Catalan oral tests in secondary school: 40% pass marks, but three times as many fails as in Spanish.

BarcelonaCatalan students speak Spanish better than Catalan. Although this situation has been noticeable in classrooms and on the street for some time, the data once again demonstrates it. In the latest oral language tests administered in schools and secondary schools in Catalonia, there were three times as many failures in Catalan as in Spanish. This is demonstrated by the results announced this Tuesday by the Minister of Education, Esther Niubó. These tests were administered last year to sixth-grade primary school students and fourth-grade secondary school students, which also show that around 40% of students achieve a notable level in both Catalan and Spanish, and between 20% and 30% achieve an excellent level.

According to the instructions for the tests carried out by the Agency for the Evaluation and Prospective of Education (the former Higher Evaluation Council), the level of students is divided into "No achievement", "Satisfactory achievement", "Remarkable achievement", and "Excellent achievement". Furthermore, it divides knowledge into eight sections such as vocabulary, morphology, syntax, phonetics, and fluency, but also more abstract aspects such as non-verbal language, adequacy, and interaction.

Thus, if we look at the first three variables (vocabulary, morphology, syntax, phonetics), the proportion of failed students in Catalan is three times that of failed students in Spanish, both in 6th grade of primary school and 4th year of compulsory secondary education. Among students who completed compulsory secondary education last year, almost 5% (4.8%) failed Catalan vocabulary, 4% failed morphology and syntax, and 3.5% failed phonetics. However, those who failed these variables in Spanish did not reach 2%. A similar situation occurred with 6th grade primary school students: between 2% and 3.4% failed Catalan vocabulary, morphology, and phonetics, and in the same Spanish sections, those who did not reach a satisfactory level did not exceed 1.2%.

The difference in Catalan and Spanish proficiency among Catalan students is also evident in the most brilliant students in both 6th grade primary school and 4th year compulsory secondary education. Again, looking at vocabulary, morphology, and phonetics, the percentage of excellent students in Spanish (35%-52%) is more than 10 points higher than that achieved in Catalan (23%-36%).

'Like' and 'have to', satisfactory

Beyond the extremes of oral assessments, the majority of students achieve a satisfactory or notable level in Catalan and Spanish. In Catalan, the proportion of students who achieve a "satisfactory" level ranges from 22% to 29%, while in Spanish, students with this grade represent between 11% and 17% of the total.

However, it should be noted that according to the marking instructions, a 4th year ESO student achieves a satisfactory level in Catalan even if they make excessive use of crutch words such as Well, Okay either in plan; present quite a few interferences from another language using expressions like we had to go either my house, or suffer from linguistic interferences of very frequent social use such as Well either spikes.

The level where the most similar proportion between Catalan and Spanish exists is at the B. Between 37% and 45% of students achieve this grade in Catalan oral tests, and between 35% and 47% do so in Spanish. Therefore, according to the marking instructions, the majority of Catalan students in 4th year of ESO use varied expressions and vocabulary; occasionally, they experience some linguistic interference from social use; they write well-constructed sentences with plenty of complements, and present few interferences from another language and few errors in verb agreement or conjugation.

Education makes a positive assessment

Despite the notable differences between the levels of Catalan and Spanish, Niubó boasted about the results and stated that they are "positive," as the students achieve a "high-average level with excellent scores." In this regard, the Government highlighted that nearly 68% of sixth-grade students use varied expressions and vocabulary and produce well-constructed sentences in Catalan, and that 71% enunciate correctly. Regarding fourth-grade students, the Education Department maintains that approximately 70% of students use varied and specialized vocabulary, construct sentences well with sufficient complements, and enunciate correctly.

Regarding the Spanish results, the regional ministry highlights, among other things, that 82% of sixth-grade students use varied expressions and vocabulary—almost 15 points higher than the proportion who do so in Catalan—and that 85% enunciate well, also fifteen percentage points lower than those who do so in Catalan. In compulsory secondary education, 82% use appropriate and varied vocabulary and use grammatical structures appropriately, while the percentage of students who graduate from high school with good enunciation and pronunciation in Spanish rises to 87%.