Teaching through Basque: Achievement and Challenges - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 184769070X ISBN 13: 9781847690708

Verlag: Multilingual Matters, 2008

Inhaltsangabe

This volume focuses on research in education in the Basque Country where Basque is very often the language of instruction for some or all the school subjects. The volume provides background information about the Basque educational system; about academic and linguistic results related to the use of Basque as the language of instruction and the challenges and problems the Basque educational system is currently facing. The volume focuses on research conducted in the Basque Country that can be useful for other bilingual and multilingual contexts involving different language combinations. The articles look at the achievements of the last 25 years but also discuss the challenges the Basque educational system is facing nowadays.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Jasone Cenoz is professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of the Basque Country. Her research focuses on bilingualism and multilingualism in educational settings. She is the editor (in collaboration with Ulrike Jessner) of The International Journal of Multilingualism and Aila Review. She is publications coordinator of AILA (International Association of Applied Linguistics) and she is the vice-president of IAM (International Association of Multilingualism). She has published widely on bilingualism and multilingualism and her most recent volume is Towards Multilingual Education: Basque Educational Research in International Perspective which will be published by Multilingual Matters.

Jasone Cenoz is professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of the Basque Country. Her research focuses on bilingualism and multilingualism in educational settings. She is the editor (in collaboration with Ulrike Jessner) of â??The International Journal of Multilingualismâ?? and â??Aila Reviewâ??. She is publications coordinator of AILA (International Association of Applied Linguistics) and she is the vice-president of IAM (International Association of Multilingualism). She has published widely on bilingualism and multilingualism and her most recent volume is â??Towards Multilingual Education: Basque Educational Research in International Perspectiveâ?? which will be published by Multilingual Matters.

Jasone Cenoz is professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of the Basque Country. Her research focuses on bilingualism and multilingualism in educational settings. She is the editor (in collaboration with Ulrike Jessner) of âThe International Journal of Multilingualismâ and âAila Reviewâ. She is publications coordinator of AILA (International Association of Applied Linguistics) and she is the vice-president of IAM (International Association of Multilingualism). She has published widely on bilingualism and multilingualism and her most recent volume is âTowards Multilingual Education: Basque Educational Research in International Perspectiveâ which will be published by Multilingual Matters.

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Teaching Through Basque

Achievements and Challenges

By Jasone Cenoz

Multilingual Matters

Copyright © 2008 Jasone Cenoz and the authors of individual chapters
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-84769-070-8

Contents

Learning Through the Minority: An Introduction to the Use of Basque in Education in the Basque Country Jasone Cenoz, 1, 
Bilingual Education in the Basque Autonomous Community: Achievements and Challenges Mikel Zalbide and Jasone Cenoz, 5, 
Bilingual Education in Navarre: Achievements and Challenges Nekane Oroz Bretón and Pablo Sotés Ruiz, 21, 
Assessment of Bilingual Education in the Basque Country Josu Sierra, 39, 
A Longitudinal Study of Academic Achievement in Spanish: The Effect of Linguistic Models K. Santiago, J.F. Lukas, L. Joaristi, L. Lizasoain and N. Moyano, 48, 
Measuring Student Language Use in the School Context Iñaki Martínez de Luna and Pablo Suberbiola, 59, 
Basque, Spanish and Immigrant Minority Languages in Basque Schools Felix Etxeberria and Kristina Elosegi, 69, 
Promoting the Minority Language Through Integrated Plurilingual Language Planning: The Case of the Ikastolas Itziar Elorza and Inmaculada Muñoa, 85, 

CHAPTER 1

Learning Through the Minority: An Introduction to the Use of Basque in Education in the Basque Country

Jasone Cenoz Department of Research Methods in Education, University of the Basque Country, FICE, Donostia-San Sebastian, Spain doi: 10.2167/lcc338.0

The Basque Country covers an area of approximately 20,742 square kilometres along the Bay of Biscay north and south of the Pyrenees and comprises seven provinces (Figure 1). Three of these provinces belong to the French department 'Pyrénées Atlantiques' (Lapurdi, Benafarroa and Zuberoa), and four to two autonomous regions in Spain: the Basque Autonomous Community and Navarre (Nafarroa). The Basque Autonomous Community (BAC henceforth) has three provinces: Bizkaia, Gipuzkoa and Araba.

