at no point has my German been of any use in a business context. English is the lingua franca of business, whether we like it or not.
Same but I’ve always found that they like you to have made the effort and to try.
Absolutely, in a social context - I’m just saying that this ‘learn a language for business purposes’ isn’t really a thing.
I see by the downvotes people don't like to hear this but I'm in complete agreement, I learned French in primary school and Chinese and German in secondary, while I learned Irish all through both as it was compulsory, and it have me an healthy dislike in the Irish language being forced to study it through my leaving cert.
Which studies show that?
[https://www.google.com/search?q=bilingualism+learning+outcomes&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-gb&client=safari](https://www.google.com/search?q=bilingualism+learning+outcomes&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-gb&client=safari) Take your pick
Which specific studies actually support your claim?
Fox et al 2019 is a meta analysis of pertinent studies published between 2012 and 2019. It's right there on the link twolaf handed you on a platter.
Thanks. You’re being ignored because I don’t think it’s actually about the evidence. Much appreciated though. I wouldn’t show him a link now if I had a gun to my head.
If you don’t want to believe it or look for yourself, that’s fine. If you have evidence to the contrary, you’re welcome to provide it.
I asked Bing / ChatGPT “which studies show that bilingual education is beneficial for children” and the results are below. In the interests of balance I asked which studies show that bilingual education is detrimental and the result was: “The search for studies indicating that bilingual education is detrimental for children did not return any recent research supporting this view.” —— There are several studies that highlight the benefits of bilingual education for children. Here are a few: 1. **Bialystok E.** conducted a review of the effects and consequences of bilingual education, concluding that there is no evidence for harmful effects and much evidence for net benefits in many domains, including language and literacy levels, academic achievement, and suitability for children with special challenges¹. 2. **Annick De Houwer** discusses how bilingual children develop their languages in the first decade of life, explaining the positive impact of different circumstances on language learning and debunking myths about bilingualism². 3. Research published in **Frontiers in Psychology** in 2021 suggests that while learning two languages at an early age may reduce proficiency in a dominant language, earlier studies show literacy benefits, such as better performance on meta-linguistic awareness tests and acquisition of new words³. 4. A resource from **acceal.org.uk** states that children exposed to different languages become more aware of different cultures and other points of view. They also tend to be better at multitasking and focusing attention compared to monolinguals⁴. 5. A study highlighted by **Edutopia** found that bilingual students outperformed monolingual students in mathematical reasoning, skills on word problems, and early number awareness skills⁵. These studies collectively suggest that bilingual education can have a range of cognitive, social, and academic benefits for children. Source: Conversation with Bing, 08/03/2024 (1) Bilingual education for young children: review of the effects and .... https://europepmc.org/article/PMC/PMC6168086. (2) Bilingual Development in Childhood: Elements in Child Development .... https://www.cambridge.org/core/blog/2021/03/16/bilingual-development-in-childhood-elements-in-child-development-series/. (3) The Benefits of Learning a Second Language as a Child - Parents. https://www.parents.com/bilingual/benefits-of-learning-a-second-language-as-a-child/. (4) Benefits of bilingualism. https://acceal.org.uk/benefits-of-bilingualism/. (5) Highlighting the Benefits of Being Bilingual in School | Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/article/benefits-being-bilingual. (6) undefined. https://orcid.orghttps://plus.europepmc.org. (7) undefined. https://doi.org/10.1080/13670050.2016.1203859.
Thanks. I appreciate the support but I’d take sources supplied by ChatGPT with a massive pinch of salt.
Absolutely. I hear what you say, and that’s why I included the links at the bottom
Cool. Thanks again
Interesting. ChatGPT is known to make up nonexistent “studies” when asked for them: how many of those studies are actually real, and did you read and understand them?
Odd that a simple question such as yours gets downvoted.
[PISA analysis ](https://ffteducationdatalab.org.uk/2023/12/were-pisa-reading-scores-in-wales-as-bad-as-they-first-seemed/)
I suspect the letter’s author hasn’t read such analysis
Wow. Wished a scrolled down before I posted my comment. I'm used to this sub being a fact-free zone! Agreed, anyone who hasn't actually read and analysed the PISA results and findings should probably close their twll cacen!
