Irish youth feel the brunt of European perplexity at our No vote

Young people visiting Strasbourg got caught up in lively debate, writes MARY MINIHAN .

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0408/1224244212449.html

A short-sighted blow to language skills of children

Children from ethnic minorities and who have language needs are being singled out for special treatment in the Budget.

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/a-shortsighted-blow-to-language-skills-of-children-1706878.html

Autor/es: Ángel Marcos / Ronan McCrea

Dates

01/04/2009 (18:00 h)

Location

Instituto Cervantes – Café Literario
Lincoln House, Lincoln Place
2 Dublin
(IRLANDA)

Entidades Organizadoras

Instituto Cervantes (Dublín)

Sociedad Estatal para la Acción Cultural Exterior (SEACEX) (España)

Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores (España). Dirección General de Cooperación y Comunicación Cultural

The spreading of fear and pressure on language teachers continues this week. I think we all could share here some good views about it and strategies to cope with the challenges coming. Maybe even a way of airing our troubles and talking about the way that these challenges and pressures are affecting our jobs here and now, instead of taking the worries into our classrooms and homes.

http://www.independent.ie/education/latest-news/hundreds-of-college-jobs-facing-the-chop-1674038.html

As for me, I guess i find it really disturbing to have fearful news and unclear gossip going around the corridors of the workplace. And the obscurity of the news and the lack of clarity are definitely the case around these issues. And we are talking about the future of teachers we know and also of students we know.

As the teaching year comes to an end, our energy is not exactly at its best. We have worked hard through a tough semester. Mumps and spring colds are thriving in the building and now we get the clear – even though unsurprising news – that the job we do and love doing is not only not necessary but also not that good to be actually ’saved’.

And the problem is not only the job cuttings, it’s the lack of trust. These changes are not clearly thought out from an educational point of view and it is not even transparent that they have been carefully thought out with a business mind. So of course we feel helpless and unappreciated. 

And then there is the statement of ‘But Spanish is all right’. And ok, the truth is that Irish, Spanish and French probably hold a privileged position. We are stronger language departments that have been growing in the last decades, but what? If educational programmes are at the mercy of student numbers ONLY, we could all be in a vulnerable position soon enough. And as we say in Spanish ‘cuando las barbas de tu vecino veas pelar, pon las tuyas a remojar’ (when you see your neighbour being shaved, start washing your beard). 

And the razor has been sharpened. So why do you think they should keep us? Why is language learning and teaching so good and necessary!? MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD

The present climate is generating very interesting responses and some of the Irish colleges have decided to drop their language requirements as the Irish independent explains today:

Colleges drop language requirement for science

http://www.independent.ie/education/latest-news/colleges-drop-language-requirement-for-science-1238357.html

which together with the

Cutbacks threat to Irish language schools

http://www.independent.ie/education/latest-news/cutbacks-threat-to-irish-language-schools-1242076.html

clarify the approach that the present Irish government is taking as a response to recession.

In the current context, when the independent published last Monday that

Hundreds of college jobs facing the chop

http://www.independent.ie/education/latest-news/hundreds-of-college-jobs-facing-the-chop-1674038.html

seems quite clear to me that languages will be butchered pretty soon, especially since it seems that model to be followed is the British system, so successful on taking languages out of their curricular choices fastly and furiously.

So here we go, colleagues, another reason to add to our teacher pressures. So while we are encouraged to take action in all other spheres of our lives (environment, health, time management…), will we, language teachers and language lovers, retreat to our babel tower and hope for the best? or act locally and think globally in accordance to our all our other postmodern agendas?

Enjoy your lunch! Bon appetit! Buen provecho! On egin! Bon profit! Dobrou Chut! Guten Appetit! Buon Appetito! Smacznego! (and I’m TERRIBLY  sorry I didn’t find the Irish equivalent!)

A new idea I have had is to start highlighting the work of some theorists and teachers that have inspired me with their ideas or their actions. One of those people is Dr. Daniel Cassany. He’s an amazing teacher in the department of translation and language sciences of the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, which is one of the universities located in Barcelona (lucky him!). I came across his work when I was reading about collaborative teaching methods in language and by collaborative, I (and he) don’t mean between teachers (only) but also between teachers, students and everybody else who dares to enter a teaching/learning situation. His extensive CV and publications (and conference presentations) can be viewed in Spanish and Cataln in his website:  http://www.upf.edu/pdi/dtf/daniel_cassany/

His books concentrate on writing and editing but he’s also published on general language teaching and the european language portfolio.

His research interests range from composition and didactics,  intervention in written communication at the organization level, scientific discourse analysis, ELP and critical literacy.

