Jenny Pugsley, formerly head of TESOL at Trinity College, London, has reviewed the British Council’s book, Innovations in English language teaching for migrants and refugees, edited by David Mallows, and wholly recommends it. The book contains a chapter on Island Voices (chapter 12, page 153) among many other fascinating case studies that are judged “heartwarming, albeit unsentimental”. You can find the review online here. And the book is also free to download.
The review notes the book’s overall stance on the positive aspects of multilingualism, and poses a provocative thought, perhaps particularly challenging for those raised speaking English only. “The reader could infer that those who are monolingual and determined to remain so may be the losers in the battle for a sense of strong personal identity and communal comfort in the UK of the moment.”
Seadh, deagh adhbhar dhuinn an dà chànan a th’ againn an seo sna h-eileanan a chumail a’ dol – agus ’s dòcha feadhainn a bharrachd ionnsachadh?
“… a very positive collection to be shared with practitioners and worldwide…”
Sabhal Mòr Ostaig’s Caoimhín Ó Donnaíle is a regular attender at the Ceòlas Gaelic Music summer school in South Uist, but this year he’s taken along a laptop as well as his fiddle. In today’s “Gaelic for All” slot – and at other times during the week – he’s offering participants an introduction to the self-directed language learning and teaching opportunities offered through the Clilstore platform and associated programs.
For the first session he was joined by Uist-based Projects Officer Gordon Wells, who gave a quick run-through of the Island Voices/Guthan nan Eilean project, and how it now makes use of Clilstore to supply online transcripts of the project videos. Previously these were only available as Word documents, but now the added functionality of Clilstore means you can watch a video while simultaneously scrolling through the transcript and checking for dictionary translations of any words you don’t know, simply by clicking on them. It’s also an easy online process for any teacher to create similar multimedia units using their own audio or video recordings.
SMO is still developing the software and welcomes comments from any online users. If you would like to send in some feedback, please download this evaluation form, fill it in and e-mail it back to gne@smo.uhi.ac.uk.
Through Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, the Guthan nan Eilean project is involved with the European TOOLS project’s development of the “Clilstore” platform, which aims to help teachers create multimedia online language learning units which can include easy access to dictionary translations in over 100 languages. (There are over 150 Clilstore units based on Island Voices videos, for example. Take a look at the Series 1 or 2 pages on this site, or at the Extras page.)
The software development is led by Dr Caoimhín Ó Donnaíle on the Isle of Skye, and his work is then tested out by various European partners working in Danish, Lithuanian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Arabic – as well as Irish and Scottish Gaelic.
The overall project is led by Kent Andersen of SDE College in Denmark, who has developed and scripted teach yourself videos for teachers and learners to help them get to know how to use the platform. The scripts have been rendered in seven different languages, with Gordon Wells of Island Voices recording both the English and the Scottish Gaelic versions.
Although the videos are quite long, the plan is to integrate shorter selections from them into the e-book explaining Clilstore that will be another outcome of the TOOLS project. But if you really can’t wait for that, here are a couple of the full-length videos.
Jenny Pugsley, formerly head of TESOL at Trinity College, London, has reviewed the British Council’s book, Innovations in English language teaching for migrants and refugees, edited by David Mallows, and wholly recommends it. The book contains a chapter on Island Voices (chapter 12, page 153) among many other fascinating case studies that are judged “heartwarming, albeit unsentimental”. You can find the review online here. And the book is also free to download.
The review notes the book’s overall stance on the positive aspects of multilingualism, and poses a provocative thought, perhaps particularly challenging for those raised speaking English only. “The reader could infer that those who are monolingual and determined to remain so may be the losers in the battle for a sense of strong personal identity and communal comfort in the UK of the moment.”
Seadh, deagh adhbhar dhuinn an dà chànan a th’ againn an seo sna h-eileanan a chumail a’ dol – agus ’s dòcha feadhainn a bharrachd ionnsachadh?
