 As mentioned above, the results from
writing exercises do not give us a satisfactory base from which to make any
generalisations.
Other variables
under consideration, apart from the length of residence factor, i.e. student gender, the
educational stage of the student and the age at which he/she arrived, have not resulted in
significant differences.
Quite probably,
many professionals in the education sector will be surprised – as we ourselves were
– that the age at which the student is incorporated into the educational system was
not significant. We applied this variable to the students in group C, i.e. those who have
spent most time in Catalonia. From this group, those students who were incorporated into
the educational system as infants or in the first Primary years do not show better results
than those who were incorporated at an older age. As proof, we can see the results of
reading comprehension of different texts in group C students, arranged in order of their
age on arrival in Catalonia [see figure 9].
Even allowing for
the fact that the sample in this case is very small (16 students) and does not permit
generalisations, the results certainly invite us to question a belief which is widespread
within the educational system. In fact, students of Moroccan origin do not have any
specific support for learning Catalan until after the third Primary year, at least in the
schools in the area under study.
The variable
factor of grouping students according to whether they are in Primary or Secondary
education does not have any particular significance on results either. It is worth
mentioning that the lack of information on the level of schooling reached by students in
their country of origin hinders this variable being taken into consideration; this
information would doubtless have given us a very interesting perspective.
7. Results of the process of
learning catalan by students of moroccan origin in compulsory education
Analysis of the
body of data gathered enables us to put forward an initial general description of the
linguistic processes through which the Moroccan students have successively progressed in
the process of learning Catalan. Bound by limitations of space, we will restrict ourselves
to making a fairly brief summary of these linguistic systems. This summary, however, is
limited to the factors within this study: the analysis of errors, grammatical output
(phonological, lexical and morpho-syntax); speech proficiency, reading and writing.
In order to give
voice to the students themselves, we will take a segment from each group which seems the
most representative of language acquisition at that particular point. To facilitate
comparison, we will follow the same sequence in each case: the explanation of a popular
festival, chosen by the student. The transcriptions have been written using standard
spelling and punctuation to make them easier to read.
Linguistic
process, group A (less than 18 months in Catalonia)
|
