22 February, 2007

CV's results and reflexions on languages

Wow. Having a CV out there in the net is really working as 2 separate agencies contacted me asking me for an interview for teaching jobs. The demands for EFL (English as a foreign language) teachers for adults is enormous and increasingly so as this is a sort of international language and up until now it hasn't really been taught in schools here.

I'm not sure how it works in the rest of Spain, but here in Catalonia there's a feeling that the Catalan language is under threat of disappearing and the local government (after a sort of devolution such as the one in Scotland here they're quite separated from Spain) dedicates loads of resources to maintain the Catalan language alive. That's all very good for diversity and local culture but in an increasingly connected world monolinguals and people that are proficient only in a minority language stand at a disadvantage from others.
I'm proficient in 2 languages and quite ok with a third, but still struggling to get the job I'd like here because I lack a fourth! (in order to working the local library one must to be proficient in Catalan).

My son attends a local school where the main language is Catalan followed by Spanish and a few hour a week of English. I think is only fair for him to know the local language if we're going to live here but not at the expenses of our other 2 languages, which happens to be on the top of the most spoken languages of the world (Chinese is the first, then English and Spanish the third). So, I'm starting to think that we'll try and send him to a bilingual school when he starts high school in a couple of years time, so he can be really proficient in the economically strong languages. That's expensive, so we've been saving for ages and are willing to make sacrifices to get as much opportunities for him as possible. I think the poorest people are those without any chance of choosing in the making of their own destiny.

All this reflexions on languages started because I've just read that yesterday the UNESCO declared the international mother language day and that there are nearly 6,000 languages and half of those are considered to be endangered. I'm all for keeping the diversity in the world, and I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is and learn Catalan, even when I could go on without it as some Spanish people do here. However, I'm not willing to linguistically isolate my child. The more languages the better.

And, going back to the job offers, I declined both, because they're offering me the same as I'm doing, ie. to be an itinerant teacher and if I'm going to change jobs will be for a more stable one. But, I'm still searching for a more convenient job.
Anyway, I'm having more teaching hours starting next week.

No comments: