As a language management consultant, you are in charge of providing advice to families that

have recently arrived in Barcelona and have a multilingual profile. There are two families that
need your advice. They have just moved to Barcelona (where they will live indefinitely) and
they each have a 3-year-old child that they want to enroll in a school. In both families, one
of the parents can speak Spanish and the other only speaks the family language.

Student 1: Parents are from Manchester and both speak in English to the child
-Socio-Economic background: Both parents have a stable job and ,as their traditions are
quite similar to Spanish ones, they have no major difficulties in order to get adapted to the
Spanish lifestyle and traditions.
-Schooling:As a consequence of his/her economic background, this child has access to a
private school where he can learn both Spanish and Catalan. Additionally, the school provides a
free cultural and linguistic adaptation programme in order to facilitate the adaptation of
foreigners, all these in school hours. To end up, parents have signed up his son/daughter to a
Spanish and Catalan language class after school hours. In class and with the teacher they
speak in Catalan and with his classmates they communicate in both Catalan and Spanish.
-Home:one parent speaks Spanish, and the other parent speaks Spanish and English to the
child. Because of their economic background, the parents could provide a care-taker that
speaks Catalan and Spanish and help him to improve the languages. Also they could use
the OPOL method using some of the tricks it provides, like answer/speaking with the kid only
when he/she talks in Spanish or Catalan.
-Outside the home: As they come from a wealthy family this kid attends different
extrascurricular activities. He attends arts and crafting activities after school. Where he can
get language inputs in both Catalan and Spanish. As those are the main languages spoken
at school, the kid has several advantatges in improving the Catalan and Spanish skills.
He is in touch with other mainly Catalan speakers, so an environment where Catalan as the
L1 predominates is usual.

Examples of extracurriculars:
● Gamba Música (Ptge. Frígola, 27 (Espai 2estones) Vila de Gràcia, Gràcia,
Barcelona) https://www.mamuts.org/ca/centre/554/gamba-musica
● Little Faces (C. Sant Salvador, 96 baixos Vila de Gràcia, Gràcia,
Barcelona)https://www.mamuts.org/ca/activitat/164/little-faces
● Casal Infantil de tardes (C. Sicília, 321 Camp Grassot i Gràcia Nova, Gràcia,
Barcelona)
https://www.mamuts.org/ca/activitat/1099/casal-infantil-de-tardes
● Kinder Barcelona (C. Llatzeret, 9 El Poblenou, Sant Martí, Barcelona)
https://www.mamuts.org/ca/centre/380/kinder-barcelona?edat-3,gro-6
Student 2: Parents from Pakistan and speak in Punjabi to their child
-Socio-Economic background: Difficult economic situation, the cultural differences are
huge, different religious beliefs make the adaptation harder.
-Schooling: This kid attends a public school where people tend to speak Catalan only in the
subject hours, making his Catalan language learning process harder. In order to improve his/her
Catalan, his tutor decides if he takes Catalan private classes instead of other curricular subjects.
These tend to happen once a week. They also have a reception room whose objective is to
ensure that the student is integrated both into the school and into Catalan culture. In addition,
they reinforce tutoring to strengthen self-esteem and provide necessary school and work
guidance.
-Home:One parent speaks Punjabi, and the other parent speaks Punjabi and Spanish to the
child. Because of their economic status, the family cannot afford a Spanish or Catalan
care-taker to improve his/her level, instead, the parents take the child’s education very
seriously and do everything possible to try to teach him/her the new languages. They talk to
the child only in one language each, they create educational memory games with pictures,
they show videos to the child to get him/her used to the pronunciation, and they get support
and guidance from the school.
-Outside the home: This family doesn’t have too much economical resources. The child
attends extra lessons but these are free ( the family won’t have to pay for the extra lessons),
one of them are dance classes in Escola Santiago Rusiñol which offer free extracurriculars
for vulnerable families . The kid goes to the park with his mother. There he speaks and plays
games with the other kids. Usually he does it in Spanish, using few words in Catalan too.

La caixa d’eines is a library that sometimes offers activities for children of different ages (
e.g storytellers→ which families have to may maximum 2€) and book clubs (once a month )
https://www.lacaixadeines.com/cat/especial/clubs-de-lectura/14/
Explanation of concepts;
Schooling—> languages spoken in class and how the kid communicates with his
classmates, teachers, etc.
Home —> languages the family speaks when they are at home
Outside —> how the kid communicates when it comes to outside activities such as
extracurriculars
MANCHESTER KID
The whole point is to describe the different languages the kid can talk or learn during his day
by day. As he belongs to a high social status, he has more facilities to learn quicker any
language besides his L1 (e.g reinforcement classes of language)
INDIAN KID
The whole point is to describe the different languages the kid can talk or learn during his day
by day. As he belongs to a low social status, he has more difficulties to learn slowly any
language besides his L1