Chinese seek language help

OF all the requests for assistance with language in Palma schools during the 2004-5 terms, 63.3 percent came from immigrant families who have come to the Balearics from different regions of China where languages vary greatly within the country. The next highest number of requests for linguistic mediation came from Bulgarian and Arab families (13.3 percent), from Germans (6.6 percent) and from Moroccans who speak a language called amazight (3.3 percent). In December 2004, the Federation of Balearic Immigrant Associations (FAIB) in collaboration with the regional ministry of Education and Culture, set up a programme for linguistic mediation in officially approved educational centres. The aim of the project was to “promote communication between the non-Spanish-speaking parents of resident immigrant students (17.9 percent) and the teachers of their children.” The president of FAIB, Marlene Pera, highlighted the fact that Chinese families are those where linguistic understanding is at its most difficult. She said that “it was therefore particularly necessary, during the active period of the communication programme, to establish means of understanding between parents and teachers.” Throughout the 19 sessions of linguistic mediation that were held, the different Chinese languages of Mandarin, Cantonese and Wu were used, a “reflection of the wide variety of culture among Chinese immigrants.”