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Trilingual Trip
The recent short visit by the Guthan nan Eilean/Island Voices project to Ireland generated quite a range of recordings in various formats and genres – and in three different languages!
This online table brings them all together for ease of reference, with live clickable links to take you to the clip of your choice on the appropriate platform. That could be YouTube for video, or Ipadio for audio – or it could also be Clilstore if you want access to a wordlinked transcript while you watch and/or listen.
Clilstore is a learner-friendly platform being developed by Sabhal Mòr Ostaig in partnership with other institutions in the “TOOLS” project. It’s still work in progress, so if learners or teachers have comments to make on how it could be improved please feed them back to us!
New Look for New Word Look-up
Scotland’s Gaelic College, Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, is a partner with other institutions across Europe in the TOOLS project. Followers of the TOOLS blog will have noted that there has been recent discussion of possible designs for the central “Clilstore” platform – which, through the agency of SMO’s Dr Caoimhín Ó Donnaíle, performs the magic trick of linking words in an online text to a host of different language dictionaries. (Over a hundred languages are accessible through the program.)
While there is still work to be done on the student and teacher interface and log-in systems, the basics of the new design have been agreed. To mark the occasion, the Island Voices Series 1 and 2 pages have been substantially reconfigured. Caoimhín had already prepared Clilstore units for each of the 150 videos in the central collection, meaning you could scroll down a wordlinked transcript while watching the embedded video on the same page, simultaneously checking a dictionary translation of any words you didn’t know. Links to these units, which now have a new cleaner look, have been placed on the pages on this site, replacing the old transcriptions in Word. Check any of the Series 1 or Series 2 Outdoors, Generations or Enterprise pages, and see what you think.
CLIL stands for “Content and Language Integrated Learning”. It’s a philosophy which chimes well with the Island Voices approach of capturing language as it is used in the community, and aiming to reflect the everyday lives of real people. As the project continues to develop we hope to make more use of Clilstore as a supportive means of re-presenting real language to learners.
Island Voices Audio Podcasts
Although the core of the Island Voices materials archive remains the YouTube video collections, regular visitors will be aware that there is a large amount of audio material on the Island Voices Ipadio channel as well. And as more and more local participants start recording themselves there are more and more Ipadio channels starting up!
As of this month the original Island Voices audio channel has been linked into iTunes. This means that you can download the latest audio clips on that channel as podcasts, for repeated listening on your iPad, iPhone, or other preferred device – with or without an Internet connection. If you search for “Island Voices” in iTunes podcasts you will find the channel in the Education category (subcategory “Language Courses”), or you can click on the graphic or this link. You can also subscribe directly to the podcast page. Happy listening!
Community Resource
Sabhal Mòr Ostaig works closely with Hebridean communities where Gaelic is spoken, in order to maintain a close link between its academic activities and the vernacular language. And through the Guthan nan Eilean/Island Voices project that interest is bilingual, extending to encompass English development activities led by the college’s community training partner, Cothrom.
A third partner in the project is the community newspaper, …
Island Voices on Clilstore - and on Facebook!
Scotland’s Gaelic College, Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, plays an important role in the TOOLS project as it’s where the principal software programmer, Dr Caoimhìn Ò Donnaìle, is based. Caoimhìn teaches a number of modules for full-time students at the college, but alongside his teaching commitment he has a crucial responsibility for developing the Clilstore platform in response to feedback and demands from project partners and other users.
Clilstore trials at Ulster
"It’s excellent, give us more!”, that was the overwhelming response from Year 1 and Year 2 students of Irish at the University of Ulster following a recent trial of Clilstore. The units created for the purpose of this trial: http://alturl.com/w6bao & http://alturl.com/s5jjh were based on sample materials from the new Third Level Syllabus for Irish (see http://www.teagascnagaeilge.ie) which is based on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages.
Lithuanian Linkage
Am Pàipear is the local community newspaper for the Uists, here in the Outer Hebrides. But that doesn’t mean that interest in it is restricted to just these islands! There are subscribers in various countries around the world – wherever families with Uist connections have chosen to settle.
