Highlights from The Language Show, which took place in Olympia,London from the 30th October to the 1st November for the delight of all language lovers and professionals:
"Today a student, tomorrow a star: interpreters on the frontline" was the title of an inspiring talk by Daniel Pashley, EU staff interpreter, on the highs and lows of EU interpreting, from plenary sessions in Strasbourg to potato fields, aimed at students, wannabe interpreters and newcomers to the profession. Simultaneous interpreting booth simulation + documentary on the history of conference interpreting.
-Links into Languages, a government funded programme launched in April 2009, which offers professional development courses for those involved in languages education in Primary, Secondary and Further Education.
Free event coming up in London: An introduction to Links into Languages
Date: 18th November 2009
Location: 309 Regent Street, University of Westmister, London
In view of moving our office to Barcelona next year, we started getting "in the garlic" (from the Spanish expression estar en el ajo= to be clued up) on anything Catalan!
The Institut Ramon Llull has a London office (17 Fleet Street)and offers plenty of opportunities to keep up with Catalan culture, society, movies etc.
http://www.llull.cat
www.parla.cat (to "aprende catalan en Internet")
www.gencat.cat/llengua
We also discovered an exciting series of seminars called "Languages of the Wider World" held at SOAS- UCL Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, whose aim is
"to promote, support and research the languages of Africa, Asia, the Middle East; Russia, Slavonic and Eastern European; Hebrew and Yiddish; Netherlands and Scandinavia. We call these the Languages of the Wider World." Itesh Sachdev, Director
First lecture coming up soon: "Technology enhanced language teaching and learning"
Date: 12th November 2009
Location: SOAS, Vernon Square campus
To register: www.lww-cetl.ac.uk
I had a chance to visit the stand of Mantra Lingua, a publishing house for fantastic bilingual children's books and toys which I occasionally collaborate with. They produce a great series of audio books, fairy tales and educational posters for children.
See more on www.mantralingua.com
I picked up a copy of the latest "Languages today" magazine, designed for language teachers and published by the Association for Language Learning
www.all-languages.org.uk
..and finally I purchased some of the very fun and useful Quaderni di cinema italiano, ed. Guerra for teaching Italian through films.
An insightful & useful trade exhibition and, over all, a wonderful/wunderbar/magnifique/magnifico day.
