As with Euskera, the leisure of the youngest is one of the most pressing challenges facing the normalization of Catalan. Since most of the media for fun – such as video games, series and fashion music – are mostly in Spanish, the linguistic agents are very attentive that children have fun with Spanish, leaving Catalan for the classroom. That is why the Corrandescola project, which has a strong wind component, has caused a storm. Improvised as corrandists and glossers, they meet with the ludic side of Catalan. Not only that, expressiveness and music work, they also lose the fear of public activity.

Albert Casals, professor at the UAB University of Barcelona, is the starting point of Corrandescola. In 2006-2007 he wrote his thesis and established an innovative programming, as a test, in a school in the Catalan capital. The next course took the project to four other schools. The final proposal, the Corrandescola didactic program, was presented in 2009. Catalan improvisation was used for pedagogical purposes before, but Casals realized that there were some fundamental problems: he only worked with young children and was more related to identity than to pedagogy. “I wanted improvisation to influence the rest of the school curriculum, for example in language,” says Casals.

The tradition of glossaries and corrandists is one of the forms of improvisation of the Catalan countries, originating from the Principality of Catalonia – in Menorca, Mallorca, Valencia and in the lands of the Ebro there are also other improvisations in Catalan. In the 1990s it was about to disappear, but today tradition enjoys better health. However, according to Albert Casals, Corrandescola’s goal is not to recover and promote this habit, but to use it for educational purposes. They don't take the improvisers to the classes, quite the opposite. That is, they give training to the faculty to internalize the details of improvisation, and then work in the classroom. “This guarantees a good development of the didactic part and the integration of other aspects of the curriculum with improvisation”.

In line with Casals' thesis, some elementary school teachers began to meet to discuss how to bring this innovative model into the classroom. Among them was Gemma Pla, a member of the cultural association cor de Cartxofa and a music teacher at the school in the village of Cassa de la Selva. He had already worked on his own improvisation with his students and Corrandescola soon discovered some benefits. “Catalan moves away from books and notebooks, students enjoy because they play and sing with language,” says Pla.

Growing demand

They have been implementing Corrandescola in schools for about five years, under the coordination of Albert Casals. More schools are added each year. This course, for example, has involved almost 40 schools, i.e. about 700 boys and girls. Casals is also aware of schools that are outside the official program, as many of the teachers who have received their training take Corrandescola's methodology into the classroom on their own. Therefore, it is not known how many students are working in total improvisation.

Glosas and corrandas are, basically, a public activity, so school meetings are held at the end of the course to show all the lessons learned in class. Children from the 5th and 6th grades have the opportunity to sing from the stage, accompanied by their peers and young people from other schools. Four meetings have been organised this year. “There is no competition, they are fundamentally demonstrations,” says Casals. “After all, the main goal is for all or most students to sing and improvise to the public.”

Casals considers that Corrandescola’s methodology is based on practice. The main responsibility lies with the Catalan and music teachers. The simplest concepts begin to work: what are the melodies, how it rhymes, etc. Next, they learn the skills needed for improvisation, such as stylistic resources and on-stage attitude. According to Gemma Pla, the programming must conform to the level of each center: “It is not the same that all students are of Catalan origin that there are many students coming from outside. If Catalan is not its first language, we start with easy things, such as rhyme pairs.”

Positive experiences

“It’s a playful activity that increases motivation, encourages young people to practice outside the classroom as well,” Casals said. This positively influences linguistic competence and also provides resources to speak in public, structure the discourse and accept one's own errors. “Boys and girls achieve a great capacity for synthesis, they have to say everything in four lines!” adds Professor Gemma Pla. It also helps to overcome stereotypes, as a student moving in the academic field can be an expert in improvising. “The students are happy, it works,” says Pla.

In any case, the main beneficiary is Catalan itself. “For all languages, especially those that are not stateless, it is essential to have a relationship with positive experiences,” Casals explained. “The gloss has helped us overcome the prejudices of many non-Catalan speakers.” There is no similar tradition in the surrounding languages, so students consider it natural that improvisation should be carried out only in Catalan. “With Rap, for example, it’s not the same, because you see it’s not just in Catalan but in other languages.”

“It is necessary for the speakers to be able to do all the things of life in that language, insult, have a good time and write a romantic poetry,” said Casals, “that is why we need playful elements that are ours and improvisation fulfills that task.” The inventor of Corrandescola has assured that “the future of Catalan will be decided in the field of leisure”.