Grammar pilot helping deaf people

A new approach to teaching English-language reading and writing skills to deaf people is delivering "immensely promising" results, a charity has said.

Glasgow-based, Deaf Connections, is the first organisation in Europe to pilot Manipulative Visual Language (MVL).

BBC website

Protests as Sussex University axes linguistics courses

Hundreds of students and lecturers staged a protest after the shock announcement their university planned to close a course ranked among the best in Britain.

The rally was called at the University of Sussex's campus in Falmer, Brighton, yesterday to fight the cost-cutting decision to scrap its linguistics courses.

The Argus
25 March 2009

Language no barrier for Polish pupil

Wictor Zaborowski is 13-years-old, and when he came to Scotland in 2007 from Lublim in the east of Poland he could speak just a few words of English.

Now he acts as the in-school interpreter for his Polish classmates at St Andrew's High School in Coatbridge.

BBC website

Exam 'may need Irish translation'

Grammar schools setting their own transfer tests may have to translate them into Irish, Education Minister Caitríona Ruane has said.

She said pupils from Irish medium primary schools must get an equal chance, and failure to do so could lead to legal challenges from parents.

BBC website

Arts and language subjects miss out on funding

Dramatic changes to the UK's academic landscape over the past seven years mean the country's expertise in languages is danger of being lost.

Data published today shows research into some European languages has dropped as universities have shifted their focus to sports science and media studies in response to student demand. And the government's determination to protect funding for science means less money to go round for higher numbers of academics in arts and humanities.

The Guardian

Europe drives two languages goal

Four in five secondary school students across the EU ought to be learning two European languages by 2020, the European Commission has said.

BBC website