An exchange between bilingual students in Los Angeles and Beasain

What does it mean to be bilingual (or multilingual)? What does it mean to be “bicultural”? Do the two concepts necessarily coincide? What are “language,” “culture,” “race,” “ethnicity” and “nationality”? What is their political significance as well as their importance in our daily lives? How do these concepts sometimes conflict and sometimes overlap?


This project explores these ideas by connecting high school students who live 6,000 miles apart, in the South Central neighborhood of Los Angeles, California and in Beasain, a small town in the Basque Country of northern Spain. Students will gain a deeper understanding about their own concepts of identity, learn about other cultures, and improve their English writing abilities.


Two groups of 40 students are participating, who are in their final year of secondary school (12th graders at Thomas Jefferson High School in Los Angeles; 2nd year bachillerato students at the Txindoki branch of BIP (Beasain Institutua Publika) in Beasain. Each student is partnered with a student in the other country. They will write emails to each other over the course of a month. Students will also create projects to educate each other their respective cultures, histories and politics.



Friday, March 9, 2012

About Txindoki, our school








By Aitor Z and Amaia L





Beasain Instituto Publico (BIP) is located in Beasain and it’s a school created after the fusion of three different public school campuses: Alkartasuna, Loinazpe and Txindoki. The one in which we study is Txindoki. It’s a high school for 16-18 year olds, we call this level bachillerato. There are four different tracks: science, arts, technology and humanities. Our high school is the only one around Goierri that gives the opportunity to study arts. Moreover, there’s the option to study some lessons in English, such as maths, economics, history, and geography. The name of this project is the multilingual project.

            Regarding the amount of people in Txindoki, there are 167 students in the first year and 149 students in the second year, plus 6 students in our special education/work training program for people with disabilities. Our classes can have as few as 7 people and a maximum of 30. Most have around 20-25 students.
            As far as the people that comes to the school is concerned, we can find people from Goierri county (which consists of the towns of Lazkao, Idiazabal, Beasain, Ordizi, Zegama, Zerain, Zaldibi, Segura, Mutiloa, Ihurre, Ataun), Tolosaldea county (which includes towns called Tolosa, Ikaztegieta, Alegia…) and Urola county (Zumarraga, Legazpi, Urretxu…). Taking into account that Txindoki is a high school, teenagers of 16, 17, and 18 years old come. Nevertheless, there’s also people older than 18 years old, because they are doing the same school year again or because they want to study to gain knowledge.
            People normally graduate at the age of 18 after finishing the second course having passed all the subjects. After it they give to you a degree assuring it.
            In addition, there are some special lessons apart from school to help you with the subjects that you find more difficult. For example, maths. However, people that need more help or wanted to know more about the subject take private lessons.
            Finally, we adress our teachers with their first name without using their last name. What’s more, we don’t use “usted” and we speak in a more familiar language. However, respectfully.
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