North West

We are pleased to announce that the North West entry "Bacon Butty" won the LAFTA Award for the category of World of Languages. The video clip was produced by students from Cumbria University and was praised for its quality of shooting, and its strong message that it is not cool to be monolingual.

You can view the winning clip through this link (it is clip number 21):
http://www.languageswork.org.uk/learner_zone/the_laftas/peoples_vote/shortlisted_videos.aspx

Congratulations to Jake McLaughlin from Irlam and Cadishead High School for his excellent account about the Language Enrichment Day held at the University of Manchester! His school awarded him with a £10 gift voucher, as well as presenting him with a certificate and medal for his achievement.

Please click here to see a copy of Jake's written account.

The Portuguese Consulate General in Manchester is offering a work placement to a highly motivated individual, keen to work within a Portuguese environment that will provide the ideal opportunity to perfect his/her Portuguese language skills while gaining valuable work experience.

Job Purpose
To provide comprehensive support in the day-to-day operation of the Consulate.

Main duties

1. To help maintain databases through data input of Consular registrations.
2. To support the Consulate’s enquiry service by responding to email enquiries in Portuguese or in English, as appropriate.
3. To translate into English or Portuguese specific documentation such as birth certificates, marriage certificates, criminal records, powers of attorney, etc.
4. To research relevant information relating to local services that may be beneficial to the Portuguese community residing in the UK.
5. To do mail-outs and deal with selected day-to-day correspondence in English or Portuguese, as appropriate.
6. To undertake other relevant duties when required.

Personal attributes required

• Degree or equivalent qualification (Desirable)
• Excellent IT skills (Essential)
• Excellent written and spoken communication and interpersonal skills which would allow easy interaction with a variety of individuals at different levels, in person and on the phone (Essential)
• Advanced level in spoken and written Portuguese and English (Essential)
• Good translation skills (Desirable)
• Good time keeping skills (Essential)

Duration: min. 3 months. Full-time, ideally. Part-time will be considered.

Remuneration: unpaid.

Training and support provided: the trainee will be offered an introduction to Consular duties, and will receive in-job training in specific areas, including the translation of legal documentation. On completion of the placement, the trainee will receive a letter of reference with evaluation of performance.
 

For more information and to apply, please contact Christina Sousa from the Regional Language Network North West: cristina.sousa@rln-northwest.com

We are pleased to announce that Abrar Aqil, a pupil from Al Hijra Supplementary School, won the joint silver award in the Community Languages category. Her award will be presented at the ‘Language Stars’ award ceremony, which takes place on 6th July 2010.

Al Hijra Supplementary School is one of our partner schools, so we are very pleased for this pupil. This award is further evidence of the COLT Project's success in raising the profile of world languages and building bridges with complementary
schools!

We are pleased to announce that the Teacher Training strand of the COLT project has been awarded the European Award for Languages this year. The Award is a Europe-wide initiative supported by the European Commission.

We are delighted to have received this award which provides external ratification of the excellent work done by the COLT team and, in particular, the teacher training component of the project.

We have now developed a toolkit for this part of COLT, and the teacher training framework is going to be rolled out across the East and West Midlands, London and within the North West region through the Links project. The feedback from the course participants was excellent and it is clear that this project has the potential to make a real difference nationally in terms of building the UK capacity in world languages.

The MEN Asian News have published an article about this Award!  

You can now follow us on Twitter @ http://twitter.com/COLTproject

Links into Languages North West invites you to attend a development meeting on Tuesday 15th June from 1.30-3.30pm. This will be taking place at Sackville Street Campus, the University of Manchester.

This is a meeting jointly organised by Routes into Languages and Links into Languages to discuss ways forward in the teaching of Urdu in all settingss across the North West. If you are teaching in secondary or supplementary schools then this meeting is for you! Heads of Department from school where Urdu is taught are also welcome to attend this meeting.

Areas for discussion:

• Integrating Urdu into mainstream language teaching
• Options for qualifications
• Raising achievement, status and uptake
• Issues and concerns

 To book a place, or register, please contact Shady Nowrouz, Regional Administrator on 0161 306 3924 or via email:

shady.nowrouz@manchester.ac.uk

NORTH WEST LAFTA CLIPS SHORTLISTED FOR NATIONAL LAFTA AWARD

CILT, the National Centre for Languages, has collated all of the regional winners of the LAFTAs and has confirmed that the following clips from the North West region have been put forward for the national shortlist:

•  Bacon Butty (Categories: Best clip over 16, World of languages category)

• Importance of Languages London 2012 (Categories: Best clip under 16, 2012 category, World of languages category)

To view the clips, click on the links above or visit: www.languageswork.org.uk/learner_zone/the_laftas/peoples_vote/shortlisted_videos.aspx

There are 25 clips in total on the shortlist and the film makers have been contacted to let them know their clip has been shortlisted.

All of the shortlisted film makers will be invited to the award ceremony on 6 July at the British Film Institute in London. All the clips from the regional heats are being presented to the national judges on an equal basis and the overall winners of the LAFTAs competition will be chosen by the national judges from the shortlist and announced at the award ceremony in July.

You can help out by casting your vote on the People’s Vote on the Languages Work website for the shortlisted clips. To take part in the People’s Vote and vote for your favourite shortlisted clip, please see www.languageswork.org.uk/learner_zone/the_laftas.aspx.

Anyone can take part in the People’s Vote and the shortlisted film makers are also allowed to vote for their own clip! The winner of the People’s Vote will be announced at the award ceremony.

Your vote for the North West entry clips would be much appreciated!