Today’s post is my reaction to the new article “‘The Experiential Learning of English’: Discourses of Catalan Families on Teenage Educational Mobility Abroad” (originally published in Catalan as “‘L’aprenentatge vital de l’anglès’: els discursos de famílies catalanes sobre la mobilitat educativa adolescent a l’estranger”; Treballs de Sociolingüística Catalana 34 (2024): 13-29). The authors are my Department colleague Eva Codó and Andrea Sunyol (of University College in London). The article is based on a series of 13 ethnographic interviews with Catalan families who have sent their children abroad to learn English (to the USA, the UK, Ireland, and Canada), among which there are members of my own family. So, my reaction is necessarily personal, as well as professional.
The article studies the current habit of Catalan middle-class families of sending their children abroad at an earlier age than years ago. In my time, when secondary school (bachillerato) comprised the ages from 14 to 17, it was more habitual for the very few families who could afford the high cost to send their children abroad in the year before university (ages 17-18), when they were supposed to take C.O.U. (the Curso de Orientación Universitaria). Judging from the experience of the only one of my friends who spent the year away (in the USA), there was no concern that this would affect the university entrance test (then Selectividad, today EBAU, Evaluación del Bachillerato para el Acceso a la Universidad). My guess is that most of the children sent away were good students anyway (why would parents spend so much money on a not so brilliant child?). With the reform of secondary school in the early 1990s, bachillerato begins now at age 16, lasting for two years. This means that, because children and parents are today more worried about the EBAU marks, they choose to send their children abroad before bachillerato, at age 14-15, which corresponds to the last year of ESO (Educación Secundaria Obligatoria). This difference is not part of the considerations of the article I have cited, but I believe that it is crucial, for reasons that I explain later. It also means that not necessarily all the children sent away to learn English subsequently study bachillerato or take a university degree.
The main goal of Eva Codó and Andrea Sunyol is to explore the narrative that the families build and rely on to place their children in the hands of strangers often for a whole academic year, during which they might not meet their children in person (low middle-class Catalan families can hardly afford visits to the USA or Canada, considering they are already spending 20-40000 euros). The families invest that money in, as the authors note, solving the ‘problem’ of English, believing that the chances to learn C1-level English locally are too low, despite the teaching received in the school and in extracurricular activities. Since (I’m citing the article’s abstract) “The notion of immersion” has been “naturalized as the most authentic and effective way of learning a language ‘well’,” the families assume that this is what their children need, discarding other alternatives that can be implemented at home (reading, watching films and series in original version, paying for personal tutoring by a qualified native speaker, organizing meetings with foreign families and, of course, taking shorter stays abroad).
One thing that surprises me very much in this process is that neither in the past nor in the present do families check to what kind of class and regional accents they are exposing their children. In fact, from what I have seen in my family, once the country has been chosen, the agencies that organize this kind of stay do not offer much choice. My nieces have ended up in very different places of the country they chose, and have acquired, accordingly, very different accents, one more rural and the other more urban, which other native English speakers can identify but that we, their family, are deaf to.
The matter of class is also crucial. Most host families are working-class and receive payment for welcoming children into their homes. This means that, often, middle-class children return home from their year abroad with distinct regional and low-class accents, to which, again, Catalan families are deaf. Since, as Eva and Andrea note, the parents lack instruments to check the linguistic progress of their children, and do not pay attention to the issues I have raised, this situation goes unnoticed. If you want a personal example, my husband (whose family background is middle-class) spent three summers (ages 15 to 17) in the homes of Southern English working-class families, whereas I (working-class in origin) spent one year (ages 20 to 21) employed as an au-pair girl mostly in London. My accent is far posher than his, which is always a source of hilarity whenever we hear each other use English.
Eva and Andrea observe that although the families’ “goal is for their children to acquire spontaneous and fluent oral communication skills and, if possible, a ‘good’ accent,” whatever that means, parents’ narratives “foreground their children’s transformation into confident, responsible and independent quasi-adults.” In their conclusions, the authors write that
Thus, the attraction of adolescent educational mobility lies in the fact that it allows different contemporary social logics to be articulated: firstly, the logic of responsible parenthood and the cultivation of capital; secondly, the logic of distinction (which makes them attentive and follow, in a pioneering way, the latest educational trends), and, finally, the logic of care (which, through almost obsessive planning, makes it possible to ensure the emotional well-being of children without jeopardising the return on the investment made). (27, Word’s translation from Catalan)
This seems to be, in view of the experience of my nieces, absolutely accurate: the success of their stay has been measured by their parents according to how much more mature they seem to be after their return, and only secondarily (if at all) by the quality of their English. The younger, besides, has adamantly refused to talk to me in English so that I can get an approximate idea of her progress out of shyness, she claims.
