Language diversity and Catalan/Castilian language knowledge. An empirical study with migrant students in Catalonia

This paper shows the results of a research study conducted in Catalonia with migrant students. This study aims at obtaining further knowledge of the language competence, both in Catalan and Castilian Spanish, of migrant students and comparing these results with the results obtained from a similar analysis with native students. Another goal is to explain the processes of interdependence and linguistic transfer depending on the source language, and to raise the pedagogical implications. Two tests of linguistic competence, in Catalan and Castilian Spanish, were used. The sample was 533 migrant students of the second and fourth years of Secondary Education. The outcomes point out that the interdependence and transfer processes occur following Cummings’ lines of thought and they reveal the linguistic difficulties of students. The conclusions show that the linguistic closeness to the language spoken in the family should not be considered a determining factor to learn and know either Catalan or Castilian Spanish. The survey offers some pedagogical alternatives to improve the described situation, specially from an intercultural perspective.