Can you imagine being 10 or 12 years old and having a science or art class taught in an entirely different language? If you're an elementary school student living in Barcelona, this is the norm.
The official language in Barcelona is Catalan-- a mixture of Spanish and French-- that is native to the Cataluyna region of northern Spain. During Francisco Franco's dictatorship in the twentieth century, the Catalan language was outlawed in Spain and school was exclusively taught in Spanish. Following Franco's death in 1975, the ban on Catalan was lifted and many cities throughout northern Spain re-instituted it as their official language.
Flash forward to present day Barcelona and school is now primarily taught in Catalan with additional classes in Spanish and English. From the first day of kindergarten to the end of their primary school education, students in Barcelona are taught in three different languages and often end up being fluent or at least conversational in each one of them. I can't wrap my head around learning three different languages at such a young age and give the Spanish education system so much credit for recognizing the importance of knowing more than one language in this increasingly globalized world!
It's also really interesting that students in Barcelona don't just have an English class or a Spanish class where they learn about grammar and sentence structure. In addition to those basic language courses, they also have other classes like Math and History that are taught in another language. While I'm sure this can be very difficult for some students, it's a great way to help them vastly expand their vocabulary and learn the language in a relatively quick amount of time.
I witnessed some of these struggles with the language barrier during my first day volunteering in an Art classroom at the Pare Poveda school. The class was taught entirely in English, the students were required to speak in English, and they even listened to American music as they were working on their projects. As I walked around the classroom and helped the students with their work, I spoke to them in English and was surprised by the vast differences in their levels of comprehension. Some students understood everything that I said and were able to respond fluently in English. Some students understood a little of what I said but could only respond in Spanish. And some students didn't understand a single thing that I said and just nodded their heads and smiled politely when I spoke.
Throughout the afternoon I had to consciously stop myself from speaking Spanish when the students were confused or didn't understand what I was saying. Even though that would have made things so much easier, it wouldn't do anything to help them improve their English which was my main purpose for being there. Instead, I had to find creative ways to get my point across like using my hands to help explain what I was saying or drawing things that I was trying to talk about. While communicating with the students was a bit tricky at times, I had so much fun and can't wait to volunteer again next week!