A teacher denounces the current situation
Pere Casanellas, professor, translator and president of the Catalan Society of Hebrew Studies, has made a complaint about linguistic immersion in schools in Catalonia. According to him, this immersion is currently done in Spanish. In a letter published in the ‘The reader writes’ section of ‘El Punt Avui’, Casanellas explains that his grandson, who studies in a public school in Sant Feliu de Llobregat, speaks Spanish with his classmates and that the teacher also addresses them in Spanish. In addition, most of the class time is spoken in Spanish. He also points out that the monitors in the dining room always speak in Spanish.
The situation of a Ukrainian refugee
Casanellas also explains the case of a sixteen-year-old Ukrainian refugee who lives in his house and studies at a high-class school in the Bonanova neighborhood of Barcelona. According to the teacher, more than half of this student’s classes are in Spanish and the dining room monitors also only use Spanish.
Criticism of teaching and inspectors
Casanellas highlights the problem of linguistic immersion in Spanish in Catalan schools and criticizes the insufficient control carried out by the inspectors. According to him, although the schools claim that everything is done in Catalan, the inspectors do not adequately control this aspect. This creates a situation in which, despite talk of ‘linguistic immersion’, this is done in Spanish.
conclusion
Professor Casanellas’s complaint highlights the current situation of language immersion in Catalan schools, where Spanish is mostly used. This situation generates concern and criticism about the control and supervision of education in relation to the Catalan language.
