Modern Languages Blog

As a result of the UK-German Youth Review, the new, bilateral
‘UK-German youth links’ service has been set up by bringing together my
services and activities as UK-German Links Adviser and our ongoing
project, ‘the-voyage: british german connection’,
and enhancing our joint resources with the help of new staff, a
UK-German youth links officer, and an information officer.

As we are closely linked with (and created by) the key organisations in
both countries (the Foreign Ministries/Embassies, British Council, PAD,
Goethe-Institut), our “umbrella role” focuses on acting as a portal to
all activities, promoting coordinated outreach activities, and advising
and supporting school and youth groups with regard to developing
UK-German activities.

-    â€œInstant Impact”: new grants for schools and youth groups for taster trips to Germany, with a rolling deadline and a shortened application turn-around time during the pilot phase. If you’re planning such a trip, please let us know as soon as possible.

-    Bilateral Youth seminar for young people (aged 16/17) from the UK and Germany who show interest and commitment in current affairs and media issues, and who are keen to share their ideas and get involved in the development of UK-German youth relations. They don’t have to speak good/excellent German (although this would be welcome, of course!) – it’s an opportunity for Germanophiles and/or Europhiles to have their say and contribute to “shaping the future”, and will form the basis for the establishment of a bilateral “UK-German Youth Forum”. Please disseminate and/or nominate suitable candidates (deadline: 3 March!).

-    â€œDiscover Berlin!” – competition for young people, particularly those who have no or little knowledge of German, to win a trip to Berlin in July.  

-    â€œArea Links Challenge Fund”: new grants for local authorities, county councils etc to establish, revive or develop area links (regional partnerships) for educational activity with a similar regional authority in Germany.

There are also deadlines for the following schemes:
-    German scholarships programme: fully-funded international scholarship programme by the German Government for your top students of German, involving a four-week visit to Germany in summer

-    German Pupil Course: 2-week language and culture courses in the summer, with separate course opportunities for A-level/Higher Grade students and GCSE/Standard grade students.

-    Opportunity for teachers as German Pupil Course group leaders

-    Anglo-German Fellowships: student and teacher fellowships provide individual grants for study trips/professional development trips to Germany. (England only)

-    Anglo-German curriculum projects: a strand of the Anglo-German Fellowships programme, they provide generous grants for joint projects between partner schools in England and Germany. (England only)

(*) DETAILS, further information and downloadable application forms are available through the ‘opportunities overviews’ for young people  and for teachers, youth leaders, regional coordinators

The MFLE has received plenty of attention in the national ICT newsletter from Becta, the British Education Communications and Technology Agency. Made In Scotland accompanies another article on the VerbCast from Partners in Excellence in this ICT in Secondary Magazine.

Technology is getting easier and its rapid development is changing language education, making it possible to link the classroom to the real world beyond. Read the full article in EducationGuardian.co.uk

The Association of Language Learning is launching a new competition for language teachers from all sectors, with an exciting prize. It’s called the ALL International Challenge Award 2006 and it certainly offers an unusual challenge.

ALL is collaborating with MondoChallenge, the company which specialises in career breaks in the developing world, to give the winner the chance of spending up to three months in Tanzania, the Gambia, Chile, India or Sri Lanka, with all expenses paid, including travel, insurance, vaccinations and board and lodging. He or she will teach English to local children and adults, as well as experiencing life there at first-hand.

You can find out more about MondoChallenge on their website.

To enter, you will need to explain what you would hope to gain from this opportunity. As well as the visit abroad, there are other prizes for runners-up, including a 25% discount on all MondoChallenge projects.  All entrants must be members of the Association for Language Learning, but can join at the time of entering the competition. They will qualify both for a 10% reduction on all MondoChallenge visits and also a reduction on entry to ALL’s Language World 2006 conference, on 7-8 April 2006, at the University of Manchester. To find out more and apply online, go to the ALL website and click on the ‘Chance of a Lifetime’ link. Or you can ring ALL on +44(0)1788 546443 and ask for an application form.

The Modern Foreign Languages Environment (MFLE) has already started
hosting video diaries of Foreign Language Assistants, spilling the
beans on the ups and downs of their year. An
update for February has just been posted.

Soon the
MFLE will be launching online, Virtual FLAs to help
out those areas that are not fortunate enough to have a real live
living one. It’s not as good as having a Céline, Katrin, Edgar
or Francesco
in your classroom, but it’s not a bad second best.

As part of
our trial of this, though, we want to start with one or two languages.
Which languages should we trial with first? Which languages need this
FLA most? If you’re an MFLE member you can vote
on the matter in the forum. If you’re not a member and you
are a teacher in Scotland register now using the button on the homepage
menu.

If you are a teacher elsewhere, which languages would you choose?

A flourishing future for the Gaelic language is now a step closer, as the Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act comes into force today. The legislation is designed to promote the use of Gaelic, secure the status of the language and ensure it has a long-term future. Central to the provisions of the Act is the creation of a statutory body, Bòrd na Gàidhlig, to promote and develop the Gaelic language in Scotland. The Bòrd will build on the work which is already undertaken by a wide variety of groups across the Gaelic education, arts and development sectors.The new chair, Matthew MacIver, and his team, who were appointed last month, will take up their responsibilities today.

But as this good news for Gaelic speakers comes through there is mixed news for job hunters in some areas of Scotland. The Sunday Times reports on a new distillery that will only employ Gaelic speakers at the same time as Sleat Primary school on Skye looks set to become Gaelic-only, sending some pupils on a 40-mile round trip to school. Is this, as some have accused in the articles, a “racist” or “fascist” policy, excluding large numbers of potential workers from a job? Or is this just the same as requiring an employee to speak French in France or Spanish in Spain?

If you’re interested in ICT then you’ll love the sessions on offer at Language World 2006, run by ALL, this April 7-8. There’s a strong Scottish contingent sharing their story at the conference:

Using photo-stories to develop writing skills, Mark Pentleton

Working together to share best practice and resources…today and in the future!, Helen Myers

Lights, camera, action: out-of-school film-making activities for languages, Mark Pentleton

Blogs and podcasts: the learner is the resource, Ewan McIntosh

‘Working together’ – live online language teaching, Karsten Stephan

Interactive whiteboard resources sharing forum: bring an idea – take 20 away!, Wendy Adeniji and Ros Walker

Free games, time-saving utilities and fun with MS Word: integrating ICT into the MFL classroom, Joe Dale

Primary French on the interactive whiteboard (Harcourt Education Limited), Jackie Coe

The i-way to great lessons – and exam success! (Oxford University Press), Louise Perrier, *** Capel-Davies and Richard Matthews

Including every child: an analysis of student response systems in the MFL classroom (Promethean Technologies Limited), Ros Walker

Via PointBlog
comes news of this competition associated with the 2nd Languages
Festival, taking place in Lille this April. If groups of three or four
students can get together to create a multilingual blog in their school
and send the organisers the address before March 20th, then they (and
their teacher, of course stand a chance of winning a trip to
Morocco, to Berlin, to London or something from a range of MP3 players,
languages CD-Roms… the list goes on.

Details can be found on the competition blog.

If you’re interested in taking part in an online discussion about how
we could make the transition between learning in high school and
learning in Higher Education, then please do join me at 11.55pm GMT
Thursday night until 1am GMT Friday morning at LanguageLabUnleashed.
This is a live audio broadcast from Scotland, USA and Canada and you
can take part in the chatroom. Full details for insomniacs here.