Language education – a school designed to reinstate Welsh as a living language to local children Around 2005, 62 Welsh classes were taught in Chubut and language was also on the curriculum of a kindergarten, two primary schools and two schools in the area of
Gaiman (including a school dating from 1899), as well as a bilingual Welsh–Spanish school located in
Trelew and a school in
Esquel. Welsh classes in the
Andes region have been held since 1996. The Welsh Institute of
Trevelin and Esquel was born from a joint project of the
National Assembly of Wales, the
British Council and the Government of the Province of Chubut. Since the late 1990s, the Wales–Argentina Association has run a program to increase the teaching and use of the Welsh language in Chubut. For 15 years, the plan succeeded in creating a new type of Welsh-speakers in Patagonia (Welsh speakers as a second language, mostly young). By 1997, most of the students were adults and there was only one school for children. Four years later, there were 263 hours of Welsh classes per week and 846 students, of whom 87% were children and young people (in Gaiman, 95% of those attending such classes were under the age of 20). One of the functions of the Wales–Argentina Association is also to organise teacher and student exchange trips between Wales and Argentina: it has a representative on the British Council's Welsh Teaching Project Commission which has sent Welsh teachers to Chubut and financially supports a student attending an intensive Welsh language course held annually. It also has links with colleges and schools in both Wales and Chubut, where it subsidises and provides support to students. In May 2015, the local government of Trelew announced free intensive Welsh language classes for the city's inhabitants under the name of ("Taster Course"). Ann-Marie Lewis, a Welsh teacher, travelled to Patagonia exclusively to teach the language.
Welsh–Spanish bilingual schools For the 150th anniversary of the colony, an association was created in
Trevelin to form the first Spanish–Welsh bilingual school in the Valley under the name of , which will be public, but privately managed. The intention of the school was to bring back Welsh as a spoken language into the community. Fifteen families initially showed an interest in the project.
In September the for young people is held in Gaiman and in October for adults. Also, they are held in Trevelin,
Dolavon and
Puerto Madryn. Competitions are conducted in both Welsh and Spanish. ==Vocabulary==