Welsh Medium Education Scandal

The Treason of the Coalition Agreements  

   The Times has stated that the Welsh Government was intending to create the Welsh Language Society's dream of reversing the 1847 Treason of the Blue Books. Children  were going to be prohibited from using their native English in Welsh Schools because of a Plaid Cymru coalition agreement with the Welsh Government.

      A new 2025 bill would have removed the right for children to be educated in their native language. The proposal has been suspended because of the breakdown of the coalition agreement.

     Professor Sioned Davies, who has now retired, and the Welsh Language Society, which is a direct action group, have demanded in a Nation Cymru article that her 2015 Donaldson Curriculum recommendations should be implemented. Her legal teaching status is Tom, Dick and Mary. She is a professor of Welsh, not education. Whoever advised her in 2015 did not understand the issue.

      Professor Sioned Davies recommended that all children should take the Welsh medium Welsh Language G.C.S.E., which meant that all children must be educated through the medium of Welsh. The proposal appeared surreptitious. The Welsh Government chose not to implement the proposal in 2016.

    Q.T.S. teachers are intensively trained in schools of education, not Welsh, and they are the legal authorities on children’s learning, not Welsh Language academics. They are registered. University academics are not.

    University academics appeared to populate the Welsh Language Board, which advised that there was value for English-speaking children to learn Welsh to be educated through the medium of it in the 2000s. Their research was flawed.

     Professor Paul Howard-Jones is an educational neuroscientist at the Bristol School of Education. He refers to teachers having the equivalent impact on the brain as neurosurgeons. Cognitive and reliable neuroscience is providing greater certainty about all learning issues and reduces speculation.

     Howard made a submission to the Welsh Government that reliable neuroscience research has proved that children’s language development does not start when they start to speak. It established that language development starts from or before birth. A leading authority on babies' bilingual development refers to them as ‘linguistic geniuses.’

     Research proves that by a baby's first birthday, they have grown the cognitive structure of their native language(s). Native languages are inherited in the home. More than one language can be inherited. Only native speakers can learn language effortlessly.

     All native speakers develop a basic oral language at the age of five. They do not remember learning it. It is as if they wake up from an anaesthetic. This is why predominantly all native speakers believe languages are easy to learn. They do not appreciate how complicated and long it takes to learn them.

      Hedledd Fychan Plaid Cymru M.S. expressed her dream of making every child in Wales a confident bilingual speaker. Although she is a fluent Welsh speaker, she clearly does not understand what is involved in learning a new language. Even children need to learn a proportion of a Welsh Language Learners dictionary and grammar book to bring it to the tip of the tongue and point of the ear fluency.

     There has been a failure in Wales to understand that the language children learn through the medium of is fundamental to determining their learning attainment.

    Christina Hinton, an educational neuroscientist in Harvard, refers to many children in America being able to read, but they cannot learn through reading. This means effective learning cannot take place. This also applies to oral language.

      Working memory is the gateway to all learning. It dictates that children will always learn most effectively in their most fluent language. This is why parents want their native Welsh-speaking children to learn through the medium of Welsh, despite the fact that they are also native English speakers.

       Mark Drakeford has promised in the media that English-speaking children will never be compelled to learn a new language to be educated through the medium of Welsh. He claimed that it would alienate people.

   Mark Drakeford was the first First Minister to admit during the COVID-19 crisis, when children were home learning, that English-speaking parents could not support their children’s school learning. Schooling is a compromise. Teachers cannot give individual attention to children. Parents can.

Plenary

     Shah, in a paper on the Irish Language, referred to the emphasis on schooling to save the living Irish Language as oversimplistic. Dr Margaret Newcombe, Cardiff School of Welsh, admitted that most children in Welsh-medium schools speak English outside of school. Carwyn James, former Welsh First Minister, admitted his boys did so when he was contemplating the future of the Welsh Language.

      Professor McChriost, who is an authority on language planning in Cardiff School of Welsh, referred to children being locked in Welsh-medium schools where they must speak Welsh. He has claimed that minority languages cannot be resurrected and children will always prefer to speak their mother tongue.

