Skills drive risks mental health

By Katherine Sellgren
BBC News education reporter

Adult classes can range from art appreciation to gardening
Mental health is being put at risk as adult education classes are sidelined in favour of basic skills training.

A government report has found life-long learning to be an important way of guarding against mental illness.

But the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (Niace) said 1.4 million fewer adult education classes had been taken in the past three years.

It said the drive to improve workplace skills in England had seen classes like art and languages decline rapidly.

BBC website

Graduates and their early careers- HEFCE report

From the executive summary:

8. Of the strategically important subjects, engineering had the highest mean salary for employed graduates after six months. When considering employment three and a half years after graduating, modern foreign language graduates have the highest mean salary.

HEFCE website

Future brighter for science and languages

The future of science and other key vulnerable subjects, which have seen declines in the past in the number of students, is now far healthier than it was three years ago, Professor David Eastwood, Chief Executive of the Higher Education Funding Council for England, said today (21 October).

HEFCE : News : 2008 : 21 October 2008

Links

David Eastwood on BBC Radio 4
http://www.hefce.ac.uk/news/hefce/2008/sivsint.htm


Student interest in science and languages revives.
Efforts to save vulnerable courses are bearing fruit, says university funding body. The Guardian

Faroes Project: YouTube meets language teaching!

The FAROES project, led by the Learning Societies Lab, at the University of Southampton and in association with the University of Portsmouth, presented and tested a beta version of the FAROES Language Box, 15th October, at Portsmouth University. The Language Box uses the best-practice principles of Web 2.0 sites - that they are social, interlinked, evolving, flexible, visually exciting and easy to use – in a prototype online space, designed for language teachers to store, manage and share their resources.

The day was attended by about 20 colleagues from across the language teaching community, who tested the usability of the Language Box and uploaded their own resources to begin actively looking at issues around sharing their materials. Kate Borthwick represents LLAS on the project team, and enjoyed hearing the feedback and comments from attendees – all of which will be taken away and processed so it can inform the next stage of development!
See the Language Box at http://languagebox.eprints.org and read more at www.faroes.ecs.soton.ac.uk.

British dialects "on brink of extinction" - Yahoo! News UK

British dialects "on brink of extinction" - Yahoo! News UK: Tuesday, October 14 09:54 am-

Britons are struggling to get to grips with the country's rich vocabulary of regional dialects to such an extent that they are 'teetering on the brink of extinction,' according to a linguistics professor."

Debut: the undergraduate journal of languages, linguistics and area studies

The Subject Centre is launching a new online journal for undergraduate students. Debut: the undergraduate journal of languages, linguistics and area studies welcomes scholarly papers written by undergraduate students in languages, linguistics and area studies. Each paper is reviewed by two academics or postgraduate students. Papers could be based on dissertations, (including year abroad projects), class projects or independent research. Full details and guidelines are at: http://www.llas.ac.uk/news/3088

LLAS October e-bulletin

This month's ebulletin is now available on the subject centre website at:
http://www.llas.ac.uk/e-bulletin.aspx
We would be grateful if you would forward this bulletin to colleagues and relevant mailing lists. Please do not hesitate to contact the Subject Centre if you have any queries regarding this bulletin.

Spanish in the USA

Más 'speak spanish' que en España

The US has the second largest Spanish-speaking population in the world. But according to a new report by the Institute Cervantes, by 2050 it could have the largest. This article, in El País online, describes the phenomenal growth of Spanish in the US.

BBC NEWS | Wales | Singer's London Welsh School show

BBC NEWS Wales Singer's London Welsh School show

Cerys Matthews will provide the pre-dinner entertainment
Singer Cerys Matthews is set to perform at a charity ball to raise funds for her children's school - the only Welsh medium school outside Wales.
London Welsh School, which educates primary age children bilingually, cannot get funding from the assembly government because it is not in Wales."