Graham Davies

Andrew writes: Yes, scary, isn't it? It was parodied by the Spitting Image team when the Tory Party under Margaret Thatcher's leadership came up for re-election and was broadcast on the eve of her third victory. The blonde Hitler Youth was replaced by a youth dressed in a business suit and raising an umbrella in a Nazi salute. The line "Do you think you can still control them?" was uttered by a Roy Hattersley puppet to a despairing Neil Kinnock puppet. I still have the recording somewhere.

Initially, I thought I saw a glimmer of hope in the TR that might lighten the hearts of language teachers in the UK, but I now think I was mistaken. Foreign languages are in a disastrous situation in the UK – you can read more about this in the Modern Languages section of this Forum. Children can give up studying a foreign language at 14 – which means that if they started the language at age 11 they are unlikely to have learned enough of the language for it to be of any practical use. 350-400 hours of study are recommended by the Council of Europe to achieve Threshold Level (CEF B1), i.e. the point at which you begin to communicate with a degree of confidence in a variety of situations. This is equivalent to Higher GCSE. I see nothing in the TR that changes the situation whereby senior management teams in schools can juggle the subject options for their own convenience, i.e. as they do at the moment in order to make their performance tables stats look good. On the plus side, the core skills of Maths, Literacy and ICT are a good thing, but most European countries would include knowledge of a foreign language as a core skill. We have chosen – once again – to remain resolutely monolingual. Déjà vu! I am not an avid supporter of The Daily Telegraph, but this leading article (19 Oct 04) contains some food for thought: http://www.opinion.telegraph.co.uk/opinion.../ixopinion.html

Generally speaking, I am not in favour of censoring people's opinions, but we have recently had a few cases of blatant and aggressive rudeness in this Forum, emanating from someone with an apparent desire to wreak havoc - Andy and John know who I am talking about. In such cases, I think we have no option but to shut them up, as the public display of rude messages puts off new members and may cause established members to seriously consider whether they wish to continue their membership.

Dear Audrey / Colleagues This is the page containing the article in The Independent, 28/2/2002 http://education.independent.co.uk/schools...sp?story=177471 The headline is: But, again, it's only "entitlement". As for the Tomlinson Report, there are only three core skills: 1. Maths (i.e. basic numeracy) 2. Literacy (i.e. English) 3. ICT (i.e. basic computer skills) I see no glimmer of hope on the horizon for languages. As The Daily Telegraph put it (Opinion, 19 Oct 2004): http://www.opinion.telegraph.co.uk/opinion.../ixopinion.html

Audrey asks: As far as I'm aware, languages remain an "entitlement" - a dreadful word that means you don't have to do something if you don't want to - or if the senior management team don't want you to. See the CILT report: http://www.cilt.org.uk/key/tomlinson.rtf

I agree with David. Terry Atkinson's Reflections on ICT is one of the major omissions that I (and others) spotted. It's sitting on my bookshelf, and I immediately grabbed it when I read the BECTA report to remind myself that it was obviously an important omission - which indeed it is. I agree too that BECTA, ALL and CILT are all doing the same kind of work in this area, with a high degree of overlaps and also significant oversights - as we see in the latest BECTA report. But there is some convergence taking place at present. EUROCALL, CALICO and IALLT do tend to draw mainly on the HE constituency for membership, but this does not mean that their focus is entirely on HE. This year's EUROCALL conference, for example, included a paper entitled "CALL for MFL in Primary Schools - the Irish Model", and Norbert Pachler's keynote focused predominantly on the UK secondary school sector. Jim Coleman's paper focused on research in the HE sector and its implications for the next RAE, but remember that good deal of the research carried out in HE focuses on what is going on in the secondary school sector, e.g. I examined a PhD candidate earlier this year whose research focused predominantly on the use of ICT in MFL in secondary schools in the Manchester area.

