The pact to retouch the language policy law of 1998 and fit the sentence of the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) that sets the 25% of classes in Spanish impacts the current model of linguistic immersion.
PSC, ERC, Junts and ‘commons’ They have registered this Thursday a bill that maintains Catalan as the “vehicular language” and that, in turn, guarantees the use of Spanish, giving educational centers room to define their linguistic projects. These are the changes that will take place once it is approved with the placet of 106 deputies:
The current law says that Catalan “must be used normally” as vehicular and learning language in non-university education. The four-way reform proposal establishes that Catalan is the language “normally used” as the vehicular and learning language of the educational system and that “Spanish is also used in the terms established by the linguistic projects of each center”.
Section 3 of article 21 of the current law states that the teaching of Catalan and Spanish “must be guaranteed a Appropriate presence in study plans“, so that all students “regardless of their usual language at the beginning of education, must be able to use the two official languages normally and correctly at the end of compulsory education”.
The new wording that will be put to the vote changes: “In order to achieve oral and written command of Catalan and Spanish at the end of compulsory education, the teaching of the official languages and in the official languages must be guaranteed an adequate presence in the curricula and in the educational projects of each center”.
This translates into a significant change because looking to the future “determining the presence of official languages in teaching has to take into account the sociolinguistic situation and the evolution of the linguistic, oral and written learning processin accordance with the instruments for control, evaluation and improvement of language skills”.
The law currently provides that any student who joins the Catalan education system “must receive special and additional support from the teaching of Catalan.” This article is deleted and article 10.2 of the LEC is applied, which provides that students who enter the educational system “without knowing one of the two official languages have the right to receive specific linguistic support”. “The centers have to provide newly arrived students with a personalized welcome and, in particular, linguistic attention that allows them to start learning in Catalan.” In addition, it is expected that the centers program activities so that you gradually improve your knowledge of the two official languages.