Language Issues

I've never met a person who has attended a Welsh medium school who cannot speak, read and write English fluently. On the other hand, a very high percentage, I would imagine, of English medium pupils are absolutely clueless regarding Welsh. I think all schools should be Welsh medium (in Wales) so that the pupils aren't denied experiences and opportunities later in life. Why do RhAG smack of nationalist agitators? Their primary concern is education and there are people from the whole political spectrum who hold these views? Heini Gruffudd is an example of these people and is himself the son of a German Jewish refugee......hardly the material for being a nationalist political agitator. http://www.bbc.co.uk/cymru/radiocymru/safle/bwrwgolwg/pages/heini.shtml

Well I think the claim that 50% of parents want Welsh-medium education smacks of being an arbitrary figure selected on the basis of the argument that Welsh should have the same statws as English and so half the schools should be Welsh medium. Surveys have shown time and again across Wales that around half of all parents can see the advantages of bilingualism for their children. http://www.rhag.net/newyddions023.html As to whether there are Welsh speaking people who cannot use English adequately, there certainly used to be because my father as a teacher used to correct his Welsh speaking cousins' speech and writing in English, listing all of their mistakes, which seriously pissed them off : they never corrected his Welsh !!! .....and there still are today but they would be pre-school age. But children from Welsh medium education still have to pass the same English GCSE's as English medium pupils. I believe that Welsh medium schools' results are just as good if not better than English ones. What is actually happening in Welsh medium schools is the modern equivilent of passing round that hideous bit of wood on a string - only now it would be inscribed " English Not ". The penalty is usually a loss of house points eg my niece and her friend were unselfconsciously talking in Welsh in the corridor and a teacher was so delighted to hear it as she passed them she awarded them house points !!! In most Welsh medium schools as soon as the teachers' backs are turned the kids all talk in English. You can regard this teenage rebellion, but it reflects the serious problem of nationalistic English speaking parents foisting Welsh medium education on their kids. They themselves make little or no effort to learn Welsh and none is spoken in their homes, and at sixteen their kids get a certificate saying that they are " fluent " in Welsh when all they can do in the language is pass school -*test*-('")s and speak like retards because they have no exposure to adults speaking Welsh. This is really bad for them as individuals and it is bad for our nation because they have acquired a standard of ability inferior to both native Welsh speakers ( who are top of the class and have vastly bigger vocabularies ) and to native English speakers ( who have not been struggling to cope with education in a language they don't fully understand ). Oh come on Dai, comparing giving house points for actions which the schools want to encourage with the 'welsh not' is laughable. Every schools has a policy for 'rewards and sanctions'. I know that British International schools to this where pupils often speak languages other than English when they are sent to those schools by their parents to learn it. I have met many ex-pupils of Welsh medium schools who in adulthood speak Welsh perfectly and do so with people they once spoke English with at school. I suppose that this isn't always the case. I would hope that many of these people would pass the language onto their kids. You seem to suggest that Welsh medium education is anti-English but the kids come out of that education with two languages at least. And if the experts are to be believed, if you are brought up bilingually, then learning a third or fourth language is even easier. I did in-fact say that all schools in Wales should be Welsh medium with tongue in cheek. After-all, we don't want every-body chasing those highly paid plumb jobs do we.....? :wink:

Well I fully agree with her ! Language is a natural trade tariff, and the propagation of Welsh among the Welsh will mean that the ability to speak Welsh will become a prominently valued career skill and open up domestic markets distinct from the English media. One only has to ask an unemployed call centre worker if they would prefer it if the Indians did not speak English......well let's force them to speak Welsh if they want to offshore Welsh jobs.... I despair that you morons can't see this...

Blewyn.....they'll offshore Welsh speaking jobs to Trelew, Patagonia. :-0

Buy your holidays at Thomas Cook. The Manager of the Bangor branch will be particularly pleased to see you if you speak Welsh!

Cymuned are over-egging the pudding and will damage their cause. Thank you for your kind words - but as is so often the case, people who have only read what is in the media (see your link above) do not have access to the full story. nor do they they object to their staff using the Welsh language between themselves at work for either work purposes or social purposes A reasonable inference from the BBC article, but factually incorrect. In this instance, the link you provide above is Thomas Cook in the first stage of an uncomfortable climb down - their original press release made it very clear that workers were not to speak in Welsh if discussing anything related to work even in a private conversation. Subsequent enquiries by journalists revealed that TC's claim that this was a standard company policy of which all their staff were aware was in fact not true. Privately, staff have reported that the ban comes directly from the Bangor manageress, a non-Welsh speaker who has made it clear that they are not even to ask each other for a cup of tea in Welsh. It appears to have been her response to them wearing Bwrdd yr Iaith 'Welsh spoken here' badges. This is now being denied, as one would expect, since it would almost definitely not be able to withstand a legal challenge (although it is not, despite the widespread misconception, made illegal by the 1993 Language Act). The CRE have made it clear that they are comfortable with English being requested in situations where if it were not, some people would be prevented from doing their jobs. Those guidelines were passed by Westminster last year. Thomas Cook have tried to take it several steps further, and the CRE have been glad of the opportunity to clarify the situation prior to the forming of the single Equality body in the near future. They have thanked us for helping to draw attention to an important -*test*-('") case, and the public response has been very strongly against Thomas Cook, so I'm glad to say that I think your belief that we will damage our cause by being involved (along with the CRE, Cymdeithas, and a whole range of AMs who were quick enough to jump on) in this matter is likely to be incorrect.

No need to be contrite - healthy disagreement is a vital part of any worthwhile society...:D We're not very comfortable with targeting individuals unless it is absolutely unavoidable - and in this case, it would have been a waste of time - far too easy to deny. The TC press release was a different matter - talk about sitting ducks. When it was released to us by the Cymro ahead of them breaking the story, we got in touch with the CRE, who told us where they stood on it. Our pro-*test*-('")s (particularly the very quick one on the Monday, that gave the news channels material they clearly wanted/needed if they were to make it a lead story) gave the CRE the ammunition they needed to force TC into talks - the aim of which is to establish best practice guidelines for private company attitudes to Welsh for the new single equality body in Wales to inherit. If that happens successfully (and it's looking good at the moment), it will have been a far more significant victory than getting one person sacked, or even than getting one company to apologise. As for press coverage and responses to it - for once, I've been pretty happy with how we've been covered here, and with all due respect, you're the only person I've heard saying that it reflects badly on Cymuned (apart from one or two lembos on BBC boards, who think that our very existence reflects badly on Cymuned!). All in all, I'm happy with how this one went, I think it could make a real difference to the opening stance of the new equality body, and I think its impact on us will be somewhere marginally on the positive side of 'not much'.

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