New resources added last month include…

UK Flag Colouring mat for Geography or Art – Basque, Belarusian, Bengali, Catalan, Chinese, Corsican, Chechen, Cornish, Czech, English still more to come.

 

Colour me in UK flag.

Thank You cards – Latvian, Lithuanian, Lojban, Luganda, Luxembourgish, Macedonian, Malay, Malayalam, Manx, Mauritian Creole, Navajo, Ndbele, Marathi, Mongolian, Nepali, Norwegian, Occitan, Pashto, Persian, Portuguese, Punjabi, Quechua, Romanian, Rapanui, Russsian, Samoan, Sardinian, Scottish Gaelic, Serbian, Sesotho, Shona, Sindarin, Sinhala, Slovak, Slovenian, Somali, Sorbian, Spanish, Sranan, Stellingwharfs, Tagalog, Tahitian, Tamil, Telugu, Tigrynia, Tok Pisin, Tongan, Tswana, Turkish, Ukranian, Urdu, Valencian, Venetian, Vietnamese, Voro, Walloon, Welsh, Xhosa, Xitsonga, Yappese, Yiddish, Yoruba, Zazaki and Zulu that’s 137 different languages in total.
Mothers Day Card – colour in yourself for either Art, PSHE or Early Years in Albanian, Arabic, Czech, Dutch, Filipino, German Italian, Kurdish, Lithuanian, Malayalam, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Somali, Spanish, Tamil, Turkish, Welsh, Polish.
Parts of a plant 5 page Assessment and worksheets for Science in Arabic, Bengali, Chinese Cantonese, Chinese Mandarin, Czech, English, French, German, Gujarati, Hebrew, Italian and more to come. Good for differentiation.
Easter Card and Teacher Information to support Art and RE in Arabic, Armenian, Aromanian, Bengali, Basque, Belarusian, Bikol with more to come.

Just to mention a few.  P.S. when in the library – Don’t forget to go to the bottom and scroll along to see more pages or double click on blue outside box to expand. Also it is sorted alphabetically starting with capital A , and then again further along with lower case a.

Do we put too much trust in people we don’t really know?

Do we put too much trust in people we don’t really know?

Sometimes we place our total reliance on communication through individuals that have little or no more qualifications than having been born with parents that speak a second or different home language. Yet we are putting these people in places of great sensitivity with issues of security, medical understanding and levels of education far exceeding those of English speaking staff and we expect them to translate it accurately without first knowing that they understand the words themselves. Being able to speak a second language doesn’t mean that your level of education is any higher or your skills any better, it just means that you are able to talk and communicate.

With EMASUK talking tools you are able to take away the guesswork of what is being said, present it sensitively and with compassion, and make eye contact using the correct body language to show that you care, you understand, that its urgent, that sometimes there is no choice, but all the time you are in command.
With this happening it means that for the first time ever via our unique product every person is communicable to by professionals even in the darkest hours of their lives.

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/nhs-interpreter-charged-twice-services-6905242. This story is happening far too commonly in UK schools, hospitals, police forces and courts using on-line tools this can all be stopped, it can be checked and even if you use a translator for it it gives you that support and back up that you feel confident that they know what they are doing.
Last year we highlighted some of the concerns in the blog @http://wp.me/p2LCCD-fc

Find out how you can use this service with a Microsoft surface to support you in reducing costs but maintain a high level of customer satisfaction and service by contact Ewan on E.Macgregor@emasuk.com or call 07595 021 958.

 

English is not the first language for one in nine schools

 

Communicate across languages with EMASUK

Did anyone see the ITV story last week that English is not the first language for one in nine schools?

http://www.itv.com/news/story/2014-02-01/english-is-not-the-first-language-for-one-in-nine-schools/

To be honest despite visiting schools all over the UK I didn’t realise it was so high. It was interesting that Douglas Carswell, a backbench Tory MP has called for a “national debate about the impact of social cohesion in Britain today.”

At EMASUK, ‘ replies John Foxwell,’ we have been working for the last five years to support schools to work within their communities and develop home school partnerships that effectively create community cohesion. We have done this by developing a revolutionary speaking translator that communicates in 25 languages and allows the community member to be in charge of their own interaction.

For example picking up an English document, translating into Polish, being able to respond in Polish that is then translated into English means that the emphasis is placed firmly on the user. We welcome the opportunity to open the debate up and show how it isn’t community cohesion that is the issue it is community communication.

Join the debate. What do you think?

The world is in your hands.

My child’s amazing bilingual abilities and skills are not valued, used or developed in English-only school

This was piece recently that I read in the Guardian what do you think?

My child’s amazing bilingual abilities and skills are not valued, used or developed in his English-only school.”

The Government can point to a growth in the number of bilingual primary schools as a result of its free school programme – there are French, German and Spanish schools in operation.

In addition, it is making languages compulsory from the age of seven in state primary schools for the first time ever from next September.

