Hello bookworms!
Today I will show my research on multilingualism in Hospitalet de Llobregat, the city where I live. It has 253.518
inhabitants; 47,94% of them were born in Catalonia, 24,96% come from other
Autonomous Comunities and 27,10% left are from other countries (INE, 2014).
According to Idescat population registers (2015), there are people from more than 50 different nationalities living here. However, Bolivians (12.84%), Moroccans (11.85%), Ecuadorians (10.42%), Pakistanis (7.89%), Dominicans (7.29%), Hindus (5.68%), Peruvians (5.03%) and Chinese (4.72%) are the most common
nationalities we can find in Hospitalet de Llobregat. Therefore, the most
spoken languages in this area are Spanish, Moroccan, Hindu, Pakistani and Chinese.
The majority of immigrants are between 25 and 40 years old, which
makes me think that job is the main reason why they move to
Catalonia, Spain. Moreover, there are just 7,29% of kids that immigrate with their
parents (Idescat, 2015). Therefore, those people who
move to Hospitalet are likely to give birth their sons or daughters here, which
means that these children are going to have Spanish nationality.
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| L'Hospitalet de Llobregat areas |
I have also analysed what is the level of proficiency of L’Hospitalet de
Llobregat inhabitants in Catalan. According to Idescat (2011), in Pubilla Cases, there
are 38.856 inhabitants; 8.591 are foreigners and 85% of them understand Catalan. So, Catalan is not a social issue for immigrants.
In 2011, Hospitalet de Llobregat council promoted an Environmental Education Plan to foster social integration,
coexistence and use of Catalan language (Servei Educatiu de la Ciutat de
L’hospitalet de Llobregat, n.d.). To achieve these objectives, the council
organised free workshops in order to practice Catalan; it also offered Catalan
courses for Adults and other activities related to promoting Catalan. The
council thought that Catalan language was the way to work social integration
and coexistence in the different Hospitalet de Llobregat areas. Nevertheless,
this Action Plan for integration finished two years ago. Thefore, we currently don’t
have enough activities or workshops that enhance multilingualism.
MY PERSONAL REFLECTION:
As I could observe, there are a lot of plurilingualism in Hospitalet de
Llobregat. What’s more, the vast majority of foreign people are totally
integrated culturally and linguistically talking. However, there are not enough social activities which promote other cultures and languages
knowledge. That’s true social integration is widely fostered in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, but not plurilingualism.
If I could do something, my suggestion would be related to what European Charter for Regional or
Minority Languages aims to:
“to protect and promote regional or minority languages from a cultural
perspective, emphasizing culture” (Baetens, 2009). As it is argued in Hugo
Baetens' article (2009), I don’t expect to change Education System, but to
foster plurilingualism in Education.
| Plurilingualism |
Personally, I consider that there is no need of implementing vocabulary,
customs and other cultural aspect of a language as a part of a project (despite
it would be interesting). Plurilingualism should be a part of the class, I mean
the teacher should take into account those children who have different
nationalities in class; for example, when it appears an outstanding chance to
know more about other cultures, there mustn’t be doubts about what to do: go
for it! Make Chinese or Pakistani students explain some aspects of their
culture. Indeed, Christmas and Easter are festivities that most schools take
advantage of to implement plurilingualism in class.
A recent Eurodyce study reveals that “8 percent of
schoolgoers aged 15 claim to speak a language other than the language of
instruction at home” (Baetens, 2009). What’s more, English is the favoured as
the first foreign language at schools, which makes difficult to learn other
languages, above all, minority languages. So, if
students are interested in learning other languages apart from English, why
don’t schools offer to pupils more options?
In secondary schools, most students are offered a second foreign
language to study (usually just French). However, what I would propose would be introducing a wide variety of
minority languages so that
pupils can choose. This alternative would enhance immigrants integration, so
most teachers of languages such as Pakistani, Chinese or Moroccan would be from
different countries. In other words, we may kill two birds with one stone:
children are introduced to new languages and cultures as a part of their
education; and most immigrants have the opportunity of teaching their own language and
culture at schools.
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| Arabic courses in Hospitalet de Llobregat |
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