This is so important. An entire nation of unconfident children is deplorable and it’s awful that we’ve let it come to this.
Hopefully this law will give the kids the confidence they need in the future.
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It’s a subject in school very few Welsh kids enjoy and is dropped at the first opportunity. We don’t need another reason for kids to dislike school
Just because you create a law it doesn’t mean it will work.
After all, the kids will be late getting to their lessons due to the snail pace of the traffic. 20mph…
Went to Welsh Wales a few years back. Thought I was at a star trek convention. No costumes,,but loads of people speaking Klingon.
I completely missed “Welsh” at the start of the headline.
Young people *are* struggling to speak confidently. They’re struggling to do so in English, Welsh, Romani, Urdu or Portuguese, or indeed one of the many other languages spoken in the UK (where I work we did a quick poll of young people, nearly 20 different languages spoken!)
The law should be helping young people to speak confidently, in front of their peers, people they don’t know, in formal or informal settings, on the phone or in person.
Let’s get that right before we start forcing languages upon them, eh?
This is always a weird debate. I get the reasons why, they’re usually very ideological. Plus being bilingual is good for the brain. But then again, working in education, students can have very little love for learning welsh. They don’t see it as the skills they need, especially if they plan to move over the boarder for work. Even tougher when English people move over to wales towards their GCSE years or even more trickier if English isn’t their first language.
As an adult living in Wales. My welsh is limited and I don’t really need any advance knowledge on a day to day basis. If I were to actually spend some time learning the language, it would be more of a hobby than something I feel I need for my day to day life. But that’s my local area, and that varies from where people live and socialise
By 2050? Almost 30 years time? Why so long? Just give up on the generation before?
Stand up, shoulders back, and let forth in ringing tones. I
n Cymraeg.
Pro tip.
Wish I was a fluent Welsh speaker, but the biggest failure of learning it at school was the lack of segregation between kids of different levels.
I’ll compare it to how French was taught in my school which I enjoyed far more (my form was K):
French:
1) Year 7: One form (K)
2) Years 8 & 9: two forms (K&L) mixed into a top and bottom set
3) Years 10 & 11: a GCSE choice, with the choice having been put in two separate column “blocks” when making GCSE options. Then, two classes per block separate into a top and bottom set. Benefit here being that even bottom set largely had people actively wanting to be there as it was their choice to do it.
And then there’s Welsh:
1) Year 7 & 8: One form (K)
2) Year 9: Two forms (K&L) split into two sets.
3.1) Years 10 & 11: Mandatory “short course” GCSE. Four forms (J&H&K&L) split into one “higher set” which consisted of the top 15%ish of Welsh students in those four forms. The remaining 3 sets were a complete random free-for-all and so those students who may have wanted to learn Welsh but weren’t the best at it (me) were widely disrupted by the majority who just didn’t want to be there.
3.2) Years 10 & 11: “Full course” GCSE choice. In two choice blocks. One class in each block of students who wanted to be there.
It’s hard to get people to learn a language they won’t use outside of the classroom. Wales could start by mandating the language in politics and media, courts etc.
OK….
So their is a answer to this..
You need ro make Welsh a usable, practical, language with media and everything in it so people use it regularly.
A full complement. All.round completely built up language and infrastructure around it. Make it useful , make it relevant and make it have a reason f9r people to use it, see media in it etc.
No point just stopping half way.
Either do this. Or just give up.
Their always one about the speaking. But you need to create media and other aspects so it becomes practical and used regularly.
Waste of valuable teaching time that could be better spent learning a language of some use.
Its of very limited cultural value other than for nationalism and lets be honest most kids in Wales don’t want to learn it.
I see a few angles to this , on one hand, it’s great that the Welsh government is trying to protect and encourage the use of the Welsh language. It is definitely important towards a sense of national identity that these things don’t just die out.
I suppose the main counterpoint to this is the wider utility of this , learning a language to a confident level is hours and hours of time, dedication, and emersion. It’s always worthwhile to do at any age, particularly in the global world we live in. But I’d question the prioritisation of Welsh over something like Mandarin or Spanish (far more spoken worldwide). Hell learning German or French is far more useful from a euro centric perspective, schooling time is finite and precious for learning and social development what will be pushed out to make room for this…. that’s the worry.
This subreddit’s description “For the United Kingdom of Great Britain (England, Scotland, Wales) and Northern Ireland; News, Politics, Economics, Society, Business, Culture, discussion and anything else UK related.”
The subreddit: “Fuck Welsh culture”
As per usual whenever the subject of Wales and the Welsh language comes up, this sub channels it’s inner Radovan Karadžić.
As a Welsh person, what the fuck is their obsession. How is this actually going to improve the lives of children? Removing opportunities to expand their knowledge and their world and keep them trapped with poor education. What a sad, insular little world they want us all to live in.
The amount of people triggered by the idea of people speaking Welsh. Bizarre.
