Language Learning and Integration Activities

Jordi Font Anton, Catalan Normalisation Specialist at the Centre of Language Normalisation in Barcelona of the Consortium for Language Normalisation, Catalonia

« The future seems to appear with a necessarily mixed society, that finds links of union and common belongings beyond ethnic and confessional differences. The integration, assimilation, the respect for the differences and to specific features are attained through a shared project, a daily solidarity and equality in a common political space. » (Sami Naïr, And They Will Come... Migrations in Hostile Times. 2006)

The Centre of Language Normalisation of Barcelona promotes a model of language teaching, in its basic levels, focused on the use of Catalan, with the goal of fostering social cohesion, the knowledge of the environment and integration, over the instrumental learning of the language . It is a project of linguistic welcoming within the framework of the activity of the extension of the use of Catalan of the Consortium for Language Normalization.

In order to achieve this goal there is an implementation of three complementary activities that cannot be understood in isolation. These are the following:

• New teaching materials. During the 2005-2006 term the teaching materials have been renewed to facilitate pupils the knowledge of their immediate environment and the cultural exchange among students. Without abandoning the linguistic goals to achieve in the first level, the language is taught taking into account the immediate environment of students and always from very familiar communicative situations. Also demonstrations of the culture of newcomers, with the goal of making them very present in the classroom, in order to know them and fostering its respect have been incorporated in this new material. Finally, the evaluation material has been renewed to adapt to the new teaching approach.
• The programme Volunteers for the L anguage. Through this programme, a language student and a voluntary and fluent Catalan language speaker agree to meet a minimum of 10 hours to talk in Catalan. The aim is to create environments of relationship in Catalan so that students can develop their skills outside the classroom, and to solve one of the main problems which students experiment: the difficulty of practicing the language.
• Complementary activities. Another of the essential purposes of the language welcoming courses is to introduce the associative and cultural life of the city where the newcomers have settled. Projecting this goal out of the classroom, with real visits of students, in a context of communication in Catalan that links the learning and the knowledge of the most immediate environment, has to multiply the effectiveness of the lessons. Thus, in 2006 the program Quedem? (“Shall we meet?”) started in collaboration with Òmnium Cultural, which offers language students a series of activities to be acquainted with the city in a Catalan communicative environment.

Therefore, with a new teaching approach , with the Volunteers for the Language programme and with a complementary offer of activities outside the classroom within the framework of the “Quedem?” programme, it is intended to create an effective linguistic welcoming environment that aims at fighting against exclusion and in favour of integration, as it has to be in an open and welcoming society .