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The body, which has produced a report to promote the use of Catalan in the classroom, considers it “disrespectful to give them a degree” and recommends that a specific level test be established
The Consell Lingüístic Assessor has proposed to the Minister of Education, Josep Gonzàlez-Cambray, that students who finish fourth in ESO in Catalonia do not automatically obtain the certificate of proficiency of Catalan, and who have to undergo a specific test to achieve this recognition.
This is stated in the report that the president of the council, Carme Junyent, delivered to Cambray this Wednesday, and which includes 50 proposals to promote the use of Catalan in educational centers and combat its “regression”, among which also stands out the evaluation of the linguistic competence of teachers and the increase in their training in this area or that of sociolinguistics.
The proposals of this advisory body are the basis on which the Ministry of Education must prepare a draft of the decree that will allow the development of Title 2 of the Education Law of Catalonia, in relation to the linguistic regime of the educational system of Catalonia. Currently, students who have studied in Catalonia at least three years of primary school and all of ESO and have passed the Catalan subject can automatically accredit the certificate of proficiency in Catalan, known as level C1.
a specific certificate
In its report, the council proposes that, in the last year of ESOeducational centers offer the possibility of obtaining, through a specific test, an official certificate that certifies linguistic competence in Catalan (or Occitan, in the case of Aran) in accordance with the levels of the common European framework of reference for languages (MECR) of the Council of Europe.
“We believe that it is a lack of respect for the students give them a title. That is why we believe that it is important that a specific test be carried out to obtain the corresponding title”, Junyent has indicated. For his part, Cambray has explained that, like all the proposals included in the report, the department will “evaluate, analyze and will make the appropriate decisions on how to deploy them”.
In this line, the ‘conseller’ has explained that the basic skills census tests that are done in the fourth year of ESO will incorporate oral evaluation of the use of languages. In the field of teachers, it is proposed to review initial training, in relation to the competence and use of the Catalan language and the assessment of the linguistic diversity of all staff involved in the formal and non-formal educational process; and that Educació incorporates the evaluation of linguistic competence -oral and written- of teachers in the procedure for joining the educational system.
the vehicular language
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Both Cambray and Junyent have reiterated that “the language of teaching not a personal choice” of the teachers, but is stipulated in the linguistic project of each center. The president of the council has emphasized the need to provide training in sociolinguistics for teachers: “It is not about teachers mimetically repeating orders, but rather that they have enough information and knowledge to act accordingly in the case of their linguistic behavior. It is not about ordering what they have to do, but that know why they do it.”
The report also stresses that Catalan -and Aranese in Aran- must be the “axis from which the center’s educational project and the activities that are carried out are articulated”, that the actions of schools and institutes must have a “compensatory” character, and proposes the creation of a committee to monitor and evaluate the linguistic projects of the centres.