      Grosjean, a distinguished psychologist, contended that the word speak a language can mean anything.  It implies native-like fluency. Hywel Jones, Cardiff University, who was a statistician on the Welsh Language Board, stated that the ambition to create a million Welsh Speakers by 2050 is unattainable. He stated that people who say ‘bore da’ speak Welsh. They can even confidently speak it someone.

       Grosjean contended that few bilinguals have equal fluency in each language. Many people believe that if they learn Welsh, they will be able to apply it to every aspect of their daily lives. This is not the case. Most bilinguals will apply each language in different contexts. The balance of their bilingualism will reflect its usage and the extent it can be used.

         Language does not only become an integral part of us, which lives with us, which has a life of its own. Languages need to be watered through usage, like plants in a desert, to keep them fluent. Research suggests that 66% of the rich language environment is needed to learn and retain languages.

          The notion that Welsh medium schools have high attainment is a deviation to the mean. Socially deprived children and those of low learning potential will not cope with learning a new language to be educated through the medium of it. Welsh Medium schools tend to offer a grammar school behavioural learning environment. If all English medium school could discard their low-attaining children, their school attainment would improve.       

         Amanda Spielman, Head of Ofsted, stated, "Education is the great force of human advancement, of advancement of civilisation "and that “It a lovely combination of the human and the intellectual- it’s big, it’s complicated, but above all, it has such a profound influence upon people’s lives!"  

       Bilingual education is complex. Professors of Welsh are not experts on pedagogy. No bank would invest in a proposal unless there is a convincing business plan. Children can only have one life. They can only have one education. Their education cannot be sacrificed in a speculative attempt to save the living Welsh Language.

       If parents choose for their children to be educated through the medium of Welsh, then that is their responsibility, but it is unacceptable for governments to support or compel children to learn Welsh to be educated through the medium of it, because children will be written off if they cannot cope with learning it. English-speaking children have the right to be given reliable information so they can make informed decisions based on their children's best educational interests.

    If parents choose for their children to be educated through the medium of Welsh, then that is their responsibility, but it is unacceptable for governments to support or compel children to learn Welsh to be educated through the medium of it because children will be written off if they cannot cope with learning it. English-speaking children have the right to be given reliable information so they can make informed decisions based on their children's best educational interests.

         Irrespective of how brutal it may appear if children are only using Welsh to be educated through the medium of it, then it cannot be justified educationally. Children only have one life. They can only have one education. They are facing very uncertain future. The Welsh Government cannot afford to get their education policies wrong.

     Powys and Ceredigion are compelling English-speaking children to learn Welsh to be educated through the medium of it in Llanfair Caereinion respectively.

Howard Gunn B.Ed.,M.Ed., 14-07-24

Further Information

   It is understandable that Welsh speakers feel very passionately about the future of the Welsh Language, but the future of it will be dictated by science, not political rhetoric. Children’s best educational interests must be respected.

     The fundamental problem is that people do not generally understand languages. Duolingo declared Welsh the fastest-growing language in the United Kingdom. Millions of Welsh and Scots used the Welsh and Scottish versions of it. Duolingo indirectly earns millions of dollars by offering a free service to millions. It has no means of assessing what the millions achieved.

     Aran Jones, the Welsh Language campaigner, claimed that he learned Manx from scratch from a basic conversational level in seven binge learning hours. He had a live twenty-minute conversation in Manx after it. It was cognitively impossible, but the Manx people to believe it. He was reading set phrases from his computer screen.

      Children do not go to school to learn to talk and walk. Native languages are grown in children’s homes. The tipping point of a living language is 66% speakers. (University of ##).  It is the language environment that is needed to learn and maintain a language.    

      Languages cannot be learnt in classrooms. They need to be lived through in the here and now. They need to be shared with competent speakers. Negotiation is critical to all language development. If something is not understood by whom it is spoken to, then it will be negotiated with those who receive it.

      If someone goes to live in France, they must learn and use French to become able to live normal, fulfilled everyday lives there. French speakers make up around 99% of French citizens. This allows non-native French learners to develop native-like fluency and accuracy, because the language is all around them. Most will not reach full native-like fluency.

     The fundamental problem with the Welsh Language is that there are insufficient Welsh speakers in Wales with whom English Welsh learners, including children, can regularly interact. The focus of everyday language is communication, not learning. Learning a new language and subject content in school simultaneously requires multitasking. It will retard one or the other.