BECTA has produced a report called: "What the research says about using ICT in Modern Foreign Languages": http://www.becta.org.uk/page_documents/research/wtrs_mfl.pdf I am grateful to Ros Walker for drawing my attention to this document. It's not bad, but it's very brief and only scratches the surface. Obviously BECTA is unaware of EUROCALL's work in this area: v. the many conference papers presented and published in recent years on action research into the use of ICT in the MFL classroom: http://www.eurocall-languages.org Contrary to what the BECTA document says, Research into CALL is extensive. It enjoyed a boost following the Joint Policy Statement on Research that was produced by EUROCALL, CALICO and IALLT in 1999: http://www.eurocall-languages.org/research...rch_policy.html I am, however, pleased to see that the report edited by myself and Anthony Fitzpatrick and entitled "The Impact of Information and Communications Technologies on the Teaching of Foreign Languages and on the Role of Teachers of Foreign Languages" is cited. This is a comprehensive report commissioned by the EC Directorate General of Education and Culture, which can be downloaded in PDF or Word format from the ICC website: http://www.icc-europe.com - click on "Report on ICT in FLL". I am also pleased to see that one of my articles is cited, namely "ICT and modern foreign languages: learning opportunities and training needs", published in International Journal of English Studies 2, 1: Monograph Issue, New Trends in Computer Assisted Language Learning and Teaching, edited by Pascual Pérez Paredes & Pascual Cantos Gómez, Servicio de Publicaciones, Universidad de Murcia, Spain, but this is not the most recent and most accessible version, which can be found in Scottish Languages Review 8, June 2003, Scottish CILT: http://www.scilt.stir.ac.uk/SLR/index.htm However - as usual - BECTA ignores the ICT4LT website, particularly Module 3.1, which presents three case studies of UK schools using ICT in MFL: http://www.ict4lt.org/en/en_mod3-1.htm An bibibliography by Ridwan Sedgwick, entitled “An annotated bibliography of the effectiveness of CALL”, can also be found at the ICT4LT site: http://www.ict4lt.org/en/Sedgwick.htm

I tend to agree with Andrew. There's nothing special about computer technology and language. While it is true to say that computer technology has generated a lot of new language most of it remains a mystery to the layman although words such as "input" and "output" have found a home in wider realms of language. The computer business is full of people in suits who use impenetrable jargon.

Dysnomia, eh? It's comforting to know that it's not uncommon. I just looked it up on the Web and it appears to extend to difficulty in remembering not just names but words in general. I don't have a problem remembering words, but names of old friends, film stars, pop musicians of my youth often escape me. Perhaps it's a case of the brain putting information that it doesn't regard as important on the back boiler. I usually recall a name eventually - often hours later when I am not consciously trying to recall it. What a person has done in life, what kind of person they are, etc is more important than their name - and perhaps the brain has sorted this out in its own hierarchy of things. Anyway, you can check a name on a person's conference badge - if your sight is still OK

Marco writes: You're probably right. Many of them sound familiar. I can, however, guarantee that the first two are genuine - not the exact words, perhaps, but definitely true. I could contribute many more. I could also contribute many examples of extreme rudeness on the part of customers whose immediate reaction to anything that they don't understand is to pick up the telephone and complain rather than doing the sensible thing first, i.e reading the manual - a problem that we, in common with many other software producers, call an RTFM problem. You probably know what RTFM stands for. If not, enter "define:RTFM" in Google's query box.

