Latest News

24 July 2024 (BBC)

Gaelic in Scotland is in a "perilous state" and more needs to be done to "urgently support" language speakers, a Holyrood committee has warned.

The Scottish government has introduced the Scottish Languages Bill which aims to support both the Gaelic and Scots languages.

But members of the Scottish Parliament's education committee have warned that the new legislation's aims may not be achieved unless government support goes further.

In a new report scrutinising the bill, MSPs said that ministers needed to do more for the legislation to "make any meaningful difference rather than simply being symbolic".

The report comes as figures from the 2022 census in Scotland showed just 0.1% of people said Gaelic was their main language.

The survey found that 2.5% of people aged three and over had some skills in Gaelic in 2022, an increase of about 50% on the figures for 2011 and 2001.

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22 July 2024 (The National)

The Scottish public are being called on to nominate their Scots language heroes ahead of a national awards ceremony.

Arts organisation Hands Up For Trad is calling on people to put forward their Scots language champions for national recognition as nominations for the Scots Language Awards are now open.

The ceremony celebrates Scots in daily life, education, business arts and culture and will take place in Cumnock Town Hall on September 14 as the awards travel to Ayrshire for the first time.

Nominations are open until Sunday 4 August.

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15 July 2024 (British Council)

Vicky Gough takes a look at the results of the latest British Council Language Trends England survey and finds schools struggling, but hope for the future with the creation of the new national network of lead hub schools across England.

While conducting this year’s Language Trends England survey, one schoolteacher shared their struggle to recruit an experienced language teacher. In the end, they hired the only candidate who was interviewed.

Unfortunately, this has become a common issue nationwide. Sixty per cent of schools reported challenges in recruiting qualified language teachers this year, with state schools particularly affected - nearly a third described recruitment as a “major issue.”

This problem is cyclical and has been growing for years. Since 2004, when language GCSEs became non-mandatory in England, French entries, for example, have more than halved. Lower GCSE uptake has impacted A-level numbers, especially in German and French, which have dwindled over the past two decades causing universities to struggle to fill courses.

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20 June 2024 (Institut français)

The 'Concours de la francophonie' : an annual rendez-vous for schools!

The 'Concours de la francophonie' is organised every year by the Institut français d’Ecosse since its creation in 2016.

For the 2025 edition, there will be two competitions:

– One for primary school pupils

– One for secondary school pupils

For the first time the competition associates the Institut français d’Ecosse with the French Film Festival UK Learning Programme (FFF UK).

All primary and secondary schools in Scotland offering French and participating in the French Film Festival UK Learning Programme will be eligible to enter the 'Concours de la francophonie', in line with the rules. Submission deadline: 15 January 2025.

Visit the 'Concours de la francophonie' website for full details.

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18 June 2024 (French Film Festival)

The French Film Festival UK 2024 Learning Programme will once again be bringing French-speaking cinema into schools free of charge this autumn! The programme of four films, each accompanied by learning packs, will run between 28 October and 18 December. This year we are linking up with the French Institute in Scotland for the Francophonie Competition for schools.

Full details will be available on the French Film Festival website shortly and book up your film from mid-August onwards.

The attached programme flyer contains booking links and email contacts for further information about the learning resources and the Francophonie competition.

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14 June 2024 (SCILT)

Box fresh and open for bookings! SCILT’s menu of CLPL group workshops for 2024-25.

Up-to-date and interactive, SCILT workshops for teachers are a great way for you and your colleagues to explore aspects of languages pedagogy with our experienced Professional Development Officers.

If you are the person in your department, school, cluster or local authority with a remit to source high quality subject specific professional learning for colleagues, then you will definitely be interested in our brand new menu of CLPL workshops.

For 2024-25, our carefully designed inputs cover a variety of topics related to the learning and teaching of languages:

Primary and Early Years

• First steps in teaching primary modern languages
• Valuing linguistic diversity in schools, with families
• Bringing the languages content to primary interdisciplinary learning
• Making assessment in primary languages active and accessible
• Give careers education a languages twist for your primary pupils

Secondary

• Teaching Sprints – Small change, big impact
• Social-Emotional learning for languages
• Talking and listening
• Reading and writing
• BYOW: Build your own workshop

We are always happy to accommodate bespoke CLP requests too. Whatever your colleagues need, just ask and we will design a workshop with tailored content, just for them. 

For more detail about the menu, and to book one or more workshop for the group of teachers that you support, see the professional learning request form.

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11 June 2024 (SCILT)

Suzanne Ritchie, Professional Development Officer at SCILT, is reaching out to German teachers to join a network for Teachers of German in Scotland (TOGS). This network aims to build a community to share experiences, practice and ideas, to highlight initiatives and potential partnerships, and to build support to enable German to grow in Scottish schools.

If you are a teacher of German in a primary or secondary school in Scotland (either currently teaching it or keen to introduce it) and you are interested in receiving more information in the months ahead, please add your name to the mailing list. Suzanne will be in touch with more information after the summer break. 

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10 June 2024 (SCILT)

Session 2023-24 saw the first national roll-out of Language Explorers Scotland (formerly known as Scotland's Languages Explorers Programme, SLEP), a flagship languages mentoring project run by SCILT in partnership with UCFLS. This mentoring programme was inspired by the success of similar mentoring programmes in the UK. Language Explorers Scotland aims to raise awareness amongst BGE secondary age learners of the far-reaching benefits of language learning by facilitating a short programme of mentoring sessions led by university students with lived experiences of language learning and multiculturalism.

Similar projects currently running in Wales and other parts of the UK have demonstrated that small group work with a student mentor can have a positive impact on learners in school, and lead to an increase in the number of learners continuing with languages into higher levels of study.

Language Explorers Scotland 2024-25 will run in partnership with universities across Scotland, including the Universities of Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow, St Andrews, Stirling, Strathclyde, Heriot-Watt University and the Open University. Interested schools can find out more about the mentoring programme and hear from last year’s student mentors on our Language Explorers Scotland webpage.

Please be aware that this programme runs online, therefore it is imperative that interested schools have an adequate technical set-up and internet connection to allow for remote interactions between mentees and mentors. Geographical proximity to a university is not necessary. Further information, including key dates, can be found on the programme webpage where registrations of interest will open in September and the live link will be published. Successful schools should anticipate hosting their languages mentoring sessions between mid-November and the end of February, in liaison with their mentors.

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