Language Trainers Blog

Children’s television channel CBeebies is to air 30 episodes of a new show entitled Magic Hands as part of the spring schedule. The 5 minute programme, aimed at children under 6, will be in BSL (British Sign Language) and is to feature four presenters who have been deaf since birth and are new to our screens.

This is a groundbreaking show for British television as the aim of the programme is to bring to life a mix of modern and classic poetry using sign language, animation, music and spoken word.

Series producer, Judith Bunting, says:

“Translating modern and traditional poems for children into BSL on such a scale is a first. There are deaf poets and deaf theatre companies but no national television company has ever tried translating children’s poetry into BSL. It was a mammoth task and our artistic interpreter has done an amazing job, taking the intricacies of verse from the 19th to 21st centuries and transforming them into a terrific series of performances.”

Each episode is based around a single verse of poetry and the selected poems are diverse, ranging from Maya Angelou to Shakespeare.

In February 2009, UNESCO declared Manx Gaelic extinct. It was then changed to “critically endangered” following protests from the Isle of Man.

The language has been revived by a community keen to keep their culture alive. If you visit the Isle of Man today, there are signs in both English and Manx.

Image from http://geographicallyyourstoo.blogspot.co.uk

Dr. Brian Stowell presents a show on Manx Radio every Sunday which promotes the language. He is also author of The Vampire Murders, the first novel to be published and written entirely in Manx. The two local newspapers regularly publish articles in the local language.

The Manx Language Society even organises an annual event, the Cooish Inter-Gaelic Festival, which celebrates Manx language and music, and is held in October/November.

Manx has been taught in schools on the island since 1992; but now there is a Manx language primary school, Bunscoill Ghaelgagh in St.Johns, which 69 pupils currently attend, in which all subjects are taught in the language. Manx is also taught in in other schools across the island. The school has won an award for its efforts promoting the preservation of the language.

Last year an app was developed and made available for adults hoping to brush up on their language skills. The free Learn Manx app features 10 learning modules and is available to download on iTunes and GooglePlay.

Following the news that the original  English-Guernesiais dictionary from 1967 is to be republished due to public demand; it has been announced that a new language commission is to be set up to protect and promote the island’s language.

Guernesiais is a variation of Norman French which is native to the Channel Island. It has been in use on the island for over 1000 years, although today the primary language is English. Up until 1948, it was French. According to the latest figures, only 2% of the island’s population is fluent in Guernesiais.

Culture and Leisure Department member Darren Duquemin explained in a presentation that Jerrais (the local language of Jersey) is much more prevalant in society than Guernesiais and went on to outline how he intends to change that with the new Commission, and preserve a large part of the island’s heritage.

Ed Manley and James Cheshire from UCL’s Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA), were busy this summer. The two researchers collected data from 3.3 million tweets during the London 2012 Games, using Twitter’s API.  They then created an impressive looking map of all of the locations of those tweets. Not only that, but the map is colour coded for each language. The grey parts of the map were tweets in English, which makes up the majority of it. There are pockets of colour elsewhere though, in descending order representing Spanish (white), French (red), Turkish (blue), Arabic (green), Portuguese (purple), German (orange), Italian (yellow), Malay (cyan), and Russian (violet). There were 66 languages used, identified and recorded. The languages tweeted least were Georgian, Belarusian, Telugu and Armenian.

Ed Manley explains that Tagalog, which is spoken in the Philippines, was excluded from the data as “many of these classifications included just uses of English terms such as ‘hahahahaha’, ‘ahhhhhhh’ and ‘lololololol’.” It was initially the 7th most tweeted language.

They are quick to point out that the work absolutely isn’t a true representation of the diverse demographic of London. A lot of tweets are located on main roads and along train lines. Also, they have only included tweeters who have a good GPS location and are connected to the internet.

Click here to see the map.

Want to learn a new language in London? Try our German courses, Italian lessons, or even learn English!

A new computer scam is doing the rounds – in Gaeilge. It’s the first Irish Gaelic language computer virus to have been reported, and has had some users fooled into believing it’s real due to the official looking logos, stamps and even the Irish flag on it.

Someone, somewhere has seemingly created a pop up warning the user that their computer has been locked, possibly using a free web translation service, as only 60% of it actually makes sense in Irish. The pop up then goes on to instruct the user that the computer can be unlocked if a transfer of €100 is made. Presumably no-one has actually fallen for this yet…

The Pope is planning to set up a new pontifical Latin academy in the Vatican to restore the use of the ancient Italic language, the Vatican has said. The new academy, Pontificia Academia Latinitatis, would “promote the knowledge and speaking of Latin, particularly inside the Church.” Until the Second Vatican Council reforms in the 1960s, Vatican documents were only published in Latin. Pope Benedict is keen to increase the popularity of Latin as the official language of the Roman Catholic Church, as he believes that the more people understand Latin, the easier it will be to explain the teachings of the Church.