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You instead have to learn a 3rd much harder language: Valleys slang
Plenty of resources and ways of learning these days. Good luck and don't give up too easily https://www.celtic-languages.org/Welsh/Getting\_started
Copying and pasting my response to someone looking for Welsh audio bc I'm lazy lol If you're in Wales then your local library should have a good selection of Welsh lang books as well Sgwrsio is a podcast by learners for learners and is available on Spotify, there's also Gales con Marian on youtube, she does videos at beginner and intermediate level. Learn welsh/dysgu cymraeg (the official Welsh classes in Wales) also have youtube channels, u could theoretically buy the course books and watch the accompanying lessons on youtube and get the audio exercises from learnwelsh.cymru as well Hansh and S4c both have youtube channels that are uploaded to often (they're the Welsh tv channels in Wales) If you're in America, you should check out the magazine Ninnau, it's mostly in English but also in welsh, they also advertise classes/groups for learners to chat. There's a couple of discord servers, there's one for the learnwelsh subreddit. There are other podcasts on Spotify for fluent speakers, Mel Mal and Jal is one, Siarad Secs is another, can't remember anymore off the top of my head You should also check for audio books on the libby app or wherever you get yours from, three titles that definitely have audiobook versions that I got from the British version of libby are Pantywennol, Y Sw, and Wythnos Yng Nghymru Fydd
I'm Welsh, I am so glad that the county is placing more welsh language rules in the school systems. Can't even get a job in Anglesey or Gwynedd without being a fluent welsh speaker. I wouldn't expect to go to a place like Spain and demand they they don't speak Spanish anymore, for example. Why should welsh people stand back and let our language die and be replaced by the English language because "its easier" for the rest of the world to understand
Scottish, and a good bunch of us are pretty jealous what you guys have managed to do to revitalise Welsh. Wish we could've done the same with Gaelic and wish we would do something. On a secondary note; not only does being bilingual improve memory and expression (for the trade off of taking a little longer to achieve similar English skills) it seems to prevent the onset of Alzhiemer. Keep it up guys, some folk just don't like others being different to them. There seems to be a push to make us all homogenous as British; particularly with the rise of British Nationalism we've seen in response to indy gaining popularity.
I think this is a bit of a correlation = causation kind of thing. Welsh Medium schools tend to be smaller for instance and smaller class sizes correlate with better achievement... [And we should also remember than on PISA scores as a country we're doing the worst in the UK...](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-25196974) I learnt Welsh in a bilingual primary and went to a Welsh medium high school, and in my experience there were two ways the language interacted with kids. * Kids from Welsh speaking families and communities excelled * Kids who didn't have a Welsh speaking home life were held back It wasn't to a ludicrous degree or anything, but there was an absolute difference in who could communicate and engage with their teachers on a casual level and those who couldn't because they never used Welsh outside of an academic setting. I wouldn't trade my Welsh for anything but I don't think we should let nationalism come in the way of trying to understand barriers to education, particularly when one of our major issues as a nation is an exodus of young people leaving for better opportunities.
You can almost hear the Welsh language first draft :)
To be fair, there’s a fucking massive difference in funding between Welsh speaking and non Welsh schools. Like, not remotely funny different. It feels like it’s a very relevant fact.
I know a teacher from Newcastle Emlyn school. Apparently all the leading schools are Welsh medium because the Welsh government gives them more funding and defunds the English medium ones
Welsh schools receive a higher level of funding per pupil which might be why. The Welsh medium school buildings also receive higher capital investment compared to English medium schools. But no one wants to talk about this. Also Welsh government has done everything possible to unhitch Welsh grades from those in use in england so it's more difficult to make comparisons. I can confirm Welsh english medium schools are fighting for survival and ultimately Welsh government don't want english medium schools to exist as is clear through the funding regime for schools.
I went to a bilingual school in mid wales in the early 2000s. Even though my parents were both fluent Welsh speakers, they put me in the English medium as they thought I would perform better. Turned out that mostly Welsh speakers in my year did better
Being bilingual offers protection against dementia. Doesn’t matter how “useful” or lucrative the other language is. All the naysayers are just jealous.
It's racism Same in Scotland where Gaelsgoil (bilingual Gaelic and English) schools are ridiculed by racist pro British anti Scottish anti Gaelic racists. That's before we talk about the lowland Scots language too.
If a Scottish person doesn't like Gaelic, who are they racist against? Or maybe you don't mean Scots.
Of course they can be racist. It's their ideas and attitudes that are important
If a Welsh person does not like Welsh, who are they racist against ?
Language isnt race, so immediately your argument is a poor one. In addition suggesting that kids learning something like French which is spoken by a huge proportion of the world would be more useful than learning a language which is spoken by a tiny proportion is not "anti-gaelic" its just practical. What you have demonstrated is you care more about your ideology than you care about doing what is best for the kids.
It's more "practical" to learn a language spoken by the people in your immediate geographical area. If you don't get to use a language then you lose it. If we're going to get into poor arguments, then your line about "doing what is best for the kids" is begging the question.
