Humanising Language Teaching
Year 4; Issue 5; September 02

Are Teachers of persecuted Languages the World's top Language teachers?

Mario Rinvolucri. Pilgrims, UK

The two comparative lists that follow are extremely "bird's eye view" and there are many teachers in both of the groups who do not conform to the characteristics mentioned.

The lists have grown out of teacher training work in both Wales and England over the past 20 years.

Teachers of French in England	Teachers of Welsh in Wales
They do not, mostly, want to use thei target language in the TT workshop.	They show intense preference for use of Welsh in the workshop, despite trainer's ignorance of the language.
They range in language proficiency from lower intermediate to "ex-native speaker" ( French, but have lived in UK for too long).	They are either native speakers of the language they teach, or very advanced second language speakers, who often use " the ancient tongue" in daily life and at home.
They are largely fed-up with their learners' indifference/hostility to French and with their language difficulties.\	They are warmly aware of their learners' fears and worries, especially in the face of the mutations and vowel harmony of the Welsh language. home.
Many teachers HAVE French.	All these teachers ARE in Welsh.
Teaching French is a job.	Teaching Welsh is a mission, a passion.
They are dragging along way behind the modern flow of French.	They lead in forging the new Welsh of tomorrow. They know they are helping to create a language.
Given choice, most of their students would not be seen in a French class: " Why learn French- everybody speaks English?"	Most of their students have made an individual decision to learn Welsh.

Are the teachers of Hungarian in the Transyvanian province of Rumania as socially, politically and humanly motivated as the teachers of Welsh?

And what of the teachers of Corsican in France, the teachers of Lapp in Finland, the teachers of Frisian in the Netherlands, the teachers of Basque in Spain, the teachers of Ladino in Israel ( if indeed Hebrew has not squeezed this Golden Age Spanish language to death ), the teachers of Kurdish in Turkey ( if they were to, one day, be allowed to teach their language), the teachers of Romanch in Switzerland ?

Is it a reasonable hypothesis that the teachers of minority languages round the globe, often themselves the victims of persecution by the dominant culture, are likely to be the most passionate and motivated language teachers in the World?