I met him in a conference in Montreal at Concordia University, where he developed a very interesting workshop on the collaborative enterprise of composing a story. I am travelling to Barcelona this weekend myself to do some research for my Ph.D. dissertation in both the library of the Pompeu Fabra University and the Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona, but I’ll take advantage and interview him in English or Spanish and post that interview here.

His due to come to the National University of Ireland, Galway in 2010 for the I International Language Conference that we are trying to organize.

I almost lost the plot last week. You know it. You have it all organized and ready, your course program clear, your classes prepared with two weeks in advanced and then midterm correcting madness starts. Assignments arrive by the dozens and you don’t have physical time to deal with the correcting and giving proper feedback. Students drop by to ask you about them. Meetings pop up. The weekend disappear.

Yes, we are stressed teachers and we aren’t any better for being so stressed. I read an amazing book at the beginning of this year:

TRAVERS, C.J. & C.L. COOPER (1996) Teachers Under Pressure: Stress in the Teaching Profession, Routledge: London and NY.

They identify sources of teachers stress such as: Pupil/Teacher interaction, Management of structure of the school; class sizes; changes in education; appraisal of teachers; concerns of management; lack of status; staff shortages; job insecurity and ambiguity of the teacher’s role. I found it quite useful to see this classification because it helps me identify where my stress is generated instead of letting it all loose and head directly towards burn-out. In page 161 they also bring to the attention of educational managers a series of solutions.

We can also discuss in this blog or create a forum if you think it could be useful the ways in which we feel stressed and when we feel them. We could definitely create a network for the support of teachers that feel under pressure. Let me know what you think!

Dear all,

My colleagues Doris Devilly, Michelle Tooher and I are at present involved in a NAIRTL-funded research project on Web 2.0 technologies in language learning and teaching. Our aim is to create a Wiki (Wikilingua.ie) for language teachers which will hopefully become a valuable resource and platform for everyone who is involved in language teaching.

 To analyse and better understand the current situation regarding needs and practices in the field, we have prepared an online questionnaire, which should not take longer than 10-15 minutes to fill in. We would appreciate it very much if you could spend some of your time on this questionnaire and help us with our project. The questionnaire can be found at:

 http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=Mw_2fGs_2bgCkTGlwZ9PuudPFw_3d_3d

 Thank you very much!

 Best regards,

 Berit Carmesin (NUIG)

Prof. McLaren has sent us a great article for those interested in linguistic diversity.

http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/index.php?id=3624

“Endangered (Linguistic) Species”
Manx, Aasax, Ubykh, Eyak: Once spoken in, respectively, the Isle
of Man, Tanzania, Turkey, and Alaska, all four languages have
died out in the last 35 years. Of the 6,000 or so languages still
heard in the world, about 2,500 are at risk, and 199 have fewer
than 10 speakers left, according to Unesco.    To bring attention
to the plight of these endangered linguistic species, Unesco
today unveiled an interactive online version of the latest
edition of its _Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger._ (The
print edition comes out next month.) The atlas draws on the work
of more than 30 linguists, supervised by its editor in chief,
Christopher Moseley of Australia.    Users of the atlas can
search by country or area, language name, number of speakers, or
vitality, which includes five categories: unsafe, definitely
endangered, severely endangered, critically endangered, and
extinct. Each search takes you to a Google map with balloons that
mark the home turf of each language; click on a balloon and you
get a series of virtual notecards that give you that tongue’s
name(s), latitude and longitude, number of speakers, and status.
The Unesco team clearly hopes to add outside expertise to its
work; users can record comments or corrections for each entry.
Is there good news? Glad you asked. In a news release, Unesco
says that the atlas shows that the situation is not “universally
alarming.” Papua New Guinea, for instance, has more than 800
languages–the most of any country–but “relatively few”
endangered ones (88). Some languages declared extinct, including
Cornish (Cornwall) and Sishee (New Caledonia), are the focus of
revitalization projects.    Should we rush to blame global
goliaths like English for what’s happening to the world’s
linguistic diversity? Maybe not. “It would be naïve and
oversimplifying to say that the big ex-colonial languages,
English or French or Spanish, are the killers, and all smaller
languages are the victims,” Mr. Moseley says in the news release.
“It is not like that; there is a subtle interplay of forces, and
this atlas will help ordinary people to understand those forces
better.”    Multilinguists should also mark their calendars for
Saturday, February 21, which is International Mother Language
Day, established by Unesco in 2000 to celebrate linguistic and
cultural diversity. –Jennifer Howard