Welsh Language Schools

[Ceilidh]

For those who don't live in Wales there are many primary and secondary schools here who only speak the Welsh language in school, except in English lessons obviously. My best friend went to one. I never really had an opinion of them until recently.

Most of my friends who went to Welsh schools have problems spelling. A large majority of them spell "coming" as "comeing" some of my friends write in a mixture of English and Welsh (like my cousin) and it's hard to understand what they're saying on Facebook.

When my friend was doing GCSE maths in English he kept having to ask me words for cuboid, sphere and prisms as he had only learned them in Welsh.

The more I'm thinking of it the more I don't think Welsh language schools are a good idea. I think it's a bit silly to teach subjects like Maths and Science in Welsh, there's no real point to.

Don't get me wrong I'm all for people in Wales learning the Welsh language but I think only speaking it in schools can lead to problems.

What do you guys think?

[Thurineth]

I agree but at the same time understand why they do it. If you were to take a class of Welsh and not speak it elsewhere you probably would not become fluent in the language. Another possibility is that the schools maybe write the welsh and English of certain words in exam papers etc just to clarify what they mean.

[noise94]

Similarly, we have Irish Language Schools here. Granted, some of them don't have amazing English writing skills but honestly? There are just as many people going to English schools who are terrible at English spelling and grammar so I don't see the difference really.

My parents didn't send me to an Irish speaking school but I wish they had. I would have loved to have become fluent in the language while still at school. We are taught Irish in regular schools too but honestly, they do a terrible job. It just doesn't seem to work. I think Irish and Welsh speaking schools are the best way to keep the languages alive.

[Casey.]

I know is some countries the schools teach the primary language of that country. It makes little sense to speak English in school if the language everywhere else is Russian or Germany, or rather Welsh in this case. I understand why they teach Welsh in some schools. We have Spanish schools here which use an immersion programme of only teaching in Spanish to farther enhance the ability to speak Spanish fluently. If English is a major language of a country, but say Welsh is too, then both should be taught fluently in schools.

[bitesize]

Originally Posted by Nicola

My parents didn't send me to an Irish speaking school but I wish they had. I would have loved to have become fluent in the language while still at school. We are taught Irish in regular schools too but honestly, they do a terrible job. It just doesn't seem to work. I think Irish and Welsh speaking schools are the best way to keep the languages alive.

I agree with this. I wish I'd gone to an all-Irish school, like my boyfriend did. I'm not sure about Welsh but Irish is definitely dying out and I think this is a good way to keep it alive. But do people in Welsh-speaking schools not speak in English with their friends and peers?? Are any of their classes (like English) conducted through English?? I agree about the names for things in Maths, my boyfriend, although he is really intelligent, doesn't know the meaning of some longish English words because he would have learnt the equivalents in another language.

[Ceilidh]

Nope. All my friends from Welsh schools just talk in English when they're outside school. They may talk Welsh if they don't want someone else to know what they're talking about

People say Wales is bilingual but realistically not a lot of people speak fluent Welsh. I don't really want to speak fluent Welsh. The only people who speak it are in Wales and they speak English anyway :/

[dr2005]

I'd say spelling on Facebook is normally bad enough anyway irrespective of Welsh-only teaching, but I digress.

I see what you mean about the problems it can cause, but that to me is more indicative of failings in the curriculum or individual teachers - it's kind of like saying that the fact I used to misspell German or French words was down to my English-only teaching, aside from in those lessons. It wasn't - I was just crap at both languages for quite a while. I agree with you though that Welsh needs to be more widespread in use if it's going to be taught mainstream - it is supposed to be one of the official languages of Wales alongside English and all government bodies have to be bilingual, but outside of South Wales I would say I very rarely hear it spoken. If anything I've heard it sung more often with the Welsh national anthem than I've heard it spoken. So if they're going to teach it in schools in this way then they really need to promote it more outside of schools, otherwise it'll die out (and S4C with it among other things).

On a more random note, if you were fluent in Welsh you may well be able to communicate with some people in the Patagonian part of Argentina...possibly. Spanish is probably still the better option though.