However, such actions are too little, Ms Gavrilova feels. “Our children are set to grow up in a world where their sense of normality is very different from ours,” says the brochure outlining its plans. “Their ability to adapt and adjust will be the difference between success and failure.

“It’s why the behemoth of the British education system is increasingly not the answer to our children’s needs.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/teaching-in-tongues-the-bilingual-preschool-tapping-new-potential-9032047.html

But what do you think?

I think schools delivering bilingual opportunities are valuing their learners and parents culture.  It from the first language that the second language is learnt and developed. It is only done much quicker than the traditional methods used as the young people brains are wired differently so they can translate easier and quicker across language using the technologies available to them to support their language acquisition. But what are your views?

If you would like more information on the tools and resources we have available to make your job easier when communicating with children or parents then contact us at www.emasuk.com or info@emasuk.com 0845 009 4939 Thanks Liz

Travel Industry slow to take up home grown, innovative, bespoke translation service

Further to our article in the A place in the sun online magazine  http://www.aplaceinthesun.com/news/feature/tabid/131/EntryId/1762/Default.aspx.  It is interesting that although we talked to lots of travel companies about the benefits of using our resources for a low cost.  Despite the ability to access it 24/7 7 days a week for one years membership or via the handheld again for 1 years membership the travel industry is still slow in taking up the offer instead preferring to stick to big named companies and translators. Whilst this is a great service and useful it doesn’t help when the interpreter/translator is not available, you only need help with a few sentences or you just need to reassure someone before the translator/interpreter is available.

This is true today as I see a news article in travel weekly heralding

A foreign language translation service for holidaymakers abroad with Thomson and First Choice is to be provided this year. 

For lone travellers the bespoke hand held translator that we have available putting you in control.http://www.emasuk.com/page/eal/208/i-can-talk-to

 

The reason this service is not any different from what we already know:

A third of British holidaymakers do not bring a phrase book when travelling abroad and nearly a fifth (18%) never try to speak the language.

When asked why they do not try to speak the local language, a quarter felt they were terrible at languages and nearly a fifth of people (18%) felt too embarrassed.

Nearly half of the 2,000 respondents questioned (47%) admitted that they would have difficulties making a restaurant reservation and more than a third (40%) would struggle to get directions or see a doctor.

Thomson and First Choice holiday experience director Ian Chapman said: “From the independent research we carried out, we know that our customers may experience language barriers whilst on holiday. http://www.travelweekly.co.uk/Articles/2013/02/27/43279/thomson+and+first+choice+to+offer+247+translation+service.html#sthash.FqfVTfio.dpufhttp://www.travelweekly.co.uk/Articles/2013/02/27/43279/thomson+and+first+choice+to+offer+247+translation+service.html

 

Join EMAS for XMAS

For resources in many different languages including cherokee pronounced “jaw la gee” for a reduced price from £129 to £49.00.  These resources can then be used all year around. Resources include certificates in the teachers section, posters and curriculum pre-teaching topic focus words, maths investigations, science posters, literacy facts and examples of poetry. Help your learners integrate quicker with learning English.

Talking about Cherokee below is a recent news story  talking about cherokee.

Cherokee – pronounced “jaw la gee” – has fewer than 20,000 speakers. By way of comparison, those other three boast well over 25 million each.

Even Basque and Welsh, Google email‘s second and third smallest languages, have more than 700,000 speakers apiece. Indeed, there are well over 1,200 world languages more widely spoken.

In fact, it’s staging an online revival. In 2002, a Cherokee Nation survey found there were no speakers under the age of 40, but the language has since gone digital. Native American techies have created a Cherokee Wikipedia with around 400 pages, and Apple has integrated the language on its products since 2003. There are 100 Native American children now studying at a tech-heavy Cherokee-speaking school, and there’s even an online Cherokee New Testament.

Taking the language online presented a two-fold challenge for Google’s software engineers. First, programmers had to devise a virtual keyboard for the dialect’s unique 85-character alphabet, created in 1821 by the Cherokee silversmith Sequoyah.

Then there was the question of the Cherokee words for “spam filter”, “inbox” and “junk mail”. Sequoyah, unsurprisingly, hadn’t specified. Top Cherokee linguists were consulted, and suitable composite terms invented. For “email”, they chose a word that translates into English as “lightning paper”.

It’s not the first time Native American linguists have adapted their languages to new technology. During the second world war, speakers of Cherokee and 17 other tribal dialects acted as “code talkers” for the US army, devising code words including “sewing machines” for machine guns, “turtles” for tanks and “crazy white man” for Adolf Hitler. The code talkers waited decades to be formally recognised for their service. Granting them the chance to lightning paper a relative – and receive a little spam – is another step in the right direction.

See teh full story here http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/shortcuts/2012/nov/28/how-to-email-in-cherokee?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=linkedin&goback=%2Egde_3803366_member_192051213