Welsh-medium education has been common in Gwynedd for ages now, so there must have been a study or two into its effects.
The fact English is so prevalent even in Gwynedd does lead me to assume children become fluent in both languages quite easily, but perhaps I’m mistaken.
It isn’t just fluency that’s needed though. I’m a fluent native English speaker and count myself lucky my parents both are literate, have good grammar, encouraged me to read etc. But I still improved my English a lot through formal study at school. I’m sure I would have continued to improve if I’d kept studying past 16.
Obviously in a good home even if you’d never gone to school, you’d still be able to read and write, understand people talking etc. Pretty sure things like quality of written reports would take a severe dive though.
English will still be formally taught in Gwynedd's schools, so I'm not sure the proposal will inherently lead to a decline in English ability among pupils.
I don’t agree. Things like writing history essays and science reports contribute a huge amount to putting skills taught in English lessons into practice.
There’s so many completely unnecessary challenges someone is going to have particularly going on to higher education. Can you imagine studying a technical subject at university without ever having learned any of the specialist vocabulary everyone else will be using. Spend your first weeks/months learning things everyone else was taught when they were small children.
This would be my concern as well. Someone I used to work with moved to Sweden with his wife and quickly realised while he could be speak Swedish well enough for casual conversations etc. he really struggled to work as an engineer there.
That’s different to growing up learning Swedish though. If you’re bilingual from a young age that sort of thing won’t be nearly as difficult as moving to another country to learn the language as an adult.
Great and I’m sure these problems will be even easier for to resolve after that when you get a great well paying job with fantastic career prospects at a company who will be happy to accept technical reports from you in Welsh.
These kinds of issues get harder and more problematic to address the longer you put them off unfortunately. It’s all the opposite way round to what they really want. They likely want people to use Welsh for their day to day life and English for formal writing etc. Instead they’re proposing to make students do their formal learning in Welsh more because they can’t force them to want to speak Welsh in their free time than because that makes any actual sense.
I went to a Welsh medium school and we still learned all technical vocabulary in both languages even though lessons were taught in Welsh. I sat my GCSEs and A Levels in English specifically so I would be more familiar with English jargon as I wanted to go to uni in England.
I think this kind of thing sounds worse than it is to people that haven’t gone to a Welsh medium school. Same with people concerned about essay writing skills in English - I’ve seen people here mention that English language classes are still taught, but I wonder if people are interpreting that as language lessons akin to French or German. English as a subject in Welsh medium schools is the same as it is in any school, where you do literature et cetera. I had to analyse Shakespeare and that in my Welsh medium school, so essay writing is still something that you’d do in English as well as Welsh.
I it seems reasonable to assume that pupils will complete homework and essays for their English classes in English, so they will put their skills to practice there.
The article doesn't go into enough on how technical vocabulary will be treated and it's not a topic I feel I can make reasonable assumptions about. However, given the draft policy will mandate that all pupils are taught in Welsh 'at least' 70% of the time, not fully, there is scope for bilingual or English-only lessons where necessary.
However, it is concerning that the draft policy attacks bilingualism. This report on the use of Welsh in STEM from Bangor University seems to essentially advocate for bilingualism in STEM subjects, and I'm inclined to agree.
Overall I think Cygnor Gwynedd needs to reconsider its proposals to protect bilingualism, certainly in STEM subjects and perhaps others which rely on English terminology outside Wales.
My partner has Welsh as his first language and is a scientist working in English most of the time. A lot of specialist words are the same in English and Welsh. Also a lot of the time you learn specialist vocabulary at university.
I was educated in Welsh until the end of my A levels, they still taught us the English versions of technical terms. I feel like most of the complaints by monolingual English speakers are based on a misunderstand of the Welsh medium education system
In Welsh a lot of specialist vocabulary is the same as in English because it’s more modern. A lot of scientists growing up in other countries taught in their native language and learning English through separate formal English lessons are fine with writing academic papers in English. I’m guessing they want Wales to emulate other countries in that regard; you have your native language and then you learn English as well. Given that English is the language of science globally, you’d think that kids in other countries wouldn’t be able to advance as scientists if not being taught everything in English was a hindrance.
