-How many languages do you speak, apart from your mother tongue or L1?
Besides our L1 or mother tongue, which varies from Catalan to Spanish in each member of our team, we are all also fluent speakers of English. In addition, the whole group has studied a second language during the degree: Enrique, Alba and Maria Calabuig can converse of almost any topic in French, whereas Maria Jiménez and Andrea are as well quite fluent in German.
-Is your mother tongue your L1?
In the case of Alba, Maria Jiménez and Maria Calabuig, their mother tongue and the L1 is the same: Catalan; although they can also be considered native speakers of Spanish almost since they started talking, due to the bilingual context of the Valencian Community. When it comes to Andrea, it's rather difficult to establish her mother tongue, because her father speaks Catalan and her mother Spanish, thus, she has been raised indistinctively in both languages. However, she herself acknowledges Catalan as her L1, being this the language she feels more identified with. On the other hand, the most interesting case of our group will be Enrique. Born in Belgium, his mother tongue is French, which he still uses at home or when talking to his relatives. Nevertheless, his family moved to Massamagrell when he was a few years old, growing in this manner in a completely different bilingual context. This fact explains why he considers Catalan (or even Spanish) his L1, the language through which he has expressed his inner thoughts and concerns during most of his life.
-Are there things you find easier in one language than the other?
Even though all of us are bilingual from birth, there are some fields in which we feel more comfortable using one particular language. For instance, in relaxed atmospheres with family and friends, Catalan comes natural to our minds as the best tool to express our inner selves; whereas for official or academic purposes, we tend to use Spanish, as it seems more 'formal'. In general, for us it is easier to talk about feelings and personal experiences in our mother tongues -having a higher command of the language (vocabulary, structures, idioms, connotations), we feel more confident when using it when it comes to convey important messages.
In the case of English, it is natural for us to use it in any context related to our degree or the Masters. As we have studied linguistics and literature using the English terminology, many times we find it hard to find the correct equivalent in Spanish or Catalan, because our minds process this sort of information directly in English. It is the same when we think about our Erasmus experience and friends: having lived in English, it is much easier for us to express our feelings and impressions of the period using that language.
To sum up, the feeling of easiness or difficulty that a language causes on us depends very much on the context, the people we are with or even the topic of the conversation, but in general we all tend to switch to the language in which we feel more confident of our linguistic abilities.
-In language use terms, how would you describe the society you live in? Are the people in that society plurilingual?
We consider the Spanish society rather narrow-minded in language use terms, because even though there are several co-official languages recognised in different regions (Catalan, Valencian, Euskera, Galician) the general trend is to impose Spanish over all of them, particularly in the public atmosphere.
At the same time, although studying a foreign language is compulsory in our academic system, very few individuals can be considered true plurilingual. In our current society, many people claim proudly to have a 'good command' of a foreign language, namely English, French, German or Chinese. In general, this 'good command' means that they are just able to mutter some basic, stereotypical sentences (which in many cases native speakers are unable to understand), but still people tag themselves as plurilingual individuals for business purposes. In our view, being a real plurilingual is one of the hardest status to attain, as long as it means being able to switch from one language to another in any context without hesitation, not just murmuring words without order or coherence. The problem with our current society is that titles and fake impressions are more important than a real control of the language.
In the case of the Valencian Community, many people claim to be bilingual in Spanish and Catalan, but when it comes to real speaking, most of them are unable to express themselves fluently in the second language -which means that they have studied the language at school, but they haven't really learnt how to use it in real situations. This fact is usually explained by the personal lack of interest of some individuals who consider learning a second language as a useless task.
-How would you encourage ‘bilingualism’ in your classroom?
First of all, it is important to make students (and parents) aware of the great benefits of being bilingual. If learners realize that a second language will help them progress in their future careers, if they see it as part of their nature, they will no longer see the second language just as an academic subject, and as so, they will be less reluctant to improve their linguistic skills. In other words, the first step will be presenting languages as the key tool for personal success.
At the same time, we should encourage bilingualism in the classroom through a great variety of interactive activities, in an attempt to make languages seem appealing for the students. For instance, we can ask them to write an essay about themselves (likes and dislikes, family, hobbies, hopes) in their mother tongue, so they can express their inner thoughts in a more coherent and fluent way. Then, we can try to move them a step away from their area of comfort (meaning their mother tongue) by asking them to translate the text in the second language. The idea is to make them aware of their innate creative abilities, while they learn new vocabulary and structures (improving thus their bilingual linguistic competence). By mixing both languages in the same exercise, we want students to look for similarities and differences, so they can notice that all languages are similar to some point, but still, they have particularities which make them unique.
Another key point will be arising students' awareness of the richness of being bilingual in communicative terms. By mastering two languages, they will be able to communicate with a wider social group, enlarging thus their personal opportunities -for instance, through the second language they will gain access to a huge variety of content (films, books, news) in the original version. Furthermore, once they have learnt a second language, it will become much easier for them to study new ones, because they will be able to make comparisons among languages, or even apply studying strategies that have been useful for them before.
All in all, the best technique to encourage bilingualism in the classroom is based on activating students' self-esteem towards their bilingual nature.
-Do you feel some languages have a higher status in the classroom?
In the case of our region, Spanish has a higher status in the classroom than Catalan, although the legislation establishes both as equally important. This imbalance is particularly noteworthy in the province of Alicante, as well as in Valencia city, where the vast majority of pupils just use the regional dialect in the Catalan course.
In the case of public institutions, the law establishes that half of the subjects should be taught in Catalan, and the other half in Spanish, but from our personal experiences we can claim that there's a general trend of predominance of one over the other. This can be explained through different factors: the educators own ignorance of the Catalan language; the students' reluctance to study in a language which most of them feel alienated from their own reality; and most importantly, the authority's support to our current context of diglossia. In other words, being Spanish the official language of the country, the language of 'culture and authority', many educators and parents discourage learners from using Catalan, even at school, because this language has been stigmatized as 'provincial' (representative of a minority). Surprisingly enough, in many cases a foreign language such as English or French has a higher status inside the classroom than the regional one, because their international prestige is more valued than the real context in which we live. After all, this imbalance of languages inside our classroom responds to political interests.
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