And now, through the Island Voices/Guthan nan Eilean connection a growing body of language learners (of both Gaelic and English) are also taking an interest. There is a new “Guthan: Voices” tab on the Am Pàipear website featuring homegrown lifestyle pieces created in English or Gaelic by local community members, and it’s proving popular with online visitors from around the world.
And another area of interest is the development of the Clilstore online learning platform with multiple dictionary access, in a partnership with the European TOOLS project. So now, for example, vocational students at the Marijampole Vocational Education and Training Centre in Lithuania are finding out all about Am Pàipear as they test drive an early prototype English learning exercise with online Island Voices video, wordlinked transcript, and supporting Hot Potatoes crossword exercise. This project has some way to run yet, but it looks like connections between our “offshore” islands and mainland Europe are getting shorter already!
Clilstore and Audio
The media embedding option in the clilstore tool allows you to insert audio material as well as video. This is often an attractive alternative. Sometimes teachers may want their students to concentrate on listening alone, without visual aids or distractions. Often it is easier and quicker to create audio materials - especially if you use a platform like Ipadio.
TOOLS for help with English
Gordon Wells has just returned from Belgium where he and Caoimhín Ó Donnaíle were attending a workshop with other European partners for the new TOOLS project. The project has only just started, but the aim is to develop a tool that will help teachers and learners when they need to find a word in an online dictionary.
Users will be able to put recordings (for example from YouTube) on a new page with an accompanying transcript. You will then be able to check any word you don’t know in an online dictionary. This should be helpful for learners, though clearly you can’t learn any language just from a dictionary alone!
The team has started a blog where they will be putting up examples of their work as they progress. Here is an English example, using an Island Voices film.
As can be seen, you can also put links on the page for following to other webpages. That allows you to build “learning units” including Hot Potatoes pages or other appropriate sites or blogs. It will be interesting to see how easy this tool will be to use in a community like Uist and how useful it will be for local ESOL learners.
TOOLS airson cuideachadh le Gàidhlig
Tha Gordon Wells dìreach an dèidh tilleadh às a’ Bheilg far an robh e fhèin agus Caoimhín Ó Donnaíle ag obair le colaistean is oilthighean eile air pròiseact ùr, air a bheil an t-ainm TOOLS. Chan eil ann ach toiseach tòiseachaidh, ach tha iad an dùil inneal ùr a chruthachadh a chuidicheas luchd-teagaisg agus luchd-ionnsachaidh ma tha iad feumach air facal a lorg ann am faclair air-loidhne.
Thèid aig luchd-cleachdaidh air clàraidhean (mar eisimpleir air YouTube) a chur air duilleag ùr le tar-sgrìobhadh ann cuideachd. An uair sin faodaidh tu facal sam bith a leughas tu a lorg ann am faclair, mura bheil thu ga thuigsinn. Thathas an dùil agus an dòchas gum bi seo na chuideachadh do luchd-ionnsachaidh, ged a tha e follaiseach nach ionnsaich thu cànan sam bith le faclair a-mhàin!
Tha an sgioba air blog a thòiseachadh far am bi iad a’ cur suas eisimpleirean dhen obair aca fhad ’s a tha iad a’ gluasad air adhart. Tha eisimpleir Ghàidhlig ùr an seo, a’ cleachdadh film a chaidh a dhèanamh airson Guthan nan Eilean.
Chìthear cuideachd gur urrainn dhut ceanglaichean a chur air an duilleig gus an leantail gu duilleagan eile air an eadar-lìon. Mar sin, tha sin a’ toirt cothrom dhut “aonadan ionnsachaidh” a thogail le duilleagan Hot Potatoes no duilleagan iomchaidh eile. Bidh e inntinneach fhaicinn dè cho furasta ’s a bhios an t-inneal seo ri chleachdadh ann an coimhearsnachd mar Uibhist, agus dè cho feumail ’s a bhitheas e airson Gàidhlig a bhrosnachadh agus a leasachadh.
