Author: Gillian Campbell-Thow, Glasgow City Council
After a big push on primary language learning over the session, we've just finished training two full cohorts of primary French and primary Spanish teachers. Another two cohorts have started – one in each language – and we still have a waiting list! We are delighted to be running Italian PLL courses this session which have been led by our primary Italian staff tutor. We also offer a shorter course for introductory language learning and are on our fourth session of French and second of Spanish, as well as Urdu and Arabic. These shorter courses are focused on talking and listening and looking at language acquisition in early years.
Nine of our teachers are currently on the consortium Gaelic Primary Language training and one of the trainers in the authority is running refresher training too! We are placing a special emphasis on German and Italian and have been delighted to see teachers engaging with CLPL provided by the Goethe-Institut and Giglets. We have delivered various refresher days, an inset on drama, story-telling and active learning, and Articulate Language has been working with us to provide excellent CLPL in languages and outdoor learning – something we want to do more of!
We've had the chance to work with learning communities as a whole and are now delighted to see these communities working together to firmly establish their core language and look at the opportunities for L3 – we are certainly not stuck for choice with over 130 languages spoken in our schools.
Our secondary schools continue to be hubs of activities with lots of great teaching and learning going on in our classrooms. We have 12 secondary teachers back at university adding another language to their portfolio so we can offer the maximum linguistic opportunities to our young people. Two languages in secondary school is a core part of our business and we are working with departments to further enhance this provision with the support of MLAs. Our last round of permanent appointments have all been dual linguists and we hope to be able to maintain this in the future.
1+2 is looking bright in Glasgow – and certainly colourful! Keep up with all of our activities and news @glasgowlangs.
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