A friend sent me these funnies – supposedly based on real events. I’ve added two of my own, the first two, both of which ARE real and based on telephone conversations between my (Irish) business partner and customers. Anyway, it’s something to brighten up your weekend. HELPDESK LOG Customer (School ICT Technician): There’s something wrong with the computer program we’ve just bought from you: Helpdesk: I’m sorry to hear that. How can I help? Customer: When I run the program it just displays funny characters on the screen. Helpdesk: Well, yes, it would. It’s for learners of Russian. Customer: (Irritated.) What has that got to do with it? Helpdesk: Russian is written in the Cyrillic alphabet. Customer: (Even more irritated.) Cyril who? It looks like Greek to me. Helpdesk: (Smiling and unable to resist being ironic.) Well, it may be Greek to you but it’s Russian to the guy who wrote the program. I can assure you it’s OK. Customer: Thank you. Goodbye! -------------------------------------------------------------------- Customer (MFL Teacher): I can't get the program you sent me to work on my computer. Helpdesk: What kind of computer do you have? Customer: It’s very nice. It’s a grey one. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Customer: I can't get my diskette out. Helpdesk: Have you tried pushing the button? Customer: Yes, sure, it's really stuck. Helpdesk: That doesn't sound good; I'll make a note. Customer: No, wait a minute... …I hadn't inserted it yet. It's still on my desk. Sorry! -------------------------------------------------------------------- Helpdesk: Click on the 'my computer' icon on to the left of the screen. Customer: Your left or my left? -------------------------------------------------------------------- Customer: Hi, good afternoon, I can't print. Every time I try it says 'Can't find printer'. I've even lifted the printer and placed it in front of the monitor, but the computer still says he can't find it. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Customer: I have problems printing in red. Helpdesk: Do you have a colour printer? Customer: Aaaah... ...thank you. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Helpdesk: What's on your monitor now, madam? Customer: A teddy bear my boyfriend bought for me in the supermarket. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Helpdesk: And now hit F8. Customer: It's not working. Helpdesk: What did you do, exactly? Customer: I hit the F-key 8-times as you told me, but nothing's happening. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Customer: My keyboard is not working anymore. Helpdesk: Are you sure it's plugged into the computer? Customer: No. I can't get behind the computer. Helpdesk: Pick up your keyboard and walk 10 paces back. Customer: OK. Helpdesk: Did the keyboard come with you? Customer: Yes. Helpdesk: That means the keyboard is not plugged in. Is there another keyboard? Customer: Yes, there's another one here. Ah... …that one does work! -------------------------------------------------------------------- Helpdesk: Your password is the small letter ‘a’ as in apple, a capital letter ‘V’ as in Victor, the number 7. Customer: Is that 7 in capital letters? -------------------------------------------------------------------- A customer couldn't get on the Internet. Helpdesk: Are you sure you used the right password? Customer: Yes I'm sure. I saw my colleague do it. Helpdesk: Can you tell me what the password was? Customer: Five stars. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Helpdesk: What antivirus program do you use? Customer: Netscape. Helpdesk: That's not an antivirus program. Customer: Oh, sorry... …Internet Explorer. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Customer: I have a huge problem. A friend has placed a screensaver on my computer, but every time I move the mouse, it disappears. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Helpdesk: Microsoft Tech Support, may I help you? Customer: Good afternoon! I have waited over 4 hours for you. Can you please tell me how long it will take before you can help me? Helpdesk: Uhh..? Pardon, I don't understand your problem? Customer: I was working in Word and clicked the Help button more than 4 hours ago. Can you tell me when you will finally be helping me? -------------------------------------------------------------------- Helpdesk: How may I help you? Customer: I'm writing my first email. Helpdesk: OK, and, what seems to be the problem? Customer: Well, I have the letter ‘a’, but how do I get the circle around it?

Rowena writes: Don't tell me about it! I am suffering more and more from data cluttering up my brain. I have become particularly bad at remembering names these days. Often when I meet someone at a conference I recognise their face, recall where they are from, what subject they teach and what to order for them when it's my round at the bar - but I can't remember their name. See yesterday's Independent (14 Oct) p. 6: My elder daughter is a left-hander. She is now a professional graphic designer. She was never a great linguist at school and not a brilliant speller, but she copes quite well in spoken French. Generally speaking, the left hemisphere of the brain deals with language and language-related functions whereas the right hemisphere deals with non-lingual skills such as spatial recognition. The right hemisphere tends to dominate in left-handers, which may explain why there is a high proportion of left-handers in professions such as graphic design and architecture and why left-handers are often poor at languages. This is, of course, an over-simplification - the brain is a lot more complex than that.

David writes: No, of course not. Spelling Hungarian is easy, but everything else is hard going! Turkish spelling is straightforward because it's a recent spelling system, introduced in the 1920s when the Arabic script was replaced by Roman - which led to a huge leap in literacy.

Audrey writes: Some people are just completely blind to spelling systems that are different from their own. Rules simply have to be learned. I know the ie/ei problem only too well! Spanish is easier to spell, largely because of its simple vowel system, and every vowel is pronounced. Italian is only slightly less difficult - with consonant clusters being more of a problem than in Spanish, e.g. the necessity for an "h" after a "g" before a front vowel to signal that it's a hard "g", giving rise to words such as "ghiaccio" ("ice") - pronounced "gyacho". Welsh, by the way, is virtually phonetic, the main problem being the vowel "y", which can have two different values. Show me a written word in Welsh and I'll pronounce it more or less accurately - but I probably won't know what it means. Irish and Scottish Gaelic (closely related) have an impenetrable spelling system. Hungarian is almost phonetic, with a regular stress on the first syllable and secondary stresses falling like peas on a drum. Finnish is similar to Hungarian in this respect.