19 comments
This is so important. An entire nation of unconfident children is deplorable and it’s awful that we’ve let it come to this.
Hopefully this law will give the kids the confidence they need in the future.
[deleted]
[removed]
It’s a subject in school very few Welsh kids enjoy and is dropped at the first opportunity. We don’t need another reason for kids to dislike school
Just because you create a law it doesn’t mean it will work.
After all, the kids will be late getting to their lessons due to the snail pace of the traffic. 20mph…
Went to Welsh Wales a few years back. Thought I was at a star trek convention. No costumes,,but loads of people speaking Klingon.
I completely missed “Welsh” at the start of the headline.
Young people *are* struggling to speak confidently. They’re struggling to do so in English, Welsh, Romani, Urdu or Portuguese, or indeed one of the many other languages spoken in the UK (where I work we did a quick poll of young people, nearly 20 different languages spoken!)
The law should be helping young people to speak confidently, in front of their peers, people they don’t know, in formal or informal settings, on the phone or in person.
Let’s get that right before we start forcing languages upon them, eh?
This is always a weird debate. I get the reasons why, they’re usually very ideological. Plus being bilingual is good for the brain. But then again, working in education, students can have very little love for learning welsh. They don’t see it as the skills they need, especially if they plan to move over the boarder for work. Even tougher when English people move over to wales towards their GCSE years or even more trickier if English isn’t their first language.
As an adult living in Wales. My welsh is limited and I don’t really need any advance knowledge on a day to day basis. If I were to actually spend some time learning the language, it would be more of a hobby than something I feel I need for my day to day life. But that’s my local area, and that varies from where people live and socialise
By 2050? Almost 30 years time? Why so long? Just give up on the generation before?
Stand up, shoulders back, and let forth in ringing tones. I
n Cymraeg.
Pro tip.
Wish I was a fluent Welsh speaker, but the biggest failure of learning it at school was the lack of segregation between kids of different levels.
I’ll compare it to how French was taught in my school which I enjoyed far more (my form was K):
French:
1) Year 7: One form (K)
2) Years 8 & 9: two forms (K&L) mixed into a top and bottom set
3) Years 10 & 11: a GCSE choice, with the choice having been put in two separate column “blocks” when making GCSE options. Then, two classes per block separate into a top and bottom set. Benefit here being that even bottom set largely had people actively wanting to be there as it was their choice to do it.
And then there’s Welsh:
1) Year 7 & 8: One form (K)
2) Year 9: Two forms (K&L) split into two sets.
3.1) Years 10 & 11: Mandatory “short course” GCSE. Four forms (J&H&K&L) split into one “higher set” which consisted of the top 15%ish of Welsh students in those four forms. The remaining 3 sets were a complete random free-for-all and so those students who may have wanted to learn Welsh but weren’t the best at it (me) were widely disrupted by the majority who just didn’t want to be there.
3.2) Years 10 & 11: “Full course” GCSE choice. In two choice blocks. One class in each block of students who wanted to be there.
It’s hard to get people to learn a language they won’t use outside of the classroom. Wales could start by mandating the language in politics and media, courts etc.
OK….
So their is a answer to this..
You need ro make Welsh a usable, practical, language with media and everything in it so people use it regularly.
A full complement. All.round completely built up language and infrastructure around it. Make it useful , make it relevant and make it have a reason f9r people to use it, see media in it etc.
No point just stopping half way.
Either do this. Or just give up.
Their always one about the speaking. But you need to create media and other aspects so it becomes practical and used regularly.
Waste of valuable teaching time that could be better spent learning a language of some use.
Its of very limited cultural value other than for nationalism and lets be honest most kids in Wales don’t want to learn it.
I see a few angles to this , on one hand, it’s great that the Welsh government is trying to protect and encourage the use of the Welsh language. It is definitely important towards a sense of national identity that these things don’t just die out.
I suppose the main counterpoint to this is the wider utility of this , learning a language to a confident level is hours and hours of time, dedication, and emersion. It’s always worthwhile to do at any age, particularly in the global world we live in. But I’d question the prioritisation of Welsh over something like Mandarin or Spanish (far more spoken worldwide). Hell learning German or French is far more useful from a euro centric perspective, schooling time is finite and precious for learning and social development what will be pushed out to make room for this…. that’s the worry.
This subreddit’s description “For the United Kingdom of Great Britain (England, Scotland, Wales) and Northern Ireland; News, Politics, Economics, Society, Business, Culture, discussion and anything else UK related.”
The subreddit: “Fuck Welsh culture”
As per usual whenever the subject of Wales and the Welsh language comes up, this sub channels it’s inner Radovan Karadžić.
As a Welsh person, what the fuck is their obsession. How is this actually going to improve the lives of children? Removing opportunities to expand their knowledge and their world and keep them trapped with poor education. What a sad, insular little world they want us all to live in.
The amount of people triggered by the idea of people speaking Welsh. Bizarre.