L1 EU Policies and Initiatives 2/12/2016

EULP Activity 1.1 - Group Discussion

I- What do you think is the role of the EU Policies in Education?

Each EU country is responsible for its own education and training systems. Therefore, EU policies are designed to support national action, in order to do so, they unify the standards of criteria and they promote different ways of learning. Moreover they develop quality in education promoting the mobility of citizens, designing joint study programmes and making a commitment to promote life-long learning for all citizens of the Union

 II- What do you understand by EU Language Policies?

The policies that promote learning and teaching of foreign languages and the mobility of citizens. However, sometimes people could not travel or could not pay for education so the EU funds educational, vocational and citizenship-building programmes as well as it collaborates with inter-governmental projects. 

III- Can you name any EU initiative related to Language Learning?

The Erasmus Programme, the International Relations Programme or the Bologna Process, whose purpose is to create a European higher education area by harmonising academic degree structures and standards, as well as academic quality assurance standards.

IV- In your opinion,

-What are the main factors driving EU Language Policies?

 The two main factors are economic and political reasons. Although there are a lot of programmes that promote learning, at the end they only cover economic necessity such as the need of a job and the opportunity to get it in a different country.

-What factors make people want to learn a language?

As it is said before, people have the need of a job and they learn languages in order to get one or get a promotion in their current job. Of course, this is a generalisation and there are people who want to learn languages because they want to discover new cultures, new lands or even because they are interested in learning something new. 

-What factors make people defend a specific Language Policy?

It could be that many factors affect the way you think about a specific Language Policy such as economic, political and social reasons. Economic reasons because they provide grants which benefits people who cannot afford to travel abroad; political reasons since people think better about the political parties whose invest in educational programmes and social reasons due to the importance of being able to communicate with people around the world.

EULP Activity 2.1 - Group Discussion

I-How many languages do you speak, apart from your mother tongue or L1?

-Laura: I can speak 4 languages: Spanish, Catalan, English and German, but I normally speak in Spanish.

-Verónica: I speak 3 languages apart from my mother tongue: Catalan, English and French.

-Borja: I speak Spanish nativelike. In terms of foreign languages I speak English rather fluently, I have a quite rusty B2 level in French and an extremely basic knowledge of Welsh.
-Patry: I can speak Spanish, Catalan and English. I also know a bit of French and Portuguese. 
-Lourdes: I speak 3 languages apart from my mother tongue (Spanish): English, Catalan and German.

II-Is your mother tongue your L1?

-Laura: Yes, my mother tongue is Spanish and Spanish is my L1.

-Verónica: Yes, my mother tongue is Spanish and my L1 too.

-Borja: Indeed. Catalan is both my L1 and my mother tongue. 
-Patry: Spanish is my mother tongue and also my L1.
-Lourdes: Yes, Spanish is both my mother tongue and my L1.

III-Are there things you find easier in one language than the other?

-Laura: Of course, the easiest language for me is my mother tongue, but Spanish and Catalan are easier in terms of pronunciation. English is easier in terms of syntax. 

-Verónica: Absolutely. There are different aspects that I have taken into account. If we are talking about pronunciation Spanish is easier but if we are referring to grammar English is the easiest of all. The most difficult for me is French. I speak with my family in Spanish and I only use the other languages if a person addresses me in that language; so, it is easier for me to express myself in Spanish since I use it with more frequency.

- Borja: Yes, there are. I find it easier to express myself in Catalan as it is the language I prefer to use in most communicative situations; the language in which I feel, love and share my feelings. Despite being quite a complex language in terms of grammar, syntax and spellings, I have always tried to be aware of its norms so as to try and use it correctly. I do not find Spanish difficult but I rarely use it, only employing it with those people who cannot understand my language. Surprisingly enough, I had never used Spanish as much as I did last year living in the UK and teaching it. Regarding English, I feel quite comfortable using it and I would say English is the language with which I prefer to write academic and literary texts. In terms of French, I believe its spellings are extremely difficult and anarchic but due to its similarities with Catalan, it is quite easy to speak. Finally, I have never used Welsh in real life situations but I would not even be able to get by with my scarce knowledge. 
- Patry: The easiest language for me is Spanish (obviously). As it is a Latin language I find a lot of similarities between Spanish, Catalan, French and Portuguese. Thanks to this factor, it is quite easy to guess the meaning of some words as they are similar, but, at the same time, they have some difficult aspects. Spanish, Catalan and Portuguese pronunciation are easier than French pronunciation. Regarding English, its syntax is very easy, but it has some words that are difficult to pronounce and to use.

- Lourdes: The easiest language for me is Spanish because it is my mother tongue. I speak too Catalan, but I prefer to speak Spanish because it is the language that I use since I was a child. I only used Catalan when I was at school. Regarding English, I prefer to use it when I write academic texts. This is because I have more experience writing in that language than in Spanish. Furthermore, I am more comfortable speaking in English than in German. because I find German very difficult to pronounce. 

IV-In terms of language use,

  1-How would you describe the society you live in? Are the people in that society plurilingual?

Here in Valencia, the society is very diverse. We have different social status, people with economic difficulties, people in a medium and people who has a lot of money. Moreover, there are people from different countries. We have a big Chinese and Rumanian population, and immigrants from other foreign countries. The two co-official languages are Spanish and Valencian. 

Therefore, there are people who are plurilingual because immigrants are able to communicate in their mother tongue and in our two co-official languages. However, in many cases there are people who claim to be plurilingual but they cannot speak or write properly in all the languages.

  2-How would you encourage ‘bilingualism’ in your classroom?

First of all, it is important to show students and parents that bilingualism has a lot of benefits for the students such as the increase of possibilities to get a job or the opportunity to communicate with people from other countries.

Regarding to the English classroom, we can use their mother tongue in order to support the explanations that they do not understand. So, at the end, students will create links between some features of their L1 and other languages but they also will be able to distinguish the unique characteristics of the new language.

  3-Do you feel some languages have a higher status in the classroom?

Of course. Even though there are two co-official languages and the legislation established both equally there are a particular tendency to consider that Spanish has a higher status than Valencian.

In fact, many people consider Valencian as a minority language and the government is more worry about including other languages as English than supporting Valencian.