Audrey writes: No, German definitely does not pose a major problem, as it's virtually phonetic. If you hear a new word you can write it once you know the basic rules - most of the time. Similarly, if you see a new word in print, you can usually pronounce it, although you may have a problem in knowing where to put the primary and secondary stresses in longer words. But French is considered by English native speakers - and most others - to have a difficult spelling system. Reading French, once you understand the basic rules, is not too bad, but writing down new words that you hear for the first time is not easy. This is because of the numerous silent letters in French, elisions, and different ways of spelling the same sound. When I was at school we had a weekly dictation in French. This was considered a demanding but useful exercise. In many cases you can only spell the words correctly if you understand the context and the grammar - i.e. a dictation is calling upon your knowledge of vocab and grammar. We also had a weekly dictation in German, but this was not nearly as difficult a task as in French. In fact, I can remember writing down and spelling correctly whole chunks of German that I didn't understand. The question of spelling difficulties in different languages has been extensively researched. English and French always come high on the list as being languages that are "difficult to spell". See, for example, this page on dyslexia and learning foreign languages: http://www.hull.ac.uk/langinst/olc/DYSFAQ.htm Of the languages commonly studied in the UK, Spanish probably presents the fewest problems with regard to spelling.

David writes: My former university suffered from a Web revamp too. The university's colours were incorporated into the design, but this resulted in one of the "illegal" colour combinations, violet/yellow, being used extensively. Any graphic designer will tell you that this is wrong - for the reasons that I have already stated. I can't understand why websites are not subjected to the same scrutiny as graphic designs in general. My daughter, who is a professional graphic designer, learned all this kind of stuff at art college. She had copious lecture notes on colour combinations, font combinations, where to place pictures, how much white space to use, etc. This has all been well researched over many, many years. But now we have a new generation of whizz-kids who understand everything about HTML, XML and Javascript but nothing about design, and these are the ones that educational institutions and businesses foolishly let loose on their websites. The worst mistake my university made, however, was to incorporate an elaborate animation of it's logo on the front page. It looked great it you were accessing the site via broadband, but at the time most accesses were made from prospective students dialling in via a modem from home. When I tried to access the site via a modem myself, and it took a full 5 minutes for the homepage to load and the animation to start. Recruitment began to drop steadily around this time... I produce my business website myself. I am not skilled in graphic design, and I know nothing about XML and Javasccript. I use Dreamweaver and keep everything simple: http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk

I have heard at least three conference papers recently in which data was presented that showed clearly that students regarded the most useful aspect of websites as... wait for it... being able to access information that they could print off and read in comfort. That's the way I use the Web too. I locate an article, skim through it on screen and print it if it looks interesting. I get furious when I find articles broken up into chunks over several pages, with no "printer friendly" button available. I also get furious when presented with a searchable database, without having the option to get and overview, e.g. just headings, of everything it contains. Hypertext is not as loved as it used to be. My business sells a book called "Beyond Babel", which is accompanied by an optional CD-ROM (costing a few more pounds) containing over 600 annotated links to resources for language teachers on the Web. The CD-ROM is actually a digital version of one of the three chapters in the book. We have sold 25 copies of the book since Easter and only 7 copies of the CD-ROM to accompany it.

Audrey writes: Such as: Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch? My father, a native Welsh speaker, taught me how to pronounce this place name at at early age - even though I was born and grew up in Kent. Kent has some weird names too, e.g. Trottiscliffe, pronounced "Trosley", and "Wrotham", pronounced "Rootam". Actually, the Welsh place name is a bit of a fake. The original name was supposedly lengthened by a local cobbler to attract commerce and tourism, but the village does exist. I've been there several times on the way to catch the ferry from Holyhead (Caergybi) to Dun Laoghaire. It's always full of tourists. So what's in a name?

Does CILT really cast doubt on whether it is easier to learn languages at an earlier age? Source? The following seems to contradict this. However, doubts have certainly been cast on the quality of language teaching at primary school level. There are simply not enough properly trained teachers at present. See this article in The Independent (28 Feb 2002): http://education.independent.co.uk/schools...sp?story=177471 Have a look at the NACELL site: http://www.nacell.org.uk National Advisory Centre for Early Language Learning

There's a good article on ICT in MFL in the education section of today's Independent (14 Oct). I am biased when I say "good" as they have quoted me extensively (and accurately), and they did follow up an important lead that I gave them: http://education.independent.co.uk/schools...sp?story=571842 It's nice to be listened to. I sent BECTA a long email on ICT Amenability and MFL, but they appear to have ignored it totally.

