Have Welsh language activists shot themselves in the foot?

[Cai]

How about answering post #168, for example.

Anyway, I've found most of the statistics required for discussion.

Before you create any further strawmen, is it still your contention that all children attending Welsh-medium schools become fluent in Welsh?

Is it also your contention that figures concerning competence in Welsh are never 'manipulated' to produce the 'right' kind of result?

And from a previous thread, is it true that Welsh-medium ecucation is never a contentious issue in North Wales?

Anyway I hope you enjoyed New Year's Eve. Me & the Mrs went down to the Castle which was in great form. Everybody had a whole pint of warm Bass & talked endlessly about cricket & dodgy prostates & stuff, did a spot of Morris Dancing & when the midnight hour struck produced a rousing rendition of God Save the Queen. I expect that you must have done something similar.

I'm only writing this at three in the morning because I fell to sleep into my spittoon once I got home.

Anyway, Happy New Year.

[Ifor Bach]

Anyway I hope you enjoyed New Year's Eve. Me & the Mrs went down to the Castle which was in great form. Everybody had a whole pint of warm Bass & talked endlessly about cricket & dodgy prostates & stuff, did a spot of Morris Dancing & when the midnight hour struck produced a rousing rendition of God Save the Queen. I expect that you must have done something similar.

I'm only writing this at three in the morning because I fell to sleep into my spittoon once I got home.

Anyway, Happy New Year.

A blwyddyn newydd dda i ti hefyd.

No doubt this is how you imagine most English people spend New Year's Eve. It's probably as accurate as your theories about how people in South Wales speak English, which you have most likely picked up from the works of Caradoc Evans.

[Gogledd]

A blwyddyn newydd dda i ti hefyd.

No doubt this is how you imagine most English people spend New Year's Eve. It's probably as accurate as your theories about how people in South Wales speak English, which you have most likely picked up from the works of Caradoc Evans.

Hello, just visiting from "Gogwatch". I find your discussion very interesting and, because bilingualism, as it is applied in Wales, interests me I have read several papers about Bi-lingualism in Ireland and Scotland as well as corresponding with Prof Bialystok in Canada about her research on the Bi-Lingual brain.
The problem with applying the "Raw research" to schooling policy is that the generalisations about bi-lingual advantage for children often don't work. There may be many reasons for this but imperfect application of schooling covers most of them. The problem becomes increasingly difficult when Bi-lingualism (in this case Welsh Medium Education) is politically driven and the objective is to build "Nationhood" around the Welsh language. Under these circumstances the first casualty is the truth. The reality of what Welsh Medium education is, and how beneficial some degree of bilingualism is, becomes submerged. In Wales no one but no one is allowed to ask the simple question......."Is this working to the benefit of our children in all respects and in all cases."

It may be difficult to follow all shades of opinion on Gogwatch; even the posters there have different experiences and come from different parts of the country. The experiences of Welsh Medium education in Cardiff, say, where Welsh Medium education is voluntary and the experience of non Welsh speaking families in Ynys Mon, Gwynedd and much of Ceredigion and Carmarthenshire where Welsh medium education is compulsory are completely different.