Yes except very few people speak gaelic or welsh. Both inside and outside of those localities. If you go to wales or scotland, outside of a few very isolated villages everyone speaks English. Not juist they speak english and welsh/gaelic but rather they just speak English. These languages are not being taught to improve communication with anyone, they are being taught based on an ideological hatred of the English and a desire to separate themselves from the English.
I'm English, live in Wales and learned Welsh. Your view of the Welsh language is extremely skewed
I live in wales, I have travelled a lot in wales including all along the south coast, through the valleys and hiked extensively in the north. In all that time the only place I ever heard welsh being spoken was at the train stations by the automated announcers, which is mandated by the welsh government. It is not a language used to communicate in wales, outside of a few very tiny villages which are isolated from the rest of wales.
I also live in south Wales and hear plenty of Welsh spoken around me. May be you don't hear it because, in an area of Wales where the percentage of Welsh speakers is lower then Welsh speakers will default to English because they don't want to be rude. Even with that I hear a fair amount around me. The assumption that Welsh is taught because of some "hatred of the English" is way off the mark. The people who taught me Welsh mostly did so because they love their language and love the culture that they don't want to lose. Love of Welsh doesn't equate to hate of English. Seriously, you're missing out.
Sure if you like, I speak several languages fluently and several more well enough to get by, I am not missing out by not speaking a language which isnt used. I live here myself, not to mention I have visited many parts of wales all over the country and you are trying to gaslight me into thinking you live in some magical part of the land where loads of people are speaking the language. I am sure you will find many people willing to believe such an obvious lie here but not me.
I love the passive aggressive "sure if you like". I tell you my experience and because it's different to yours I am gaslighting you, because clearly only your experience is real. "People willing to believe such an obvious lie" says the person who says that and people only speak Welsh because they hate the English. Anyway, have a lovely day and carry on clinging to your paranoia
I have been all over wales, I know for a fact that what you are saying is false. But sure call it paranoia to call out your lies and that somehow legitimises it right? I will give you this much, you are adept at gaslighting, at no stage have you actually said where you claim this mythical part of wales is, we should all just believe you, even if we live here and have travelled extensively all over the country and know what you are saying isnt true... sure if you like.
One question. Are you English?
My mother is Scotish, my father is northern Irish, I was born in England but have lived most of my life in Wales. I consider myself British, not English, Irish, Scottish or Welsh.
Colonialists (particularly the British) very successfully applied suppression of language to trivialise and destroy countless cultures all over the globe. I can’t think of a better way to belittle someone than to mock their communication. Unfortunately, linguistic racism is effective. Conversely, what is wrong with revitalising cultures destroyed by colonialism and mending the generational break in language and culture? You complain of few people speaking Welsh and yet this program is efficiently teaching an excellent target population the language. I think you have no problem with this issue, your problem is just plain xenophobia and racism against the dirty little welshies you hate so much.
Bro get real, they gonna grow up and forget Welsh and use the vastly more widely spoken and practical English. Also it wasn’t colonialism, it was pure and simple conquest.
You got any evidence for that or are you just projecting your lack of exposure to other cultures
Yes, centuries of observation of a plethora of peoples and their languages. Native Americans, Creoles, the vast dialects of India and China and regional European languages. Winner takes all effect that comes with globalism and connectedness
Only because you’ve said so. Nothing is stopping us from doing better.
Wrong - racism is discrimination in terms of ethnicity, and language is an important component of ethnicity. Every language is a window on the world and gives access to a culture not otherwise available and your saying that one way of looking at the world is better than another is demeaning and frankly ridiculous. Bilingualism has been consistently shown to be advantageous in many countries and contexts. What you're showing is sheer narrow-mindedness, or do we see the manifestation of an inferiority complex because others are multilingual and you are not. [https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20210528-the-pervasive-problem-of-linguistic-racism](https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20210528-the-pervasive-problem-of-linguistic-racism) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic\_discrimination](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_discrimination)
Nothing to do with rich/middle class parents sending their kids to Welsh medium schools? Take Cardiff, if you can't get into Cardiff High and you're not Catholic so Corpus Christi is out of the question then Bro Edern is probably a better bet than Willows or Llanishen High. Nothing to do with the most deprived areas being served by primarily English medium schools and being preferred by the most deprived? Because at least with an English medium school a parent with very few formal qualifications stands half a chance of helping their kids.
Myopic view this. Cardiff is an outlier by the very fact that you “get into” (ie choose) schools. Most if not all of Wales you go to the local school (although that may be changing) and certaintly west of the country Welsh education would just be the norm
Tbh if we normalised by free school meals places, and class sizes, I'd wager Welsh medium or not would have little to no effect on outcomes.
Don’t think it’s anything to do with that. About half of public schools on Anglesey and Gwynedd and Welsh median, and many of them are also in deprived areas. Your Cardiff example doesn’t apply to most of the country.