Ireland? Yes, been there done that - many times! My wife Sally is from Belfast and my sister-in-law is from Cork. Irish Gaelic seems to have a lot of redundant vowels - three vowels for one sound. The language sounds beautiful. We were on holiday in Ireland last year, including Gaeltacht (Gaelic-speaking area) of Galway last year. We took a boat trip to Aran, where mainly Gaelic is spoken. Dun Laoghaire is an easy name! Have you noticed that the Gaelic for Dublin is Baile atha Cliath? This is the original name of the city and appears on all signposts. It's pronounced something like "Balya Clear", I think but Gaelic speakers may be able to advise me here. Dublin is the name the city was given by the Vikings. It's a translation into Gaelic (Dubh Linn) of its Viking name "Black Pool". The BBC Languages website has a good introductory course in Irish, "Giota Beag" ("A little bit"): http://www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/blas/...ers/index.shtml

David writes: EAL is a new one on me, though it does seem to have a website: http://www.eal.org.uk

John writes: See colours on the Web: http://www.webwhirlers.com/colors/combining.asp Browser-safe colours http://www.websitetips.com/designer/colors1.html I’m not sure about magenta/yellow. It’s close to the “illegal” violet/yellow combination. I find magenta/yellow hard to read. I remember a producer from the BBC visiting my language centre back in the 1980s when we began experimenting with the BBC micro, one of the first cheap colour computers. She shot holes in the language combinations we were suing. I guess the BBC has done some pretty thorough research in this area.

Andy writes: Makes perfectly good sense!

Magic language learning moments I'm delighted that this section of the Forum is livening up. Please feel free to start new threads. I'm starting a new one here: "Magic language learning moments". I'm looking for anecdotes falling into the following categories: 1. A personal experience where you were struggling in a foreign language and would have benefited from knowing it better. 2. A personal experience where your knowledge (even limited knowledge) of a foreign language proved to be a very satisfying experience. 3. A point in time where, having studied a language for some time, you suddenly felt you had made a breakthrough. Here are my contributions: 1. I was travelling with a group of colleagues in Hungary. As the only one in the group that had any knowledge of Hungarian, I was designated to buy the tickets for a short train excursion – no problem: basic transactional language. The train that we expected to arrive did not appear. I asked a porter when the train was expected – no problem in formulating the question and understanding the answer – but his answer did not make sense to me, as he appeared to be saying that it would be many hours before the next train arrived. It finally dawned on us It finally dawned on us (by comparing the station clocks with our watches) that this was the weekend in Hungary when the clocks went forward for summer time and we had missed the train. I went back to the ticket office to try to get a refund on the tickets. Somehow or other I managed to explain the situation using expressions such as “This train did not go”. Eventually, we found an English-speaking Hungarian ticket office clerk who sorted it all out for us. We got our refund. I was encouraged by this experience to keep working on my Hungarian. Transactional language is easy - until something goes wrong. 2. In the 1980s I spent many pleasurable holidays in Italy with my wife and two daughters. At the time I had decided to follow the BBC “Buongiorno Italia” course. I quickly reached the point where I felt fairly comfortable in using basic transactional language, so I put it to the test on our next holiday in Italy by ordering a meal in a restaurant for the four of us. The whole process went smoothly, with the waiter speaking clearly and slowly. When I had finished ordering, the waiter said in perfect English: “I like people who try. You can have half a litre of wine on the house.” The waiter had worked in a restaurant in England only a few miles from where we live. A side-note: Why, oh why, is the BBC cutting down on TV language courses for adults and putting so much effort into Web-based materials? 3. I was a student of German in the 1960s. As part of my university course I spent a period abroad at a German university. At the time I was by no means fluent in German, and always had to think carefully when constructing sentences with subordinate clauses in which the main verb fell at the end of the clause. I joined the university film club, watching German language films three times a week. Suddenly, after listening to many hours of spoken German, it seemed “normal” to me to put the verb at the end of the clause, and I began to utter complex sentences with confidence. The listening skill had transferred to the speaking skill, it seems. A breakthrough had been achieved, and I never looked back.