20.06.2003

The appearance of mass tourism in Majorca from the sixties meant a radical change in the economical, social and linguistic reality of our island. One of the clearest manifestations of that change was the massive arrival of immigrants coming from other parts of the Spanish territory, finishing by then the migratory flood of Majorcans towards different parts of the European, African, and American continents. The political circumstances in Spain during that time –Franco’s dictatorship- caused that the arrival of these immigrants, with their own language, culture and traditions, was without any respect towards the language and culture from Majorca. The authorities took advantage of that situation and used it for a Spanish uniformity.

The new migration waves in Majorca during the last years are due to new economical and political circumstances. On the one hand, the current work market provides and incentive for cheap labour from Magreb, Africa and South America. On the other hand, citizens from the European Union, mainly coming from Germany, set their residence in the island for longer or shorter periods throughout the year. Both migration processes, the one in the Sixties and the current one share the problem of lack of integration within the Majorcan society, an old problem that nowadays has a very different legal framework from some decades ago. The arrival of the democracy to our country meant the recognition of the differentiating facts taking place in some territories through the new territorial organisation in the autonomies and therefore the necessary respect for the linguistic, cultural and historical facts. For that reason, in this new reality the centres of adults can have a very important role in the mission of promoting a project of interculturality among our students.

The centre of adults ‘La Balanguera’ opened in 1988 and it is one of the three centres of this type in the city of Palma. Nowadays, there are around six-hundred students and out of them, approximately ten percent are new arrived to our island. Most of these come from South America and in our centre they can find an educational offer which goes from classes on reading and writing, secondary education for adults, preparation for the test of access to a vocational training module, to classes of Catalan. Their process of registration begins with a personal interview where the student is informed about the educational offer in the centre and they comment on the studies they did in their countries of origin. The long process of accreditation and recognition of their studies in our country can last for years so it is recommended that they enter our educational system at the most appropriate level according to their knowledge. Therefore they make a level test out of which we can determine what group they should start in. After these activities of first contact, the students can be incorporated into the assigned groups.

This group is mainly formed by people who started learning English in October. The recording was taken in May, so most of them have only been studying English for seven months. In this group, there are about 40% of Majorcan students, 40% of students coming from the mainland, and 20% of students coming from different countries: France, Colombia, Argentina.

In this session, the teacher took the chance of having such a multicultural class to introduce the topic of interculturality as a transversal one in a didactic unit based mainly on a grammatical aspect: comparatives and superlatives.

The teacher uses a map of the world where the students place the different countries where they come from. That gives them the opportunity to get up and go in front of the class. Most of them like that because they feel the protagonists, and because the task (point at their country on the map) is so simple, they don’t feel any anxiety. After the different countries have been placed, the class starts comparing different aspects about them, like size, weather, people, food, life style...

The fact of introducing this intercultural aspect into the classroom makes it much more real. Real facts are being compared and real conclusions are taken. The students do not only learn how the comparatives and superlatives work in English, but they also learn something about other countries, and also about their classmates.

The result of this didactic unit was good in three different ways: First of all, students like talking about their countries of origin. Secondly, they learn not only grammar but also some geographical, cultural and social aspects. In this particular case they showed a lot of interest and respect towards their classmates and towards the different countries. Finally, further assessment showed that the objectives of the lesson were accomplished.

In this part of the video, we can see two different sessions. The first session is a first class of Catalan. Students do not know anything about the language yet, so they start introducing themselves. The teacher gives them the formula and they repeat and create their own sentences. On the other session students already have some competence on the language so they do more conversation, they also read a newspaper article brought by the teacher and comment on it. The teacher speaks Catalan all the time from the very beginning. Students’ listening skills improve very quickly although their speaking skills develop more slowly. The students in these classes are sometimes from the mainland, sometimes from different countries and sometimes Majorcans who have never spoken Catalan. This last group of students is usually very proficient in understanding but they have more difficulties in the producing skills. The fact that they come voluntarily to the school makes the classes very comfortable and nice. They really want to learn and so they do. The teacher tries to introduce topics related to interculturality whenever he can. For example he brings articles from newspapers that help him to introduce determined cultural, social or geographical aspects into the classroom that can be of interest for students. This usually leads to questions from the students and some further discussion.

In this last part of the video we can see an activity that we did in our centre. This is an activity that we do every year on St Jordi’s day, 23^rd April (Day of the book). This year we wanted that the topic of interculturality was also present in the different activities. We also wanted to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of Francesc de Borja Moll, a Majorcan philologist. One of the teachers of the centre gave a short talk about the author’s life and work. There was also a permanent exposition of some of his most important books in the library of the centre. In that exposition there were also some ‘books from the world’ that some students and some teachers brought.

After the talk about Francesc de Borja Moll, another teacher from the school made a presentation to all the students of the ICTaL project, in which our school is taking part. He explained what type of project it is, what it consists of, what is the position of the school towards the topic of interculturality, etc.

The third activity consisted of some students reading some poems in different languages: Catalan (this was possible due to the formation that they have already received in our centre), Spanish, Portuguese, French.

Finally, to close the morning session, a representative from a NGO that has helped us with the project, talked about her experiences as an immigrant. She has been living in Majorca for 20 months and she can already speak Catalan. She was an example of a person who has really made an effort to integrate and to live and work in the island. However, she also explained all the bureaucratic problems she had when she arrived and that she still has. After the talk, some students were asking her a lot of questions and we could see how interested they were in the topic, especially the younger ones. Even, some immigrant students also explained their experiences creating an interesting round table.

In the afternoon session we had a presentation of a project of a new building for our centre. Then, the talk about the Majorcan writer was repeated and more students read some poems in different languages. Finally, there was a round table were different students from different countries (Peru, Argentina, Morocco, France, Colombian) and some representatives from the NGA ‘Mallorca Sense Fronteres’. All the participants explained their personal experience with immigration and they gave their personal vision about integration. Finally, we concluded the day with a culinary exhibition, where different students brought different specialities and dishes from different countries. This exhibition has been celebrated in our centre for the last 12 years.