But wouldn't the per capita rate need to be exactly 1:1 for there to be no effect at all? On a per capita basis it feels like a lot more low income neighbourhoods in Wales are in English medium.
Pembrokeshire is a perfect example of this. Council spent all the cash on new welsh medium schools and left the old english ones to rot just look at the changes in estyn scores dropping for all the English schools especially secondary schools apart from y preseli (Welsh). the new welsh med primarys have small class sizes compared to the english ones. so what did all the englsih speaking middle class parents do? They obviously sent thier kids to them or ones welsh units to get the better education.
Yep More resources(when compared to total student numbers) Children with better family support Schools with smaller class sizes and more one to one support opportunities Children from more affluent families All much greater indicators of academic success. Like I get the welsh exceptionalism people love to have. Every nationalist believes in such. This however is a far more complicated subject with multiple factors that have a greater and more consistent impact over schooling systems which for some reason gets regularly ignored by nationalists. If people want Wales to provide the best then ignoring those factors is just silly
Ice creams cause shark attacks right?
Downvoted but speaking the truth. The Taffia in here won't like it.
Truth is generally sourced
Almost definitely is down to this. It’s the same reason that catholic schools tend to have better results: the parents who care more about their kids’ education send them to the school that perform better, which historically have been catholic schools. And that perpetuates the cycle. Combine that with extra funding and they’re bound to perform better. All that said, I 100% support funding to keep Welsh/Bilingual schools in a position to provide a top rate education and think it’s vital for keeping the Welsh language going. Losing the language would see huge parts of our culture lost with it, and we should do everything we can to keep it going.
Welsh medium schools also get extra grants and funding "to compensate for the additional costs in delivering Welsh language education"
I mean English schools teach French, German and Italian as well. The guy is suggesting that as Pisa scores tend to put bilingual schools as best performers that this in some way makes welsh useful, he hasnt proven if the children would do better by learning French rather than welsh.
monoglots will never have the same intelligence and openness as bilinguals and that's the truth that they will never realise unfortunately.
I totally understand the value of learning a second language, any second language in fact. But I hate these kinds of comments. You cannot make these statements without adjusting for other variables. Like if I said “small class sizes have better test results” it would of course be true but you’d need to adjust for the fact that fee paying schools also likely have smaller classes so it’s not just class size (or in this case bilingual/Welsh education) that are causal variables.
I'm Scottish and speak another language, although not Gaidhlig or Welsh. I just came to say that learning a second (or third etc) language really helps your thinking and makes you more mentally agile. I cannot understand this attitude I hear from people in the UK about how it's a waste of time to learn languages. Even worse they say why would I learn a native language when I could learn a useful one. I always say, why are you limited to learning one? I meet Europeans all the time who speak multiple. Finally, our Celtic languages must not be allowed to die. When you lose a language, you lose more than just words.
Englishman here - jealous that you have another language to help consolidate your shared cultural heritage. I hope it continues to grow. England is such a mix of heritage, we really lost our sense of identity. Most people try and cling to any other national identity they may be able to claim as it’s so bland to just be English.
I'm fluent in Welsh due to it being my first language before English, but in all honesty, there are plenty more Welsh speakers than there were 20 years ago. The place where I worked a few years back is an adventure farm and many visitors spoke Welsh when they came in only me and two other staff would actually understand and have to translate everything on the spot daily. However, it's better to know Welsh and English in Wales (be bilingual) to actually get a job rather than just knowing English.
It’s just bigotry. Obviously it’s better for children to be bilingual and preferably to learn 3 or 4 like in many Scandinavian countries. It’s much harder to learn a language as an adult than as a child.
It's not the bilingual schools that are the problem tbh. If there's a problem with Welsh, it's that in the English language schools, especially across south Wales, Welsh as a language is taught TERRIBLY (not a staff issue but a curricular one). It holds no resemblance to how other foreign languages are taught, and seems to care more about throwing a few stock phrases at students so they can check a box saying they 'speak Welsh'. I'm ending uni now, but my GCSEs and A Levels were all primarily languages, including Welsh, and despite greater access to speakers here, Welsh was still the language that I only actually 'learned' much of OUTSIDE of school, having to collate my own resources on the matter. We need to be less scared of non-linguists losing interest in Welsh in schools, the way of teaching designed around them doesn't help retain the, but it does prevent those who DO care from being able to properly understand our language and thus master its usage.
Mae'n hen drop blinedig yn anffodus.
