March, 2008 News

Euro Talk Junior Language Challenge

Want to inject some fun into foreign languages using ICT?
Don't have the teaching time to organise MFL?
Does the sound of a competition appeal?

The Euro Talk Junior Language Challenge can help you with all of this and more! It's the national competition Euro Talk organise every year for under 11's and they are inviting your school to join!

Euro Talk supply the software for all three rounds of the competition. There's a small fee of £2.50 per entrant and all the money raised goes to thare machi education.

For more information please Click Here.

News from Zambia

Our good friend, Jane Kaye-Bailey has just returned from a trip to Zambia, where she distributed multiple copies of our 4 HIV\AIDS DVDs and our lesson on "When to have a baby".
From an email during her trip Jane said: "I am having a great success with the DVDs, though I wasn't able to bring them all out this trip because of the weight; however I have been visiting other schools in Livingstone and gave a full set to the Vice President of Zambia when I met him last week! Will tell you more on my return but everyone loves them!"
Having just spoken to Jane now that she's back in the UK she mentioned that in one town school they already have an active HIV\AIDS awareness programme, but the headmaster was very excited to have a new, interactive resource to add to their existing material. A lesson specifically on promoting condom use has also been suggested, because, although condoms are free in Zambia, many villagers are still unaware that condoms can help prevent HIV\AIDS, as well as helping alleviate poverty by enabling people to plan if and when to have children.

New promotion video on its way!

Meeting held with Paul Tonks, a friend of Emma's, who has just finished a BA (Hons) Digital Arts and is currently working a video promotion for TME.

Charlie (IT Support) spends two weeks working for TME!

During CharlieÍs two weeks he completed a Cocoa Development Training Course, which will hopefully, lead to a new bespoke program developed entirely for TME.

Meeting with Euro Talk

Steve and Bev visited our DVD-producing partner, Euro Talk, at their office in London this month to discuss, amongst other things, their Junior Language Challenge (proceeds of which come to us) and our continuing relationship with Euro Talk. We also asked their graphic designer for help with illustrations for the upcoming DVD lessons on sex education; heÍs now working on 24 line drawings for us.

Training Session on Recording new Language Soundtracks

8 people attended our first training session for people wanting to help with recording lessons. We have over 100 translated scripts which need recording by people who speak the relevant languages. They in turn need someone to help with the recording process who can operate the recording equipment. Although a simple enough process, we have built up quite a lot of experience in things that can go wrong. Nick Middleton, Oscar Middleton, Bekah Sparrow, Rik Wood, Emma Hartwell, Sarah Clarke, Barbara Crowther and Charlie Hartwell all gave up an evening to learn the ropes. As a result they have all been linked with people dotted around the country who are able to speak the languages of interest. If you think you could help with this then please let us know as we can't have too many people trained to do this!

Links being developed with Alison.com

We have been in touch with Mike Feerick of Alison.com which is an on-line learning website committed to delivering education free of charge to the user. Mike is keen to explore ways of delivering our content via the web and his team is working on putting a sample lesson up over the coming days. Mike has also agreed to take part in our marketing and distribution brainstorm on 16th April in London.

New Partner in India

Jo and Dave Thomas who went on a private visit to an educational programme in Andra Pradesh have returned reporting an excited uptake of our discs in Hindi by their contact there - Raj. Raj is involved in challenging child labour in the province through schools and communities and although their main language is Telagu most of the community speak Hindi also. Jo and Dave were friends of the parents of a medical student at Warwick University and are the latest example of the organic growth of TME!

New Contact in Bangladesh!

Nazima Haque, a medical student at Warwick University has introduced our English language discs to a hospital in Bangladesh where she is doing a 6 week elective. One of the Doctors has expressed an interest in using the lessons in Bengali and in helping with Translations.