Learning Language Options - English French Hebrew Welsh and other languages

England's Department of Education is paying more than £500,000 a year to schools which have large populations needing help learning to speak English. Could they do this more cheaply or quickly?

Berlitz Earworms - For Adults Travelling

Berlitz teaches by immersion. Repetition.

For adults going on holiday. No grammar. I use Earworms discs, which I play in the car on long journeys. Listen to conversations, starting on a plane, between a man and a woman and an air hostess. You can buy old copies second hand on Ebay for half a dozen languages. I bought several languages.

Linguaphone

I have also used Linguaphone discs for Spanish. They tell a story about a woman who speaks no Spanish being sent to Spain by her boss.

Duolingo's Free Courses Online

Duolingo has free language courses in many languages for children as well as adults. Each section of lessons has a guidebook, a grammar section, which gives you examples of different verbs, I you he she we they. starting with the present tense. Because they shared the school system, and flashcards, then withdrew them, it's good to save any system even if it is online, and free, in case the producers, decide it is not profitable, or they sell the system and it gets withdrawn.

Translation

Google translate covers most languages. You can play back the translation to hear the pronunciations. 

Learning Together - Buddies

If two children speak the same language, they can pair up and learn English together for a term. 

Learning By Teaching - Mentors

If two children speak different languages, they can pair up, using English as their mutual language.

Useful Travel Websites And Guides About Learning Languages

Wikitravel (with advertisements) and 

Wikivoyage (without advertisements) have phrasebooks for travellers. 

Creating School Workbooks

It should be possible to put together a standard workbook for all the world's main 50 languages. Call in the church, mosque, embassy, to  fast track a simple textbook and enrol volunteer teachers from students and the retired. And/or weekend and after school immersion classes.

Copying Other Countries

See how other countries cope.

American Schoolbooks & Simplified Spelling 

Printer Webster revised spelling for immigrants to the USA, publishing school textbooks and the dictionary. The schoolbooks must be out of copyright and can be reprinted and reused, in the USA - and the UK. Even if children in the UK learn American spelling, that is a big advance on not being able to speak English.

Family Group Teaching & Learning

Parents should attend classes with their children for half an hour after school every day.

How about getting older brothers and sisters to help the smaller ones? We may have to go back to the village school system, where brothers and sisters are in the same class, with the older ones helping the younger ones. 

Israel's Ulpans 

In Israel in 1948 Ulpans were set up to teach Hebrew to immigrants. Newcomers came from the Arab countries, Europe and elsewhere. Some centres were in Jerusalem. 

Uplans were in residential centres. Courses lasted about 5 months. Other centres were scattered around the countryside on the kibbutzim, collective farms. There the students were part time workers, part time students. 

This system has been copied in Wales, Scotland and elsewhere, such as Norway. In Wales the spelling of Ulpan is Welsh, Wlpan.

Flag of Wales with the red dragon on white and green.

America has bilingual schools.

Canada has French and English mandatory in government jobs and literature in the capital.

England used to have a bilingual school, the Lycee Francaise, for those whose parents spoke French.

Singapore has mother tongue schools for pupils whose parents speak the national languages (English, Chinese (Mandarin), Tamil (from southern India) and Malay.

French Schools in the UK

London​

L’école bilingue​

École française de Londres Jacques Prévert 

L’École des Petits & L’École de Battersea ​

La Petite École Française ​

Collège Français Bilingue de Londres ​(CFBL)​

EIFA International School London ​

Jeannine Manuel School ​

Lycée Français Charles de Gaulle de Londres ​

Lycée International de Londres Winston Churchill​​

Bristol​

École française de Bristol ​

Aberdeen​

École Française d’Aberdeen​

Useful Websites On Language Teaching

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15553095/schools-local-authorities-non-English-speaking-kids-speed.html

Ulpan Studio Of (Hebrew Language) Instruction

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulpan

Welsh Language Teaching

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wlpan

Scottish Language teaching

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%99lpan

https://www.institut-francais.org.uk/education-page/find-a-french-school/#/

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Harrow's Hidden Church

I must have walked past the church many times and not noticed it. The Baptist church in Harrow. It is just around the corner from McDonalds, a few yards from Harrow on the Hill station. Just near the statue of Lucy with her skipping rope.

In January two groups held meetings there. Harrovian Toastmasters International speakers club, and the Liberal MP group.

Harrovians speakers met in the sanctuary, which contains a sunken baptismal area, a bit like Jewish mikvah or ritual bath, like a Jacuzzi, but square, and deeper, with steps down. Total immersion.

If you wish to attend a meeting such as the Sunday church service, Harrovian Toastmasters, or another event such as a political or local group meeting, the address is below.

If you walk from St George's car park through St George's indoor mall into the pedestrian open air area of shops, you pass Primark and several shops selling food and clothes and Santander and Poundland. When you emerge into Station Road, with Debenhams on your left, instead turn right towards McDonalds. The next turning containing the station is not station road but is called College Road, presumably because it once led towards a college or Harrow School. The church entrance is only two along but set back behind a metal gate and railings, a modern vertical wall but clearly marked as a church.

Harrow Baptist Church
College Road
Harrow
Middlesex
England
UK

Contrast the modern with the ancient. At the top of the Harrow hill is the old church where the poets and writers would visit and the boys from Harrow school.

Old Harrow on the Hill. Photo by Angela Lansbury. 

Take the bus up from the bus station near the modern church.

Useful Websites
http://www.harrovians.org.uk/
https://www.harrow-baptist.org.uk/welcome.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immersion_baptism
https://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com/2019/02/harrow-on-hill-station-is-being.html

Photos will be added later.