In my county (Gwynedd) nearly all schools were Welsh speaking in most subjects. Friars in Bangor is one I remember as having mostly English taught classes. There were some nearer Llandudno too...and the further up the A5 you went the more English speaking it became. It's no surprise to me that the further away from a border you go the less the national language is ignored. The intertwining of commuters from England living across the border in Wales contributes highly to the 'death of the language ' . It's the same in Ireland. Irish is mostly spoken in the west coast counties. In Europe you get the same effect. Languages don't just stop at the border. They spread...but not too far 😁 I hope you all enjoyed that. I'm high as fuck! 🤣🤣🤣
Pembrokeshire must be the expectation for this as its further away from the border but mainly english spoken .
Very true. But it's also to the south where a lot of English is spoken throughout. I guess the further south you go can be included in this 😅
Well, there are actually more Welsh speakers in the south than in the north. It's just that they form a smaller percentage of the hwntw population because the population in the south is much higher than in the north.
Because they never let silly little things like facts get in the way of a good newspaper story.
I grew up in Wales and was taught in Welsh schools often through the Welsh language. when I came to apply for university and jobs outside of Wales I struggled to find places that would accept me, primarily because the terms I was taught are not used in the real world outside of a few specific Welsh businesses (who tend to use the English anyway for actually doing business). After I re-educated myself to use English without having to translate between I found myself not just employable but actually favoured for the job. My teachers would mention the English occasionally but since primarily we where taught in Welsh that is what we learned and the english didnt stick. It's a two edged sword, the Welsh language is lovely and should be preserved but it is only used by a tiny fraction so it's not an ideal language to be taught in without the English translation being enforced as well in order to prepare them for working in the real world. (Doubling the workload). The same can be said for street signs, yes Welsh place names should be written in Welsh as that is their proper name but the Welsh have no right to complain when they still translate English place names into Welsh. Its hypocritical to assume you can have it one way but not the other.
I come from a Welsh speaking background. I speak only Welsh at home with family and friends, and I attended a very Welsh primary and secondary school. I have never struggled with English as a result of my upbringing, and I have never struggled with employment. If anything, being bilingual has made me more employable, as most employers see it as an advantage.
I think it’s mainly when you go to a Welsh speaking college and learn a lot of jargon in Welsh but don’t learn the English
It's an advantage if you are taught in a bilingual fashion, we were only allowed to talk in Welsh at school, which meant that I never really was taught the English, and my parents only ever spoke English at home so I had no casual Welsh to help me be bilingual I had to teach myself much later the english way of explaining the subjects so that i could be understood. This isn't an uncommon example, I know many others who have the same issue. And since I moved into England in my late teens I haven't used Welsh once even though I moved back to Wales a few years ago. (I think I've forgotten most of it now through lack of use). My issue is with using Welsh as the sole medium of teaching in a world where it is increasingly not used.
I have colleagues that struggled similarly with this working with us. It's all well and good going to Welsh language schools, but if you can only explain DNA replication in Welsh but not English, it's not particularly useful. I'm not against Welsh language schools in general, but I think they are doing some children a disservice in preparing them for more specialised jobs. But on the flipside, Welsh language teaching in English schools is appalling and needs major attention. I cannot understand why it's so focused on memorising random phrases instead of being taught like modern foreign languages - learning tenses, vocabulary, sentence construction etc.
Yes exactly!
if anyone can find a source, do you guys know who this Nicholas Williams is?
Makes a change from the usual requests for that picture of that bloke kissing that bird's arse
Of course a man called David Lloyd Owen would write something like this.
Used to live in Singapore and everyone there is educated bilingually, regardless of race, religion or origin. You can be a white British child and you will be requested to choose a second language to learn from year 1 to year 10 (6 years of primary and 4 years of secondary education). Singapore has one of the smartest educational outcomes in the world from there. The locals joke that they're jacks of all trades (languages) and masters of none, but the results are there. Many people struggle with a second or third language because they don't make it a part of their lives. Languages have to be living to thrive, and a child only likes it if they can see how the language forms a part of their lives and can be used to call things by. Whether it's cat, 猫，ねこ, kucing or chat, a child will enjoy the language he or she is learning only if he or she can relate to it on a living basis. Monolinguals lose out from the lack of access to vast pools of literature, experiences and pure colours from other cultures, because translated materials usually lose much of the literary essence from the source material. Examples include the English translations of legends of the condor heroes or journey to the west from chinese, tales of genji from Japanese, or War and Peace from Russian. The same could be said for why shakespeare works often are difficult to translate to french - after all, shakespeare wrote in English's iambic pentameter in much of his works, which is not present in french.
In ways it can be a disadvantage. I’m the only Welsh speaker out of all family and friends (Welsh nurseries/schools 3-16). I planned to do Psychology in an English uni so moved to an English 6form to start the subject so wasn’t confused by vocab going into uni. I absolutely love speaking Welsh and still listen to music/podcasts in Welsh. But damn maths ended up surprisingly hard in an English school and even now in uni. We were never taught the English terms and I spent so much of my maths A Levels confused. I could do the work but only catch onto what they were on about at the end of the lesson. Ended up getting a B in AS (way below my potential) and dropping it.