This special issue of Language, Culture and Curriculum, Teaching Through Basque: Achievements and Challenges, looks at different aspects of Basque-medium education in the southern part of the Basque Country, that is in the BAC and Navarre. A description of education in the three Northern Basque provinces can be found in Stuijt et al. (1998).

The total Basque population is approximately 3 million, 91% being Spanish citizens. The BAC is the most highly populated area with 73% of the total population, 18% living in Navarre and 9% in the Northern Basque Country.

The distribution of the Basque speaking population varies considerably from region to region. Table 1 includes the percentages of bilinguals, passive bilinguals and monolinguals in the BAC, Navarre and the Northern Basque Country according to the 2001 Survey (Basque Government, 2003). Bilinguals can speak Basque and either Spanish (in the BAC and Navarre) or French (in the Northern Basque Country). Passive bilinguals have receptive skills in Basque (oral comprehension and in many cases reading comprehension) but not productive skills (speaking and writing). Monolinguals can only speak the majority language, Spanish or French. There are practically no Basque monolinguals.

The proportion of people who are proficient in Basque has increased in recent years in the three BAC provinces due to the educational system. The percentage of the population that speaks Basque is quite stable in Navarre but is in decline in the Northern Basque Country most likely due to the lack of institutional support.

Basque is a non-Indoeuropean language and is the oldest language in Western Europe. It is a minority language which has survived in contact with its powerful neighbours: French and Spanish. In the Southern Basque Country, the dominance of Spanish increased in the 20th century due to industrialisation which attracted an important number of Spanish speaking immigrants from different areas in Spain. Another factor contributing to the weakening of Basque was its exclusion from the public domain including education during Franco's dictatorship (1939–1975).

The Spanish Constitution (1978) declared Spanish the nationwide official language and guaranteed the rights of Spanish speakers to use their language but also raised the possibility of recognising other languages as co-official in their own territories. Nowadays, Basque has a co-official status in the BAC and the northern area of Navarre.

A lot of effort has been made in recent decades to reverse language shift, that is to try to stop the decline of Basque and to promote its knowledge and use in different domains (see also Azurmendi & Martinez de Luna, 2005, 2006; Fishman, 1991). In this volume we will focus on one of these domains, education in the BAC and Navarre.

The educational system in these two autonomous communities is basically the same regarding the general curriculum and educational levels but, as we will see in the papers by Zalbide and Cenoz, and Oroz and Sotés, differs somewhat in the amount of Basque used. The levels of the educational system (excluding the university level which is not dealt with in this volume) are as shown in Table 2.

One of the characteristics of the educational system is that children go to school at a very early age. Even though compulsory education does not start until the age of six, practically all children go to school at the age or three and in many cases even at the age of two. It is also very common to take children to day care before this age. The activities and classes in pre-primary are adapted for the children's age but the classrooms are located within the school premises and the timetables are quite similar to primary school. Non-compulsory education between 16 and 18 can either be aimed at students who are going to University or vocational training. Higher level professional training is also possible at the end of secondary school.

This special issue of Language, Culture and Curriculum focuses on research in education in the Basque Country where Basque, a minority language, is in many cases the language of instruction for some or all the school subjects. The volume provides background information about the Basque educational system; about academic and linguistic results related to the use of the minority as the language of instruction and the challenges and problems the Basque educational system is currently facing. The volume focuses on research conducted in the Basque Country that can be useful for other bilingual and multilingual contexts involving different language combinations (see also Cenoz, forthcoming).

Most papers are research oriented and based on research studies conducted in the Basque Autonomous Community and Navarre, the southern part of the Basque Country. The papers in this special issue look at the achievements of the last 25 years but also discuss the challenges the Basque educational system is facing nowadays.

The first two papers discuss different aspects of bilingual and multilingual education in the Basque Autonomous Community (BAC) and Navarre. Zalbide and Cenoz in Bilingual Education in the Basque Autonomous Community: Achievements and Challenges summarise the changes that have taken place in the educational system of the BAC in the last 25 years. They discuss the dramatic increase of the use of Basque as the language of instruction and its consequences for teacher training and material development but also look at current and future challenges. In the next paper, Bilingual Education in Navarre:...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Multilingual Matters
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2008
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 184769070X
• ISBN 13: 9781847690708
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 101
• Herausgeber: Cenoz Jasone
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar