Pic: gaelicteaching

The Stornoway Gazette reveals that a new website for people interested in Gaelic teaching was launched at the Scottish Learning Festival at the SECC in Glasgow on the 1st October 2008. www.gaelicteaching.com is part of Bòrd na Gàidhlig’s commitment to education and the recruitment of Gaelic teachers and will provide information on Gaelic education, teacher training, learning Gaelic, funding opportunities, interesting case studies and useful links to a range of education sites.

Bòrd na Gàidhlig Acting Chief Executive, Rosemary Ward said:

Gaelic education has been one of the most rapidly developing sectors of Scottish education for over 23 years and is a major focus of the work of Bòrd na Gàidhlig.

The website introduces itself with the following:

An historic language and culture is creating a very modern buzz through Gaelic education – and you can be part of it. Combine your interest and enthusiasm for teaching with the ability to help preserve and re-invigorate a unique part of Scotland’s heritage. Whether you are currently studying, considering a move into teaching or already a teacher, there are opportunities available in Gaelic education that will enrich more than your career.

It offers job vacancies, advice on teacher training and funding, where you can study Gaelic and some case studies to illustrate the development paths.

Stornoway

Gaelic Teachers

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There has been an important development in terms of Celtic language television broadcasting with the launch of the new Gaelic TV station BBC Alba.

The new channel is initially available on Sky satellite TV channel 168 and also on Freesat. The station will also become available on the digital terrestrial service Freeview. However the Freeview launch will not take place until 2010 at the earliest which is disappointing. Continue Reading »

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Pic: Gaelscolaíochta

THE establishment of an Irish language education centre first announced for Ballyvourney nine years ago is in serious doubt due to government cutbacks over the economic downturn.In March 2007, former Education minister Mary Hanafin announced that four staff were to be assigned to the proposed Ballyvourney centre, and that €1 million was to be allocated to an Comhairle um Oideachas Gaeltachta agus Gaelscolaíochta (COGG), the advisory body who would be responsible for the resource.

COGG have since maintained that the allocated €1 million was not for the Baile Bhúirne centre or for the employment of any staff there, and the money is already being spent by COGG at its Dublin base.

Rather than employing any additional staff in Ballyvourney, COGG chief executive Muireann Ní Mhóráin says the group will be losing one of four staff in Dublin, due to an employee leaving, and the money not being there to hire anybody else.

Ms Ní Mhóráin revealed that the Ballyvourney posts “were announced, not sanctioned,” with no movement on the recruitment of staff since the jobs were mentioned 18 months ago.

On top of that, COGG received a Dept of Education and Science directive on 22 August, instructing it to cut recruitment and payroll costs so as to achieve an overall cost reduction of 3% in 2009.

It was intended that COGG would have offices in a refurbished Coláiste Íosagáin in Baile Bhúirne, and that the four appointed staff would be provided with temporary accommodation in a prefabricated building on the nearby Údarás na Gaeltachta industrial estate.

Údarás applied for planning permission for the prefab building last January, and Cork County Council have sought further information twice since in relation to the development.

Meanwhile, COGG have been offered more temporary accommodation where the Óige na Gaeltachta youth organisation is located in Baile Bhúirne until the prefab building is ready, but with a halt being put to staff recruitment it looks like there will be no Irish language education centre, and/or no one to work there in 2009, ten years after the then Education Minister, Micheál Martin, first announced it in 1999.

[Source]

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Pic: BBC

The BBC reports that community-based Gaelic projects are to be supported with the use of £150,000 of Scottish Government funding. The Gaelic development body Bord na Gaidhlig (BnG) is to set up a Challenge Fund to support the preservation and promotion of the language. BnG said ways were needed to help all kinds of Gaelic-speaking communities across Scotland.

The announcement was made at the first national Gaelic in the Community conference, held in Breasclete, Lewis.

Culture Minister Linda Fabiani said:

Gaelic is a national language. We must recognise it on that basis and support it across all our communities, from areas where it is well established, to others where it is growing - such as parts of urban Scotland.

She added that the release of this funding was

yet another step towards achieving … a sustainable and successful future for Gaelic in Scotland.

Read the full story at the BBC.

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Pic: Laura Fraser

The Chronicle Herald of Nova Scotia reports that seven students crowded around a wood stove here Tuesday morning, sheltered from the rain by a house built at the turn of the 20th century. At that time, Gaelic was the mother tongue of more than 40 per cent of people living on Cape Breton Island. Only about 500 Cape Bretoners are still fluent in the language today.

Continue Reading »

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Pic: Novopress

BBC Alba, the new Gaelic television channel launching next month, is on the hunt for a long-running soap as part of its commitment to broadcasting original drama.A new Scottish Gaelic soap would be the first since Machair, which ran for six years and came to an end in 1998.

Alan Esslemont, BBC Alba’s head of content, said production of original drama formed part of the channel’s strategy and revealed discussions had taken place with a number of independent production companies in Scotland about potential ideas for a long-running series. Continue Reading »

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Pic: Untermann, 1991

It’s amazing, and very gratyifying, to see how much interest there is in the Celtic languages at the moment. The Welsh government is putting aside £1 million to encourage it growth and the other languages are being actively promoted. Here are a few of the most recent stories to put you n the picture:-

Welsh

There has possibly been more activity in the field of Welsh linguistics than in any other at the moment.

