Blog

The death of Claude Chabrol

Thoughtful homage by Andrew Whittaker on his Speak the Culture blog to the great French film director, Claude Chabrol, who died on Sunday. Chabrol spearheaded the French New Wave in cinema and was ren...

READ MORE | 14 Sep 2010

Michael Gove wants baccalaureate qualification for England

The new baccalaureate qualification proposed by the UK Education Secretary, Michael Gove, could be a positive initiative for foreign languages. According to the Guardian, The "English bac" would not r...

READ MORE | 9 Sep 2010

GCSE results: Why we should mind our languages

Further to yesterday's article about the decline of languages as a subject at GCSE and A Level in the UK, another one in today's Telegraph which looks at the rationale for why languages are important...

READ MORE | 26 Aug 2010

GCSE results: French 'no longer a popular subject'

The number of children leaving school with a decent grasp of foreign languages has plummeted to a record low in the UK, according to an article in today's Telegraph. For the first time, French no long...

READ MORE | 25 Aug 2010

New guide is putting Gaelic on the map

A new online guide that will provide a single, authoritative source of information on Gaelic place names in Scotland has been launched, according to the Scottish Herald. The site, The National Gazette...

READ MORE | 25 Aug 2010

A Split in Linguistic Personalities

Wonderful language-affirming article on the Canadian CBC News web site about the identity shifts of people living in two cultures. According to researcher David Luna at Baruch College at the City Univ...

READ MORE | 12 Aug 2010

Ancient Greek taught in Oxford schools

The Olympic Games may be just about sporting prowess for most of us but for Oxford school children it will be so much more come September. Telegraph.co.uk reports that The Iris Project, a charity orga...

READ MORE | 30 Jul 2010

New Languages Diploma?

Does every cloud really have a silver lining? Well it would seem so as Language Networks for Excellence reports that  language experts and the City and Guilds exam board are taking another look a...

READ MORE | 29 Jul 2010

The Welsh Experience

It's encouraging to see that Welsh are taking language learning seriously and if we take a leaf out of their book we could all be bringing up bi-lingual and multi-lingual children. The on-line paper t...

READ MORE | 28 Jul 2010

Facebook Like Buttons

In response to requests from fans of our Facebook page, we added Like buttons to the products and categories on our Languages Direct Web site. Like buttons are a handy way to create a wish list or aid...

READ MORE | 24 Jul 2010