As a language student, it’s useful to know the basics of Latin as the foundations and roots of words of many other languages stem from Latin. I’m not sure that the Pope’s plans are intended for this purpose, or indeed aimed at everyone, but the news has inspired me, at least, to learn a little more Latin!

How many of us haven’t tried a crafty trick whilst playing Scrabble? One player took it to the extreme this week by cheating at the US National Championships. The five day event, held in Orlando, Florida, saw 350 players competing for a $10,000 (£6400) prize. The player was a minor, and thus has not been named. His methods, however, have. In the 24th of 28 rounds, a player who was due to be the next opponent of the boy saw two blank tiles on his side of the table. After the game, the boy was seen dropping the two blank tiles on the floor, in an apparent attempt to use them in the next round. He was questioned, admitted to taking the tiles, and disqualified from the tournament. His previous opponents were then awarded wins.

Cheating in championship Scrabble is not common. According to the North American Scrabble Players Association (NASPA), there have been five suspensions for cheating since 2008.

A new smartphone app which helps teach sign language has won another award.

Sign4Life was developed by secondary school students from Salesian College in Co. Limerick, as part of their Transition Year project. The app, which is now available on Android; is aimed at friends, family and teachers of the deaf, and is designed to help bridge the gap between the deaf and hearing communities through video technology.

In March, the five students won the regional finals of Junior Achievement Ireland. They followed this up in May by taking the All-Ireland National Junior Achievement title.

Caoimhe O’Neill, Ciara Reidy, Colleen Mullane, Chris O’Brien and Fiona Mangan then competed against teams from 32 countries at the Junior Achievement Young Enterprise  European Final, which was held in Bucharest, Romania. The girls won the prestigious Company of the Year award at this event, after making a presentation and undergoing an in depth interview with the judges.

“We have seen so much, we have learned so much. With some things, you have to make an effort. It isn’t going to come to you,” said team member Caoimhe O’Neill.

In addition, the UK team, Vitamin Boom, won the FedEx Access Award for their Super Froo-Tea tea bags and iced tea products, which contain Baobab.

The Junior Achievement programme is part of a worldwide organisation, and aims to bring enterprise to the education system, and give students hands-on experience of running their own business. The organisation uses mentors from local businesses to help students through the process.

A study by the European Commission shows that Britain is at the bottom of the list for student’s ability to speak a second language. Malta and Sweden scored highly, with 82% of students being able to demonstrate skills in a second language fluently.

Tests were carried out in 14 of the 27 European Union countries. Only 42% of pupils were competent in a second language. It was revealed that British students had a poorer grasp of the basics of a foreign language than pupils in the other nations tested.

The five most widely spoken second languages were:

1) English – 38%

2) French – 12%

3) German – 11%

4) Spanish – 7%

5) Russian – 5%.

“We must do more to improve the teaching and learning of languages,” said education commissioner Androulla Vassiliou. “Being able to communicate in a foreign language broadens your horizons and opens doors.”

The study results come just weeks after the Government announced plans to make languages compulsory in primary schools.

The only problem is, where are all the language teachers going to come from, since so many from previous generations haven’t learned a language sufficiently?

You may have read about Scottish schoolgirl Martha Payne’s NeverSeconds, a blog focussing on Martha’s school dinners. She uploads a photo of her lunch every day and rates it. Martha also posts photos of lunches she has been sent from other schoolchildren around the world, as well as raising money for charity Mary’s Meals, which provides school lunches for the poorest communities all over the world.

Argyll and Bute Council claimed that the nine year old’s blog was attracting negative attention, and implemented a ban on photography in the school canteen, after one of her photos was published in a Scottish newspaper with a less than flattering headline. They issued a statement saying that the blog was a “misrepresentation” of the food choices offered to pupils at the school.

The ban has now been lifted after public uproar, and Martha will be resuming blogging about her school dinners today. The publicity the row has attracted means that Mary’s Meals has now raised enough money to feed 1963 pupils in Malawi school meals for an entire year.

Good on you Martha! This should never have happened in the first place. Students should be encouraged to do this sort of thing; as Martha has proved, she is not only is she communicating with kids all over the world, but also writing on a regular basis. Too many pupils in the UK leave school without a basic knowledge of English spelling and grammar.