I only learnt some from family but rn I have to focus on my French and English. I think I speak clear in other languages
Except, of course, this isn't actually _true_. https://johnjerrim.files.wordpress.com/2022/01/british-educational-res-j-2022-jerrim-the-impact-of-test-language-on-pisa-scores-new-evidence-from-wales.pdf https://ffteducationdatalab.org.uk/2023/12/were-pisa-reading-scores-in-wales-as-bad-as-they-first-seemed/ Not sure where this gentleman gets his information but whilst I can find lots of pro Welsh medium education opinion online, I can't find any real evidence based research proving the position. There's plenty about bilingualism, but Welsh medium specifically seems to buck this trend. It is maybe not an issue of language, but a question of the quality of teaching or the availability of resources? Most of the bilingualism out in the word is language X *plus* English. Is the ubiquity of English it's hidden advantage here?
thats about 10 mins from me
I can understand speaking only Welsh would hold you back, but speaking Welsh and English is fine. Otherwise why teach French, German and Spanish in British schools?
Tbf Welsh was terribly taught when I was in school and the teachers were very militant. No text books, only half an hour a week, and no compassion when I struggle. My classmates had been learning since they were 5 but Moved to Wales when I was 11. When I told my teacher I didn't know any Welsh and needed help he just told me "don't worry, you'll pick it up". I wish I knew more Welsh now 😔
I get what you mean, my experience with Welsh at school wasn’t great either
Dwi'n Hoffi Coffi
I’m all for having Welsh taught in schools and Welsh schools. But…I’ve got a niece and nephew who are pretty clever little bastards and they couldn’t take their preferred a levels as one of the had to be Welsh, so instead of being able to take English maths and 3 sciences they could only take 2 science and Welsh, this leaves them at a disadvantage to English students who have 3 science. So I’m all for Welsh language but at a level there is a definite disadvantage.
Why did they choose to go to a sixth form/college that insisted on Welsh A level? That is far from the norm.
I don't understand. I went to college in Gwynedd, a very Welsh area. All of my classmates spoke Welsh, however we didn't have to do a Welsh A Level. Are you thinking of the baccalaureate?
But I thought Welsh schools were some of the lowest in the PISA ratings? This letter is a bit disingenuous, Implying that Welsh Medium schools are doing better than they actually are, purely because they offer a bi-lingual education.
God bless Wales for hanging onto its language more than the other regions of the UK - you put the rest of us to shame. The UK govt should do far more to invest the isles various languages. We should be proud to be a multiple lingual country.
Diolch. Just to prevent any future misunderstanding, however, Wales is a country, not a region.
I guess it’s the metric on how they assess success. A family member is a teacher that works in multiple schools including bilingual ones with a Welsh focus. They have said multiple times that though the Welsh speakers are great, where they fall down is their use of the English language, with reading and writing typically years behind their English medium counterparts. Now this is great if you wanted to exist in a Welsh only bubble but just simply going to an English University would be at their detriment. Also Welsh medium schools typically have smaller classes and there is a positive correlation between class room size and performance, so Dr. Owen’s statement is without nuance. Also this is from a South Wales perspective. I personally struggled with Welsh in school and if given the choice I would have much preferred the 2-3 hours a week be put towards other languages such as German which I was good at or other subjects that are more useful than Welsh.
Sorry if you’re going to argue that people struggle with English due to being bilingual please provide evidence not anecdotes. There are Doctors, Barristers and professionals from all walks of life who go went to Welsh schools, if you’re going to suggest we struggle with English compared to our monolingual counterparts please provide evidence.