A new network to champion the rights of Welsh speakers caught up in the legal system was launched at the National Eisteddfod Maes on the 6th August. The Justice Wales Network chairman Hywel Hughes said the justice sector was an important sector in terms of human rights and establishing the network gave an opportunity to make a real difference by working together.

The all-Wales network will comprise all the agencies involved in the justice sector, from both the criminal and civil jurisdictions.

Source

A £1m package of funding will support the Welsh language as part of the Assembly Government’s regeneration strategy. The cash will be committed today for a range of pilot projects in North Wales.

These projects will include:

£400,000 at Nant Gwrtheyrn to develop the residential Welsh language learning facility and its contribution to the wider regeneration of the Lln peninsula;

Lln peninsula – supporting a project linking job opportunities and affordable housing in conjunction with housing association, Cymdeithas Tai Eryri.

Deputy regeneration minister Leighton Andrews will also announce a further three-year funding package for rural Communities First projects.

We need to do more to encourage ordinary people who can speak Welsh to use their language and to see it as an asset that can help them into employment.

Source

A Welsh language education strategy will be the most important development in Wales over the next 12 months, heritage minister Alun Ffred Jones said on the 5th August.

The Caernarfon AM, who replaced Rhodri Glyn Thomas as minister, added that a truly bilingual Wales would not be achieved without a commitment by the Welsh Assembly Government to increase the number of Welsh speakers and the use of Welsh in their everyday lives.

He said:

The culture, arts, sports, language and heritage of Wales are what unite us and define us as a nation, and the legacy of this Government should be that they are accessed as widely as possible by the people of our country.

Meri Huws, chairman of the Welsh Language Board, said:

We are working towards totally bilingual institutions in Wales.

Source

A NEW dictionary of legal terms for students, containing more than 1,100 of the most frequently used terms during a law degree course, will be launched today.

The Geiriadur Termau’r Gyfraith Dictionary of Legal Terms is the result of a Bangor University project.

Law lecturer Dewi Llyr Jones said:

Soon after we began teaching law at Bangor we realised a dictionary of legal terms with definitions would provide valuable assistance in the teaching of law through the medium of Welsh. By now all the school’s core modules have some element of Welsh medium teaching, and the dictionary will be an invaluable aid to those students studying in Welsh.

Source

Irish Gaelic

Máire, a member of the Philo-Celtic Society, tells us that the short film Yu Ming is ainm dom can be downloaded from TG4. TG4 is an Irish TV channel and some content can be viewed online. I paraphrase as she continues: Go to http://www.tg4.ie/Bearla/webt/webt.htm and click on Drama on left hand side and you will see it. This is one of the films on the Gearrscannáin dvd available from Oideas Gael who have some great material for Irish learners. The film is about a boy in China who learns Irish before coming to Ireland as he believed that it was the spoken language.

Scots Gaelic

From the Learner’s Gàidhlig group, I discovered that the GMS Gaelic TV Channel in Scotland (Seirbheis nam Meadhanan Gàidhlig) is inviting viewers to help decide the direction the channel takes.

HAVE YOUR SAY ON THE NEW GAELIC CHANNEL

With the new Gaelic Digital Service (MG Alba) starting in September, it is essential to give the Gaelic-speaking community of Scotland an opportunity to rate and to voice their opinions of the programmes broadcast on the new channel.

Anyone aged over 16, resident in Scotland with at least some ability in Gaelic and access to digital television is invited to join the viewers panel. Taking part would involve completing an on-line weekly ‘viewing diary’ by rating any programmes viewed.

Regular contributors will be entered into a £100 prize draw every month.

For more information on how to take part in the viewers panel please in the first instance e-mail us at

leirsinn@smo.uhi.ac.uk

We are looking forward to finding out what YOU think of the new Gaelic Digital Service.

Lèirsinn Research Centre Sabhal Mòr Ostaig July 2008

Source

What an amazing time it is for Celto-philes!

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PUPIL numbers at Glasgow Gaelic School are at an all-time high.But the popularity of the school has landed education bosses with a problem - they cannot find enough fluent Gaelic-speaking teachers. This year the secondary school has around 62 students on the roll but next year that number is set to rise to 100.

Over 70 children will enroll in the primary school next term. Continue Reading »

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A new dictionary of Gaelic will be as important as “great art collections” held by national galleries, a university figure has said. Strathclyde’s Boyd Robertson, convener of the Faclair na Gaidhlig project steering group, commented ahead of the launch of a business plan for it.

The aim is to produce a dictionary on a par with the Scottish National and Oxford English dictionaries.

Four universities and Gaelic college Sabhal Mor Ostaig on Skye are involved. Continue Reading »

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Welsh and Scottish Gaelic will soon be echoing around the European Union’s corridors of power under an agreement that Britain is about to sign with its EU partners. The deal, which could be rubber-stamped as early as Tuesday, will mean that individuals will be able to write to the EU’s Council of Ministers in either language - and that the Council, where governments take political and legislative decisions, will have to reply in the same tongue.

British representatives may also use the languages in official Council meetings. Once the agreement is formalised, Britain will negotiate similar arrangements with the European Commission, the European Ombudsman - which handles complaints - and other EU organisations involving parliamentary, regional and business representatives. Continue Reading »

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