And plenty of it. Three weeks into Sylfaen 1 now and we’re still recapping over last year’s work. Lots of familiar faces from last year and quite a few new one as we’re apparently the only Sylfaen 1 in the area this term and they’ve combined Myndediad classess from all over to make the numbers.
All going well though. Most of the stuff has stuck reasonably well since I’ve had better chances than many to practise over the summer, even without the revision courses I’d planned on.
One new feature has been the parking of a student at the front of the room for everyone else to fire questions at. In Welsh of course. Only stuff we’ve done, because it’s other students doing the firing but good practice in thinking on your feet. Everyone is to have a turn by the end of the class, and it’s a free for all with minimal correction of people’s grammar. Practice at speaking without “rehearsal” rather than with hugely proper Welsh.
Next week is at the Learning Resource Centre to look at the Welsh resources, and then it’s half term! Hopefully we’ll be on to new stuff by then.
I haven’t written as much here as I intended over the summer., though I have spent a fair amount of time on “Say Something in Welsh” and attended a “Taith Iaith” at the Waterfront Museum, where I had some wobbly Welsh conversations with learners at a variety of levels.
So I don’t actually feel rusty at all. I’m sort of wondering if I’ll find this year a bit slow. I considered leaping straight in with Sylfaen 2 but the courses weren’t in a very easy time and place, and anyway I liked last year’s group and tutor.
There does seem to be a lot of revision at the start of the new textbooks tohugh. We’ll see.
Dyma fi yn mynd ar fy ngwyliau haf gyda fy nghyfnither. Mae pabell yn y awyren gyda ni a dyn i mynd i Dyfnaint.
Dyma maes awyr Bolt Head. Mae’n hen orsaf RADAR o’r amser ryfel. Nawr mae awyrennau bach yn glanio ar y cae.
Arhoson ni yma y nos cyntaf. Coffi roedd y tasg bwysig ar ôl glanio!
Ar ôl goffi, aethon ni am dro o gwmpas y creigiau. Roedd e’n cefn gwlad hyfryd iawn. Roedd y tywydd yn gwych hefyd.
Y dydd nesa, ro’n ni hedfan i Land’s End. Dyma fi a fy nghyfnither yn hedfan. Dw i’n caru hedfan — mae’n mwyaf hwyl yn y byd!
Dyn ni wedi dod i Land’s End! Mae’n wir! Ar bwys y creigiau perygl… Ac y Tŷ cyntaf ac yn olaf…
Dw i ddim yn gwybod pam dyn ni rhoi popeth yn y awyren fach hynny. Dim ots, pabell mas eto…
Dydd tri, roedd y tywydd ddim yn dda iawn. Bwyton ni yn y cafe maes awyr ac arhoson ni yn gobeithiol. Ar ôl gino roedd hi’n well a roedd hi’n bosib i hedfan.
Y Isles of Scilly roedd y ymweliad yn olaf. Yn olaf ac yn mwyaf hardd. Roedd e’n fel “The Med” ond yn Brydain!
Gwyliau gwych! Nawr… Ble wyt ti’n mynd y haf nesa…?
Well there’s another year of classes finished, and the end of Mynediad. The exam went well (although I drank gormod o goffi before going in and was rather anxious for the end after three papers…)
Had a moment startlement on reading the speaking/listening examiners name on the door and discovering it matched the one of the textbook. Eek!
Still she was very friendly and the speaking went well. She even said I was closer to Sylfaen than Mynediad which was a nice little boost to the ego — that for next year!
Over the summer there’s a lot of revision sessions which I’d planned to go to but may now need to save the pennies instead, after discovering the camshaft in the poor old shareoplane’s engine is on it’s last legs. Since the repair, along with several other parts which will soon need replacing would cost something close to the price of a whole new engine, which itself would be worth as much or more than the whole aircraft, this presents something of a financial dilemma, and non-essentials have all been dropped pretty damn quick!
There’s plenty of free online material I can use along with “siop siarad” the walks for learners and the learner days down the maritime museum that I can keep my hand (and ear and voice!) in.
Dw i’n trio siard eto. Heddiw dw i’n siarad am fy wythnos. Ges i wythnos ofnadwy gyda gwaith, ond es i i gyfarfod cyffrous am Gastell Ystumllwynarth yn Y Mwmbwls.
If my ability in Welsh were an operating system, right now you could say it was almost at the alpha stage. It’s messy, it’s buggy and the user interface is far from sorted. You will encounter crashes and blank stares if you give me unexpected inputs. Nevertheless the will to progress and develop the product is there and experienced people can test it (by speaking to me in Welsh). You can even expect some useful and worthwhile output as long as you have a bit of patience. If it all goes wrong you can boot to a different partition and use another operating system (English) which has been fully installed and tested
As I ought to realise from all this teacher training stuff at work — speaking is different from writing. Different skill set different bits of brain! And so while I’ve been dutifully practising reading and writing my fledgling Welsh, I haven’t really done enough speaking outside of class.
Enter a lovely new-to-me resource “Say Something in Welsh“. I’ve been following their Twitter feed where they do a Word of The Day game, but they also have an excellent and growing set of online lessons which really get you speaking very quickly.
Great stuff. So my new resolution is more talking, less writing.
And it’s tough! Stuff I thought I knew suddenly just falls away from my tongue in a tangled mess. It’s even worse than speaking in class because at least there you get a few moment grace o line things up in your head while the other students speak and you wait your turn!
It’s like being back at the bottom of the learning curve all over again. Still on we go. Here’s the second of my new resolutions… (Caernarfon’s slideshow was the first!)
I’ve edited out a number of “ums” and loooonnggg thoughtful pauses, and one screaming mistake I couldn’t live with, but the rest is more or less as it came out without a script or a plan. Muddled tenses and all!