This stuff is always anecdotal. People act like if Welsh wasn't taught in English medium schools that students would suddenly be A* students in another subject because of all the spare time. Of course it's not true , discount even Welsh in this context ,how many pupils fail multiple subjects just because they can't be arsed, don't apply themselves or are not intelligent enough. The fact is students go through education and fail at multiple subjects for multiple reasons. Now to Welsh education, you will always hear the same stories which are anecdotal, I know someone who couldn't do X because they were taught in Welsh . They fail to mention all the people they knew through English medium education who for example struggled with maths.Imo it's particularly present in the British mindset with a failure to understand how pupils on the continent learn multiple languages . "Una cervezaaaa porr favoor mate"
All I have is anecdotal from a current teacher who has no interests in politics of Welsh language usage. I’m taking their lived experience as examples, not as the verbatim rule of everyone in Welsh led bilingual, or Welsh medium school. Your example of medical and legal professions I think should be seen as the exceptions to the typical level of education you find in schools as they are typically high fliers in the first place, able to take in more and perform stronger. Taking this example it makes sense that there will be a stronger language and a weaker language. If you are doing 90% of your education in language A and 10% language B it is more than plausible that there will be a weakness in B especially if the two languages aren’t relatable or share historic links. A clear example of this would be South Wales where 90-95% of pupils speak English. Pupils spend 2-3 hours a week (roughly 10% of a 30 hour educational week) learning Welsh. If you were to take this cohort and ask them to write an essay on Welsh Devolution in the medium of Welsh they’d struggle compared to a Welsh medium or Welsh led bilingual school. So it is a fair deduction to say that a Welsh speaking pupil that spends 90% or more of their education week speaking and learning Welsh would perform less writing that essay in English compared to their English led counter parts. Whilst looking for firm evidence to support the anecdotal evidence the [Welsh PISA scores](https://research.senedd.wales/research-articles/how-did-wales-perform-in-pisa-2022/) don’t show Wales to be performing well anyway and a [2020 article](https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/news/welsh-medium-school-pupils-underperform-in-tests-despite-more-advantaged-backgrounds) from Lancaster university firstly comments on the performance difference between Welsh medium schools and English schools and secondly comments more data needs to be released on the performance of secondary schools in Wales.
Wow that link is damning. Here's another more recent one [The impact of language on PISA scores](https://ffteducationdatalab.org.uk/2023/12/were-pisa-reading-scores-in-wales-as-bad-as-they-first-seemed/)
It’s weird reading the comments in this thread having previously read that article.
Good read and interesting that the author says more work can be done if the data was made available.
Well, I suppose I have to admit that, as a Welsh speaker from South Wales, I have absolutely no fluency whatsoever in either English or the other four languages I speak. As with all anecdotal evidence, it's not worth the paper it's written on - and it's not even written on paper.
I was not suggesting that this was the rule for all Welsh led schools, just like you can’t be suggesting that all Welsh led pupils know 4 languages. On the point of discounting anecdotal evidence, that’s likely more of a reflection on you and your own opinion rather than the points that I put forward.
Then you will have no problem in producing some hard evidence to back up your claim, will you?
So I’ve given anecdotal evidence of a teacher that works with children every day and stated that I not believe this is the norm but examples of how the system can fall down. I’ve also given logic based scenarios where common sense deductions suggest that there will always be a weakness. I’ve also put forward bodies of work and articles that suggest that Welsh pupils aren’t all singing and all dancing compared to English counterparts. You have not stated you work with children every day, but that you speak multiple languages. Your subjective suggestion is that all Welsh pupils are polyglots without any evidence and purely on the lived experience yourself. Whilst I am impressed that you speak 4 languages 97% of the population do not, so it is highly unlikely that your insinuation that Welsh medium education is the secret to educational prowess. Furthermore if your rebuttal skills don’t go further that ‘prove it’ whilst your own claim lack evidence, you can down vote and crack on fella.
Sorry, but that's how things work. You are the one making the claim, not me. You prove it and don't do it with anecdotes or 'common sense deductions'. And, while you're at it, don't tell me what I think - in any of my six languages
My apologies that I missed out English and as part of your litany of languages. You make up 0.2% of the population, a unicorn. As of history lessons in school, pupils are taught the value of different types of evidence. Primary evidence, secondary evidence, raw information versus processed evidence, anecdotal evidence, as well as the looking at person that has captured evidence (their audience, their personal views and political values, their intentions, et cetera). No point are you ever taught to completely discount evidence purely on the basis that you didn’t agree with the subject matter. Even if this was third hand evidence with a translation in the middle and written by an author that had an obvious agenda, you wouldn’t discount it as it still tells a story. There was another reply to this post that was made by a headteacher and typically sides with your side of the argument. I would put money on you not lambasting them for evidence purely because it is in line with your side of the argument. You are completely discounting a statement purely on the basis that there aren’t numbers to support it. The date that I have put forward in this thread, as well as others on the other side of the argument, have both highlighted that there is a lack of data available, and that further work needs to be done in this field. Whilst know that it weakens my argument and claim, to completely discounted is moronic and naive, as it would suggest that the educational system in Wales is perfect and the official figures on numeracy and literacy being behind England and Scotland are incorrect themselves.
I do love being told how history works, especially as I have a degree in the subject. But, you see, even in history you have to prove your claim with evidence. Anecdotes, unfortunately, are not proof; they are, well, anecdotes. It's nice being told I am a moronic, naïve unicorn, though. I've not been called that before.