    Dr Margaret Newcombe claimed that when adult Welsh Language Learners reach A’ Level standard, they will be able to start attempting to speak Welsh to native speakers. She claims that most native Welsh speakers insist on speaking English to them. This is because communicating is an ordeal for both of them.

      We all wake up with native oral language fluency at around the age of five. It as if we have been under anaesthetic. Children have a recognition vocabulary of 10,000 words at that age. This provides them with a very secure foundation for their later higher language learning.

     We are all inherently lazy at heart. It takes a lot of time and effort for learners to acquire a new language unnaturally. Speakers, including bilingual speakers, will always be inclined to use their most fluent language, the one they can apply with ease and flow.

      If all children are compelled to learn Welsh to be educated through the medium of it, this will mean that Q.T.S. English-speaking teachers will need to teach through the medium of Welsh. They will need to develop high levels of fluency and accuracy to teach effectively. The problem they will confront is that they are not native Welsh speakers; they do live in Welsh-speaking homes, and the Welsh language is generally not spoken all around them. This applies to all Welsh Language Learners.

      There has been a failure to understand that children's learning potential is not equal. There is a seven-year spread in their learning potential. This influences their basic skill attainment. Most children’s learning potential is clustered around average. This applies to adults.

      There are children who will struggle to learn through the medium of English. They will not be able to easily learn a new language to be educated through the medium of it.

      Welsh-medium education is selective. Children who struggle to learn Welsh will to be educated through the medium of it will eventually drop out Welsh Medium schooling. Many socially deprived parents will not choose for their children to be educated through the medium of Welsh.  

        Welsh-medium schools tend to achieve high academic outcomes. If English-speaking schools could dispense with their lowest-attaining and less well-behaved children, then their academic outcomes would increase. If all children are compelled to learn Welsh to be educated through it, then Welsh-medium schools' academic halos will diminish.

      A French neuroscientist stated that English speakers should regret the victory of the Battle of Hastings in 1066. He referred to English as one of the most difficult languages in the world to learn to read in because it so irregular. It is a mix of French and English. Italian, in comparison, is a regular language. In an ideal world would all learn it.

        According to Gareth King, the Welsh written language borders on a distinctly different language. It is a very regular language to learn. This means that native Welsh speakers and non-native Welsh speakers can obtain higher grades in Welsh Language G.C.S.E. examinations across the curriculum than English speakers.

       Finland has historically performed highly in the Pisa international assessments because their language is regular. Children who pass Welsh Language examinations may not achieve the same level if apply them through the medium of English. This will not necessarily prepare them for high education English medium education.

        Professor Pual Howard Jones, an educational neuroscientist, contended that English can no longer be viewed as a second language. It has become the modern world language instead of Latin, and children and adults across the world are learning it.

Plenary

     We are all inclined to automatically believe what we read or are told without pausing to think whether it is accurate, true or reasonable.

     The notion that children will achieve more if they learn a new language to be educated through the medium of it is a disconnect from reality. Monolingual English speakers will have larger overall vocabularies.

     There are countries across the world where children speak a native language in their homes and a different language to be educated through the medium of it. Millions of children in the United States are native speakers of Spanish. The American Government is not compelling native English-speaking Americans to learn Spanish so they can speak Spanish to them.

          Children in Need refers to the need for children to be educated in their native language. Native Welsh-speaking children in Wales have been given the opportunity to learn through the medium of their native Welsh Language. The Welsh Government was preparing to deny English-speaking children the opportunity to learn through their native language, English.

       The fact that children in Welsh Medium schools are voting with their feet and use English outside of them suggests their most fluent language is English. If they do not use it, those children who are compelled to learn Welsh will be less inclined than them to use it. There is the question of where they can use it after they leave school.

      What cannot be questioned is that if a cohort of children who attend an English-medium school in a nice leafy suburb, who have equal learning potential to an equivalent cohort of children who need Welsh to be educated through the medium of it, who will devote the same time to their learning, then the children in English medium education will achieve more. Establishing a basic 10,000-fluent word vocabulary in a new language will require a great deal of work for Welsh learners.

um lectus rutrum eget.