National Qualifications (NQ) have added the following resources to their resource database:
ESOL: Everyday Communication - Listening
ESOL: Everyday Communication - Writing
ESOL: Food in Scotland
ESOL: Holidays and School
ESOL: Language and Learning

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is warning employers to make sure their workers’ language skills are good enough for the work they are doing, reports the BBC.
It follows a £25,000 fine imposed on a Telford company after a woman broke her arm in a factory machine.
Magna Specialist Confectioners of Stafford Park admitted breaching Health […]

The growing number of ethnic minority families in Glasgow means that more than 100 different languages are now spoken in homes across the city, reports the Evening Times.
A report by the Scottish Government shows that in 2007 there were 8853 city pupils whose home language was not English 511 more than the previous year. Research […]

Hazel Blears has said learning English must be ‘an absolute top priority’ for migrants to the UK, the BBC reports. The Secretary of State for Communities also said local authorities should ‘think carefully’ about whether documents needed to be translated.
She told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show the ability to speak English was ‘fundamental’ for migrants […]

Now recruiting for its eleventh year of training, the CILT/British Council Graduate Teacher Programme (GTP) continues to be one of the most prestigious teacher training programmes for native speakers of French, Spanish and German in the country.
The GTP is an employment-based route, where native speakers receive ‘on-the-job’ training in one of more than 40 training […]

Language Festivals was a two-year Lingua 1 project that was designed to raise interest in the learning of foreign languages by members of the general public. The project was a direct result of a Contact Seminar hosted by the British Council in London in June 2004. The project was funded from October 2005 until September […]

The TESS reports that the demands of teaching pupils with languages as diverse as Nepali and Lithuanian are putting strains on schools even in rural Scotland, prompting the two largest teaching unions to demand more government support.
The Educational Institute of Scotland and the Scottish Secondary Teachers’ Association have made separate pleas for more English as […]

Children with English as their first language are in the minority in more than 1,300 schools, according to official figures.
This article on the Guardian website says that data from the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) obtained by the Daily Telegraph shows that in 1,338 primary and secondary schools in England there are fewer […]

Topics covered in this month’s English Language Teaching diary in the Guardian are:
China’s New Oriental gets warm embrace in US
New Oriental, China’s biggest English language teaching provider, is reaping the benefits of its flotation on the New York Stock Exchange last year.
Ireland races to raise skills to serve migrant pupils
The recent surge in Ireland’s immigrant […]

Alan has a great resource for languages teachers over on Connected Live. Lingro allows you to take any webpage and query the meaning of individual words in a variety of languages. Just brill!