We will begin with “An approach to the standard language ideologies among the future teachers of Palma and Barcelona: correction and dialectalisms” by Ivan Solivellas. One of the challenges the Catalan language faces is the diverse set of ideologies regarding the reference language model. Traditionally, there have been some markedly political speeches in opposition to the standard because they understood that it corresponded to the speech of Barcelona. Currently, these perceptions are still held by many Catalan speakers, even among highly-educated users. In this regard, Solivellas will analyze the perceptions that some Primary Education students (that is, future primary school teachers) from Palma and Barcelona have about the standard language model, based on a survey related to different forms of the entire linguistic domain. The objective is to analyze the degree of acceptance and rejection of some forms and accents within the standard model in the imaginary of the future teachers, depending on whether the expressions are perceived as more or less dialectal.

In the second paper, “Treatment of language variation by Catalan teachers: perspectives and proposals”, James Ramsburg examines how language instructors on the island of Mallorca approach the instruction of dialect variation in their classrooms. Mallorca, like other Catalan-speaking areas, is linguistically diverse, and the islanders’ historical dialect, Mallorcan Catalan, is now spoken alongside hundreds of other language varieties. This is especially true among Mallorca’s youth, whose dynamics of language dominance and identification are rapidly changing. So, then, how do Catalan instructors negotiate this linguistic diversity in their classrooms? And how do they make space for the local dialect in their curricula? Through a combination of surveys and interviews, Ramsburg analyzes instructor attitudes and practices around dialect variation, paying special attention to how the instruction of dialect can aid and augment the language acquisition process.

The final paper will be “Linguistic variation and Catalan as an additional language: some observations from textbooks”, by Elga Cremades. Knowing and understanding the different phenomena related to linguistic variation is part of the official curricula for Catalan as an additional language, both as explicit knowledge (i.e., students should know and be able to explain concepts about language variation) and as an ability (as part of learners’ communicative competence, which implies a certain sociolinguistic competence). Thus, although sociolinguistics itself appears from the B2 CEFR level onwards, curricula for B1.3 CEFR level include that students must "globally understand conversations in other geographic or social varieties". These objectives necessarily imply a careful treatment of dialectal (especially geographical and social) and functional variation in textbooks, both from the point of view of the theoretical content and from the point of view of the diversity of written, oral and audiovisual texts presented to the students. In this paper we review the treatment of this issue in the main Catalan textbooks for B1, B2 and C1 levels. In particular, we will focus on the collections Passos (books 2 and 3) by Octaedro, Punt per punt (B1, B2 and C1) by Publicacions de la Universitat d’Alacant, and A punt (3, 4 and 5), by Publicacions de l’Abadia de Montserrat.

The three, 15-minute presentations will be followed by a discussion moderated by Alba Girons, whose experience as a Catalan instructor and program director make her uniquely qualified to bring the papers into conversation with each other and the audience. Altogether, these three papers demonstrate that the approaches to teaching Catalan language variation are underdeveloped, and that educators and scholars alike advocate for a more unified pedagogical standard for the instruction of dialect.