THE INTRODUCTION OF ARAGONESE LANGUAGE IN SCHOOL. ANALYSIS OF ITS INFLUENCE ON THE LANGUAGE ATTITUDES OF PRIMARY EDUCATION STUDENTS

Abstract

During the last decades, European institutions have focused on suggesting several measures to prevent the disappearance of European regional languages. Most of bilingual Spanish territories have developed multilingual educational systems where the state, the regional and the foreign language are used as mediums of instruction. The territory of Aragon has mostly opted for the use of Spanish and foreign languages. However, in the last years, regional government has created the first regional institution that is developing different language policy actions. One of the most relevant has been the extension of the teaching of Aragonese language to a good part of the schools in Huesca province. This research is focused on exploring the evolution of language attitudes among Primary Education students after the first course of presence of Aragonese language in school. We developed a pretest-postest study based on matched guise technique in three rural schools located in villages where Aragonese is totally substituted by Spanish, but it still has diferent degree of latency. The study was focused on attitudes towards Aragonese, French and English. Main results show the positive influence of studying the regional language to improve attitudes towards it but also towards the foreign languages studied in school.