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Annwyl Gyfeillion/Dear Friends
I’m Jaci Taylor and I work as a Development Officer for the Mid Wales Welsh for Adults Centre. I’ve also spent many years teaching Welsh to Adults as a second language. My present post involves marketing the Welsh for Adults provision in Mid Wales and organizing informal learning activities which enable our students to become more confident in their use of Welsh. Welsh speaking volunteers are also encouraged to take part in these activities.
The Centre provides approximately 230 courses in Mid Wales each year, which include weekly courses, short block courses of between one to five days duration, and a four week course in August. They range from courses for complete beginners to those for Welsh speakers who wish to improve their written skills.
As part of our marketing activities we organized a stand in a one day festival ('The Big Do/Y Miri Mawr') last August in the grounds of 'Y Plas' in Machynlleth. We had also agreed to do a Welsh Taster Session. I reckoned that the map would be a great visual aid and help us to attract more people to our stand. So with a borrowed map (Thanks to CAA, Aberystwyth University) and praying for fine weather we set off for Machynlleth. |
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Here I am showing Georgia Barton from Coleg Powys how the map could be used to teach the weather to our Welsh for Adults students.
Heddiw, mae'n bwrw glaw yn Iwerddon. - Today, it's raining in Ireland, ond mae'n boeth yng Nghymru. - but it's hot in Wales (type of weather and place names to be replaced).
The idea is to use props and when the learners hear the sentence spoken in Welsh they have to grab the appropriate props and stand in the appropriate place on the map. This is one way of providing listening comprehension, and I find that our learners are quite competitive in this type of activity.
As any Welsh Tutor/Teacher knows this exercise can be expanded - the weather forecast is a very useful resource using different tenses of the verb ‘to be’:
‘Mae’n niwlog iawn yn … bore ‘ma ond bydd e’n cliro prynhawn ‘ma.’ ayyb
‘It’s very foggy in … this morning, but it will be clearing this afternoon.’ etc
Students can now ask questions:
Ydy’n braf yng Nghaerdydd bore ‘ma? Is it fine in Cardiff this morning?
The answer can be obtained from a local newspaper, a computer, or a mobile phone. The student who responds to the question can stand on the appropriate location on the map when responding.
There are so many ways of using the map to teach and revise some of the very first language patterns that we teach in Welsh classes e.g.
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