I have a number of important doubts about the whole experience that, in a way, I am voicing here because the parents who choose to send their children abroad have already processed them and mostly refuse to enter any discussion (as I have learned). To begin with, there is an emotional price to pay. I don’t have children myself and cannot tell what it feels like to be away from your own child for so long, at an age (14) when they are still very immature. No hugs, no kisses for so long…? Being homesick initially is only natural, but if the feeling lasts for long it can certainly spoil the stay abroad or even end it; there are, of course, cases of homesickness so strong that children need to return home. I can’t begin to imagine how these children are received by their parents. Children and parents adapt mostly well to the distance, which has certainly shrunk thanks to social media, smartphones and low-cost travel. Less tech-savvy members of the family, and by this I mean the grandparents, have a harder time. I’m not saying that children should not go abroad because their grandma will miss them; what I mean is that the emotional part of the narrative is downplayed in the families’ decision to send young teens abroad to learn English. On the other hand, I suspect that beyond the matter of learning English by immersion, there is a certain mutual relief in finding a good excuse for parents and children to take time off each other. But that’s just a suspicion.
I’ll return now to the age factor, which is important in ways that are not usually accounted for. At 14 (or even 15 or 16), a teen has usually a poor understanding of their own cultural and sociopolitical background, and will show little interest in learning about these matters in the host country. Their aim, beyond learning English, can be making cool friends, and having a good time with their host family. There is in that sense a serious disadvantage in comparison to the previous habit of sending the children abroad at the later age of 17, when young persons have a much bigger freedom to pursue other interests beyond school. Of course, there is also a certain advantage in not having to worry about your 14-year-old going to parties or clubs all night long, or drinking and doing drugs with their peers. But, if you get my drift, no 14-year-old will ask to see a museum, or a play, or to be informed about the political situation of their host country. A 17-year-old thinking of attending university just might. Imagine, for instance, the difference between being 14 and 17 right now in the USA, and what that would mean for the visiting teen in question as regards their understanding of the mighty struggle between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.
Eva and Andrea indicate that about 15% of the fourth-year students of ESO go abroad to learn English, which seems quite a lot. I don’t know which role peer pressure plays, but I will assume that the more children from a given school go away for a year, the more their younger peers choose to imitate them. I assume that having been away gives the returned teen extra points for cool, though I have no idea. A thing I am discovering in my own family is that children are reticent to discuss their experiences or the consequences, finding even the mildest curiosity a bit too much (no idea if this is general). My impression is that the narrative that parents engage in is built by word of mouth, on the basis of what other parents claim and not so much on the basis of what children narrate (or want). But that’s for Eva and Andrea to explore and explain.
I spent my first year abroad, as I have noted, as an au-pair girl, between the second and the third year of my five-year Licenciatura the year before Erasmus grants were introduced in Spain. I learned during that year that Scandinavians frequently took a gap year abroad before university (I don’t know if they still do that) and my current impression is that this is what we need. If I had a teen who needs to improve their English, I would suggest that they finish bachillerato and then take an extra school year in high school, in any of the Anglophone countries. Or work (perhaps sheep-shearing in Australia would be too much, but who knows?). They could take EBAU when they return, knowing much better how to handle themselves and what they want to do with their lives. I would invest much care in finding out where my child is going, and in learning with them the basics about the local culture, social uses, politics, media and so on, so that their experience could be enriched from day one. As for the accent, I am not so snobbish as to advice parents to send their children only to Oxford, but I would check, so that the child does not end with the kind of accent that makes Anglophone job interviewers wince. But, then, I don’t have children and who am I to tell parents what to do with theirs? Thank you, Eva and Andrea, for an extremely illuminating article that should be compulsory reading for all those considering sending their children abroad to learn English. And please continue exploring that peculiar corner of current social life in Catalonia