Transcript
STUDENT:
Well, being brought up in a Welsh household and going to a Welsh medium school and doing most of my GCSEs and A Levels through the medium of Welsh, I felt much more confident studying through the medium of Welsh and being offered the chance to study an aspect of the course through the medium of Welsh in Cardiff made me desperately want to come here to study medicine. And also knowing and from talking to patients and medics as well as part of my work experience before I came to university, I noticed that the Welsh patients often felt as if they couldn’t tell the whole story to a doctor if the doctor was a first language English speaker and couldn’t speak Welsh and I found that a bit bizarre to be honest, that Welsh patients might actually not be getting the best care they could have just because they didn’t feel as comfortable speaking English as they would speaking Welsh and also knowing that there’s such a lack of Welsh medics in Wales also spurred me on to really try and, well, study through the medium of Welsh and I want to be confident in my ability to treat patients in Welsh as I am in English when I finish this course in five years’ time, hopefully. I think it’s important because now the Welsh language has, well, it’s seen as equal to English in Wales now. It’s only fair that patients are offered, they’re meant to be offered, a chance to be consulted through the medium of Welsh and it’s just a shame that there aren’t enough doctors to do so. So, as a Welsh speaking student, I hope that I will one day be able to make a difference in that aspect.
So far, I don’t feel I’ve been able to do as much as I would have liked possibly so far in the medium of Welsh in the university but that’s just because the Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol wasn’t as well-established last year as it is this year, possibly. There are Welsh medium groups now in the first year so they get to discuss work through the medium of Welsh but also use the English terminology so it’s quite natural and I’m quite jealous that I wasn’t able to do that last year. But I know things are improving now and I will get more chances to do so as the years go on. I’m able to write reflective pieces through the medium of Welsh and I find this really useful, actually, because on such a busy course as medicine you don’t often get the chance to reflect at all so to be able to do that in my own language, it just feels more personal and I get much more out of doing so. And also, when it comes to exams, I’m always given a Welsh copy of the paper, which, although I don’t tend to use to answer on, I always read questions on it and it’s useful to know that it’s there as a back-up if I don’t actually understand what an English question might be asking me to do, so that’s always nice and gives me a little bit more confidence when I’m in an exam situation. It’s not the vocabulary that I don’t understand, it’s just how questions are phrased and I just find them a bit awkward sometimes to understand and just knowing that the Welsh paper’s there and that the questions are worded in a fashion that I would understand, it just helps a lot.
I’m thoroughly looking forward to my placement around Wales, particularly in the north, because I know there are more Welsh speakers there. Because in Cardiff, there aren’t many Welsh speaking patients because I have been on placements so far but I haven’t met many Welsh speakers. So, I think it’d be nice to put myself up to the test to actually speak Welsh to patients in a professional manner rather than in a day to day conversation. I know that’s definitely going to be useful, and, to be honest, it’ll be a very valuable experience for me to take with me for when I graduate.
In the first year, you get a few oral examinations but they’re always in groups and because there were a lack of Welsh speakers last year in my group, unfortunately I didn’t get to do my oral examinations through the medium of Welsh, but I know that as the years are going to go by and as the Coleg Cymraeg establishes itself much more, I know these chances will be available for Welsh speakers, and personally I know that I would have benefitted so much more from doing Welsh oral examinations because I’m much more confident speaking Welsh and I can share much more information through the medium of Welsh because I don’t feel as awkward and as embarrassed, possibly, speaking it as I do in English.
Before I came to university, I rarely spoke English, to be honest, so it was a bit of a shock to the system when I moved to Cardiff and lived with English people and had to speak English all day long. Because I come from a Welsh speaking family, we never speak English at home; my schools were completely Welsh – there were a few English people, who I wasn’t really friends with so I wouldn’t really talk to, so for me, it was only the English lessons where I really had to speak English and even then, we didn’t really speak much English. That’s why working in a café was quite helpful for me because I’ve been working at a café since I was thirteen and to be honest, this was really the only experience of speaking English I would get when I was at secondary school. So, I was lucky that I did that.