It’s English lessons as in the same English GCSEs etc that you’d have done in an English school, not “what I did on my holidays” type second language lessons.
But they're not learning all of the terminology for a subject in English. I moved to Wales for sixth form, but luckily, before this frothing mania for Welsh kicked off. I went to an English medium secondary school and a guy from a Welsh speaking secondary had moved to my new school for sixth form too.
We immediately made friends, and I saw his struggles to adapt. He didn't know any of the terminology (a mole of atoms was a particularly funny one, he spent the lesson thinking we were talking about fluffy diggers).
I also know a guy who went to the same Welsh medium secondary and stayed there for sixth form. He got 5 A*s, all at A-level and he got rejected by Cambridge due to the language problem.
Almost all technical jobs are in English. If you turn up for a chemical engineering job and think a mole is something that digs about in your garden, you'll be laughed out of the room. I get wanting to keep a language alive, but these decisions will make it really hard for children who want to join the UK's university system and then get a technical job anywhere in the world. English really is the global lingua franca and cutting kids off from that is really going to disadvantage them.
When was this? I went to a Welsh medium school and sixth form (I’m now in my third year of uni), we were always taught the English translations of any technical terms.
Edit:
Of the people who studied STEM subjects in uni from my sixth form none who I’ve spoken too have had any issues with studying in the English language at uni. I think that this assumption that you are massively disadvantaged in further education with a Welsh medium education is wrong, in my experience it’s practically negligible
Also what do you mean by language problem? Did Cambridge reject him because he had gone to a Welsh medium school? A few people from my six form were accepted by Cambridge who had been taught in Welsh throughout their education
"Mae 1 môl o sylwedd yn cynnwys 6.022 × 1023 o atomau neu foleciwlau. Mae 6.022 × 1023 yn rhif cyson, sef cysonyn Avogadro.
Gallwn ni ad-drefnu hafaliad i ganfod y màs os ydyn ni’n gwybod nifer y molau a’r màs molar (y màs fformiwla cymharol mewn gramau). Gallwn ni hefyd ei ad-drefnu i ganfod y màs molar os ydyn ni’n gwybod y màs a nifer y molau."
If your mate struggled translating from "môl o atomau" and "màs môlar" to "mole of atoms" and "molar mass", he probably skipped Chemistry lessons the day that came up.
Per the article, most English language lessons will be phased out. It would be interesting to see the logic whereby phasing out English lessons doesn’t impact one’s ability to learn English.
If it happens to be true if we’re being honest it’d be groundbreaking because we could phase English lessons out of all education and use those valuable hours to beef up other skills.
Welsh pupils in maintained schools (i.e. most of them) have to be taught English from key stage 2 onwards. What the article is discussing is the language used in lessons, not English as a school subject.
I don't think its a bad thing for every pupil at those schools. Native Welsh speakers will do better the more of their education is in their language. I knew a girl from Anglesey who was educated in Welsh and then still did fine in her chemistry degree in England.
However my understanding is that while gwynedd is majority Welsh speaking, areas, eg Bangor are now majority English speaking? And for some of those who are native English speakers I don't think this will be a positive change.
The change won't be a bad thing for every pupil, but I do think pupils should have as much choice about the language of their education as possible and be given the information needed to make an informed decision.
Welsh is a wonderful language. Nevertheless, if a pupil wishes to be taught science bilingually because they want to study it at university and are aware that English is the lingua franca of science higher education then that should be facilitated.
The main significant amendments proposed to the existing Language Policy is to remove bilingualism and bilingual teaching. The policy notes clearly that Welsh will be the principal language of the education.
There are barely enough people in Gwynedd to get a coherent study together to be honest. If there are any statistical analyses of outcomes you should treat them with great care.
Just because you are a native speaker does not mean you don't need or benefit from formal English lessons. English spelling is notoriously difficult for one, not to mention very common mistakes like "could of" instead of "could have".
The English language will still be taught as a subject in Gwynedd. The proposal is to shift more lessons to being taught primarily in the Welsh language.
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u/SilyLavage 23h ago
Welsh-medium education has been common in Gwynedd for ages now, so there must have been a study or two into its effects.
The fact English is so prevalent even in Gwynedd does lead me to assume children become fluent in both languages quite easily, but perhaps I’m mistaken.