With a third of schools in Wales teaching pupils primarily in Welsh, debate rages over the ethics of using the classroom to bolster a minority language

“We’ve been told we are anti-Welsh bigots and even fascists,” says Alice Morgan in her soft Welsh accent. The comments she is talking about began when she and other parents raised objections to a plan to turn their primary school in the village of Llangennech into one that teaches only in Welsh. They are worried that some children used to being taught in English won’t cope.

Feelings are running high. On one side are those who want to increase the number of Welsh speakers in the country. On the other are campaigners who say the evidence shows this method is futile and that children’s education is being sacrificed for politics.

One mother said she was now too frightened to walk down to the Co-op in the village to buy a loaf of bread. “It’s got that bad. Perhaps I’m being paranoid but I’m really scared at the moment. I’m not sure it’s good for the reputation of the Welsh language.”

While a Labour councillor described the move as a form of segregation or apartheid, some supporters of it have said that those who didn’t want to live in a Welsh-speaking village could always move out. The decision, voted through in January by Carmarthenshire council, will mean Llangennech school will join 479 others – just under a third (31.9%) of all schools in Wales – that teach exclusively in Welsh.

The change will come into operation for reception pupils in September and has delighted those who believe it will help revive the declining fortunes of the Welsh language. But opponents say it could damage the education of children whose first language is English and will force some parents to send their children outside the village or county for their education.

Morgan – who asked that her real name not be used to protect her family – has three primary-age children. Until now, villagers have had a choice about whether their children go into the Welsh or the English stream in school. Her eldest son started at Llangennech in the Welsh stream, but had difficulties. “He struggled tremendously for two years,” she says. “He was depressed and unhappy, vomiting before school, and he fell behind. Although we speak Welsh at home I think it was the fact that no English was used whatsoever that made him feel overwhelmed.” Things improved when he was able to move into the English stream. “He was a changed little boy.”

Her second son has special needs and a pre-school assessment judged that he would find it hard to learn more than one language, so he began in the English stream from the off. She is concerned for children like him in the future.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Plans to convert Llangennech junior school to teaching only in Welsh, has caused a bitter row in Carmarthenshire. Photograph: Dimitris Legakis/Athena Pictures

After an unpleasant meeting involving campaigners, councillors and those in charge of running the school, Morgan decided to remove her children to another primary where they can be educated in English. The eldest two have lost their friends and the new school is three miles from their home. But she now feels more optimistic about their future. “We’ve found a new school that is absolutely wonderful, and my kids are valued for who they are.”

Another local parent, Michaela Beddows, says: “We have English and Welsh both as official languages in Wales. I think all parents should have a choice.” Morgan agrees. “It’s become a political football. They’re not taking account of the impact on children.”

Carmarthenshire council did not want any officer or councillor to be interviewed on the subject. The headteacher and chair of governors of Llangennech primary did not want to talk about it either.

There is debate among educationists as to whether the “immersion” method of language teaching is effective or the opposite: for some children, being plunged into a classroom where they are unable to communicate or comprehend can be a terrifying, isolating and miserable experience.

According to a guide from Save the Children UK’s education team, which works in multilingual contexts across the world, “adults often have powerful reasons for choosing a school language that children do not know. Nevertheless, it has been shown that if the school language is different from the language children use at home, this is a major cause of educational failure.”

Despite efforts to bolster the Welsh language over the past two decades, its use is in decline. The 2011 census found that the number of Welsh speakers had fallen from 21% of the population to 19% over the previous 10 years. In Carmarthenshire, the drop was steeper – from 50% to 44%. The Welsh government is trying to double the number of Welsh speakers to a million by 2050. In Carmarthenshire, led by Plaid Cymru, it is the council’s intention “to move every primary and secondary school along the language continuum” – meaning that schools will teach only in Welsh.

This is the already the situation in Gwynedd, a county where around 65% of people have Welsh as their mother tongue: here primary schools assess students at Key Stage 1 in Welsh, and it is policy that the majority of curriculum teaching for the remainder of school follows a Welsh first language programme of study. But in Carmarthenshire, just 44% of the population speaks Welsh as a first language.

Welsh in decline: campaigners call for action as report highlights falling usage Read more

At Cardiff University’s research unit on language, policy and planning, Professor Diarmait Mac Giolla Chríost says that most educational research “demonstrates convincingly that mother-tongue education is a good thing; finding arguments contrary to that is quite difficult”.

While he points to a study indicating that benefits accrue from being bilingual, Mac Giolla Chríost says that if all primary education were in Welsh, as proposed by Carmarthenshire council, “that would be very difficult to sustain”.

And the plan may not even work to spread the language in the long run. He says that where governments around the world have tried to reinvigorate minority languages, “the evidence is rather brutal, in that while it is possible to use the education system to teach a minority language, and while [children] are in the system they will use it, very often those speakers don’t turn into users of the language once they leave”.

Ceri Owen, of the group Parents for Welsh Medium Education, says Carmarthenshire council’s decision is about levelling the playing field. “A lot of Welsh families are being denied education through the medium of Welsh,” she says. Parents who want their children educated in English “won’t be denied the English language. They will be able to travel [to schools that offer it].”

And that is what Morgan has felt forced to do. “Our children feel they are no longer welcome. They’ve been ostracised from their peers. Their community is divided on the basis of language and they are now treated like second-class citizens. My neighbour actually said she wanted our children out of the school. The village is damaged.”

• This article was amended on 21 and 22 June 2017 to clarify a number of points. An earlier version referred to Save the Children, this has been changed to say a guide from Save the Children UK’s education team. The article said a Welsh education was the only one on offer in Gwynedd, this has been changed to clarify primary schools in Gwynedd assess students in Key Stage 1 in Welsh and that ongoing policy follows a Welsh first language programme of study. The subheading on the article said a third of schools in Wales were no longer teaching in English, this has been changed to clarify a third of schools in Wales teach pupils primarily in Welsh. The headline mentioned a storm over Welsh-only schools, this has been changed to Welsh-first schooling.