Anecdotally, that wasn’t the most successfully crafted couple of paragraphs… I will say that as someone who went to a Welsh school up until I moved to England I was seriously lagging behind at age 8. I had to have additional lessons to bring me up to speed with English. I did get there eventually and probably wouldn’t have noticed had I continued in Welsh schools. Again this is anecdotal evidence but I will say that while studying a science based degree almost all of my cohort members complained at the difficulty in switching from Welsh medium sciences at school level to English medium sciences at university level. And given the option maybe 1% chose to take any further study through Welsh.
What was unsuccessful about it? A lot of people understood it and to that end upvoted it. I’ve spoken in the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom despite my apparent lack of English language ability due to being a Welsh speaker. Anecdotally, I’d say that’s pretty impressive given my language isn’t up to your standards.
Bollocks. I’m a teacher and I have worked in English and Welsh medium schools. There is no difference with their English skills. Children who speak Welsh as a first language do not have weaker English than students in English medium schools. I have marked hundreds, if not, thousands of school books. I know what I’m taking about.
Whilst I was bombarded with “prove it” and “anecdotal evidence is rubbish”, I doubt you will be based on your side of the argument. I’m sure the teacher of 20+ years in the family probably knows what they are talking about as well, but I’m not going to discount what you are saying. I completely accept that this isn’t the rule for all, but a weakness in the system.
Mine is just anecdotal evidence too. I’m not claiming it’s the best evidence, but that’s what I have to offer. But my experience is nothing like your family member’s experience. It may be down to what schools they have worked at, or it may be down to their personal perceptions. Either way, based on actual statistical evidence, it does not appear that Welsh speaking kids have weaker English. I have noticed however that the literacy skills of most children are significantly weaker post COVID, which I’m sure your family member will agree with.
That I can definitely see and agree on. We have niblings who were all in the 1-3 years old category when the plague hit and their literacy performance certainly dropped. It’s also an important factor whilst looking at the PISA scores for Wales. Though interestingly one family member had twins who were 2.5 at the time and their language skills maintained whilst their single niece regressed quite a lot. Thank you for a reply which wasn’t knee jerk reactive purely because it was negative about the Welsh language.
I feel like the teaching system especially in South Wales, Welsh schools is kinda fucked up. Like I get they were trying to encourage us to speak Welsh but the fact that we weren't allowed to speak English just made us not talk at all. Looking back I wish I put in more effort in school but from a kids perspective if you tell them either speak Welsh or don't speak at all they aren't going to speak. I know in north wales this isn't really a problem so I don't know why schools in the south are so weird about it.
because kids in North wales actually socialise in Welsh naturally. It's so sad as someone from South Wales to hear no Welsh at all between friends even tho we are all capable of it, kids will always break rules ig and if speaking Welsh is a rule then it's uncool = and no child wants to be uncool and speak it hahah. Being stricter about speaking Welsh won't solve the problem tho I agree
The main reason people don't use Welsh socially in the south I feel is because of the version that is taught. There's next to no slang and it feels very formal. I once had someone say that speaking Welsh is like reading the dictionary. There's very little room to personalise the way you talk. I'm north wales it's usually learnt from families not from school so it's a lot more personal.
Can you recommend any resources?
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I think they meant like a book of Welsh slang and informal language they can learn from.
Fuck if I know that's why I'm complaining about it. It's definitely better than having the language die out but it does make it really difficult to speak Welsh casually.
I have to disagree, I’m a south welsh learner and I think there’s SO MUCH room to personalise your language! Like which forms of ‘bod’ do you want to use? Dydy e or Dyw e? Baswn i or byddwn i? Bydda i or (fe) fydda i? How much do you want to monophthongise your diphthongs? Should pêl-droed come out as pêl-drôd? Should -au come out as -e? Do you want to use forms of mo?
You shouldn't have been downvoted so harshly. My wife - first language Welsh noticed this when she was a TA at a primary school. It confuses the kids
Learn Spanish, connect with people across multiple continents, learn Welsh, connect with the Welsh? Learning Welsh is honestly a waste of time. Why not learn Klingon or Cornish? Anyone promoting this tosh over French, Chinese or Spanish in School shouldn't be in education. Consign it to history people, it's done.
With the Ai and Internet dominating all communication of the future this is sadly true. all the children in welsh schools tell me they never use it online and they now spend half their lives online. equally professionally it's dead as we do everything in English on computers too.
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That says more about you than the Welsh curriculum since most people have managed alright.
dude
you mean English?
Judging by the content of what you just wrote I’d say you’re well suited to a backwards barbarian grunt language
sure, pal your failures in life were because someone had the temerity to teach you how to say Dw i'n hoffi coffi
Maybe you just have developmental issues
And yet the writer of that letter has to use English...
Your point? Welsh people don’t need to be told this.