A letter to the editor that any of my students could have written

A few days ago I read a letter to the editor signed by Begoña Picazo García. It starts with a question: «Can you imagine living in a city where the police can't speak your language?» And it ends by saying that this city exists and that it's called Barcelona.

I read it twice. Not because it surprised me, but because it didn't surprise me at all.

I've been teaching Catalan for more than eighteen years, and what my students bring me isn't a grammar problem: it's a problem of context. They tell me they study for a C1, that they pass, and that afterwards they go whole weeks without using the language outside the classroom. That at the restaurant they switch, that at the doctor's they switch, that at the shop they switch. And that switching so many times gets tiring in the end.

You don't learn a language just by studying it. You learn it by using it, by getting things wrong out loud, and by the person in front of you not switching to another language right away. No course fixes that, not even mine: the city does.

That's why, when a student asks me if it's worth it, I tell them yes and I explain why. Not for the certificate—the certificate is just a piece of paper—but because every time that student doesn't switch languages, there's someone else who sees that not switching is an option.

Ms Picazo's letter asks the question. The government doesn't have the answer, and neither do the schools: we all do, every day and in every conversation.

Sara Marugan Oliva